July 19, 2007	Thursday	Rajab 03, 1428

KOLKATA: The son of India’s only Oscar-winning film director Satyajit Ray plans to transform many books written by his father into celluloid. Ray, widely seen as one of the world’s greatest directors, received the Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1992 but died shortly afterwards, unable to translate several of his popular books into films.

“He immortalised many characters and I plan to bring many of them alive,” his son, Sandip Ray, also a well-known filmmaker, told the news agency in an interview on Wednesday.

Satyajit Ray is famous for films such as “Pather Panchali”, “Aparajito” and “Apur Sansar” from his Apu trilogy — a coming-of-age narrative, describing the childhood, education and early maturity of a young Bengali boy in the early 20th century.

“Pather Panchali” won 11 international prizes, including Best Human Document at Cannes.

He directed dozens of films, including feature films and documentaries, and wrote numerous books, some of which have been translated into English, German and Spanish.

Sandip Ray said he was planning to recreate famous characters such as scientist Professor Shonku and sleuth Feluda who were the main characters in his father’s popular children’s books.

“I want to make films on Professor Shonku, the main protagonist of a science fiction series penned down by my father and also make sequels to his other hit films,” the son said.

Books like “Kailase Kelengkari” and “Tinotattor Jishu”, depicting the adventures of Feluda, are also being made into film.

Sandip Ray is also restoring old documents, original illustrations and scripts and will display them in a new exhibition hall he plans to build in memory of his father. “It will be like a museum and help foreign researchers who come to India to study my father’s work every year.”—Reuters