Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray (Bengali: [ʃot̪ːod͡ʒit̪ rae̯] ; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian film director, screenwriter, author, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and composer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most influential film directors in the history of cinema. He is celebrated for works including The Apu Trilogy (1955–1959), The Music Room (1958), The Big City (1963), Charulata (1964), and the Goopy–Bagha trilogy (1969–1992).

Ray was born in Calcutta to author Sukumar Ray and Suprabha Ray. Starting his career as a commercial artist, Ray was drawn into independent film-making after meeting French filmmaker Jean Renoir (who was in India to make his film The River) and viewing Vittorio De Sica's Italian neorealist film Bicycle Thieves (1948) during a visit to London. He started work on his first film after he returned from London.

Ray directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries, and shorts. Ray's first film, Pather Panchali (1955), won eleven international prizes, including the inaugural Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. This film, along with Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu) (1959), form The Apu Trilogy. Ray did the scripting, casting, scoring, and editing for the movie and designed his own credit titles and publicity material. He also authored several short stories and novels, primarily for young children and teenagers. Popular characters created by Ray include Feluda the sleuth, Professor Shonku the scientist, Tarini Khuro the storyteller, and Lalmohan Ganguly the novelist.