Pather Panchali Pather Panchali Pather Panchali ( "", "Song of the Little Road") is a 1955 Indian Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of West Bengal. It is based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name and is Ray's directorial debut. It features Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Uma Dasgupta and Chunibala Devi. The first film in the Apu trilogy, "Pather Panchali" depicts the childhood of the protagonist Apu (Subir Banerjee) and his elder sister Durga (Uma Dasgupta) and the harsh village life of their poor family. Production was interrupted
Pather Panchali the progress of Ray's project. Huston saw excerpts of the unfinished film and recognised "the work of a great film-maker". Because of Huston's positive feedback, MoMA helped Ray with additional money. Including the delays and hiatuses in production, it took three years to complete the shooting of "Pather Panchali". The realist narrative style of "Pather Panchali" was influenced by Italian neorealism and the works of French director Jean Renoir. In 1949 Renoir came to Calcutta to shoot his film "The River" (1951). Ray, a founding member of the Calcutta Film Society (established in 1947), helped him scout for locations in