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 uses his imagination to create another world. For Cooper, the immersive experience of the film corresponds to this epiphany of wonder. Stephen Teo uses the scene in which Apu and Durga discover railway tracks as an example of the gradual build-up of epiphany and the resulting immersive experience. Sharmishtha Gooptu discusses the idea that the idyllic village life portrayed in "Pather Panchali" represents authentic Bengali village life, which disappeared during the upheavals of Partition in 1947. She suggests that the film seeks to connect an idealised, pre-partition past with the actual present of partitioned Bengal, and that it uses prototypes