Post Date: 16 Mar, 2019

Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) is organising a day long event to celebrate the life and times of legendary screenwriter Nabendu Ghosh,on Saturday,16th March 2019.

Organised by FTII's  Dept. of Feature Film Screenplay Writing, SMARANANJALI : A NABENDU GHOSH RETROSPECTIVE will be inaugurated by Arunaraje Patil, National Award winning film maker, editor, screenwriter & FTII Alumna  in the presence of Anjum Rajabali, eminent screenwriter and educator, Vinay Shukla, National Award winning film maker and Ratnottama Sengupta, veteran journalist,writer and daughter of Nabendu Ghosh.

Nabendu Ghosh (27 March 1917–15 December 2007) was a prolific screenwriter and author in Bengali literature.Nabendu da, as he was fondly called, wrote many a classics of the Hindi film industry like DEVDAS, SUJATA, BANDINI, TEESRI KASAM, AAR PAAR and the evergreen ABHIMAAN. He also wrote and directed TRISHAGNI in 1988 which won the National Award for Best Debut Film of a Director.

"In 1991,FTII conferred an Honoris Causa on Nabendu Ghosh whose 25 year (1966 to 1991) association with the Institute saw the emergence of several famous alumni such as Girish Kasaravalli, Kumar Shahani, Jaya Bachchan, Subhash Ghai, Arunaraje Patil, Syed Mirza, Vikas Desai, Ketan Mehta and Kundan Shah. His famous collaborations with greats like Bimal Roy, Guru Dutt and Hrishikesh Mukherjee today stand as milestones in the history of the Hindi film industry. Remembering Nabendu Ghosh in FTII is our homage to the man" said Bhupendra Kainthola, announcing the commemorative event.

The daylong programme includes a panel discussion NABENDU DA : A WRITER PAR EXCELLENCE, screening of a documentary AND THEY MADE CLASSICS, a presentation on

Nabendu Ghosh's screenwriting works and female protagonists by a student of Screenplay Writing dept,  and screening of 1973 super hit Amitabh-Jaya  Hindi film  ABHIMAAN (Dir: Hrishikesh Mukherjee) whose story and screenplay was written by him.

With 30 novels, 15 short story collections, and 70 scripts to his credit, Nabendu Ghosh was surely ‘A Man of Literature in Cinema and a Man of Cinema in Literature", as said by actor-director Nitish Bharadwaj who debuted on national screen with ‘Trishagni’. Nabendu da’s  literary writings etched his signature with psychological insight into human interaction, keen observation of social transition onward from 1940s, and vivid prose. Likewise, the films he scripted trace the transition in social trends as cinema transited from the Bombay Talkies school of 1950s to the New Indian Cinema of 1970s and beyond.

Chief Guest Arunaraje Patil and Guests of Honour Anjum Rajabali, Vinay Shukla and Ratnottama Sengupta and recent Screenplay student Jemima Rohekar's presentation on women protagonists in Nabendu da's screenwritings held the audience spellbound at the Nabendu Ghosh SMARANANJALI retrospective in FTII today.