Apur Panchali Apur Panchali Apur Panchali is a 2013 Bengali film directed by Kaushik Ganguly and produced by Shree Venkatesh Films. It is based on the life of Subir Banerjee, the actor who played Apu in "Pather Panchali" (1955), the first film of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy. Director Kaushik Ganguly won the award of best director for "Apur Panchali" in the 44th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in November 2013. The director mentioned in an interview that he found similarities between certain parts of the life of Subir Banerjee and the iconic character Apu. The film uses several minutes of footage
Pather Panchali established crew. Funding was a problem from the outset. No producer was willing to finance the film, as it lacked stars, songs and action scenes. On learning of Ray's plan, one producer, Mr Bhattacharya of Kalpana Movies, contacted Bandopadhyay's widow to request the filming rights and get the film made by Debaki Bose, a well-established director. The widow declined as she had already permitted Ray to make the film. The estimated budget for the production was 70,000 (about US$14,613 in 1955). One producer, Rana Dutta, gave money to continue shooting, but had to stop after some of his films flopped.