Low-budget film popular 1992 film "El Mariachi", in which the director Robert Rodriguez was unable to afford second takes due to the $7000 budget. Despite this, it was a success both critically and commercially, and started the young director's career. Some of the most critically acclaimed micro-budget films were by the Bengali film director Satyajit Ray, his most famous being "The Apu Trilogy" (1955–1959). The first film in the trilogy, "Pather Panchali" (1955), was produced on a shoestring budget of Rs.200,000 ($3000) using an amateur cast and crew. The three films are now frequently listed among the greatest films of all time.
Pather Panchali May 2013, commemorating Ray's birthday, the Indian version of the search engine Google displayed a doodle featuring the train sequence. After "Pather Panchali", Ray went on to make 36 more films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He worked on scripting, casting, scoring, cinematography, art direction and editing, as well as designing his own credit titles and publicity material. He developed a distinctive style of film-making based, as was the case with "Pather Panchali", on visual lyricism and strongly humanistic themes. Thus, Ray established himself as an internationally recognized auteur of cinema. Pather Panchali Pather Panchali ( "", "Song of