Pather Panchali Ray thus had to borrow money to shoot enough footage to persuade prospective producers to finance the whole film. To raise funds, he continued to work as a graphic designer, pawned his life insurance policy and sold his collection of gramophone records. Production manager Anil Chowdhury convinced Ray's wife, Bijoya, to pawn her jewels. Ray still ran out of money partway through filming, which had to be suspended for nearly a year. Thereafter shooting was done only in intermittent bursts. Ray later admitted that the delays had made him tense and that three miracles saved the film: "One, Apu's voice
The Apu Trilogy Cannes, Berlin and Venice Film Festivals. Produced on a shoestring budget ("Pather Panchali" had a budget of roughly 150,000 ($45,300—)) using an amateur cast and crew, the trilogy is a milestone in Indian cinema and remains one of the most acclaimed works in the Parallel Cinema movement. The three films comprise a "coming of age" narrative in the vein of a "bildungsroman"; they describe the childhood, education and early maturity of a young Bengali named Apu (Apurba Kumar Roy) in the early part of the 20th century. Pather Panchali (Bengali, "Song of the Little Road")<br> Apu's early experiences in rural