And Quiet Rolls the Dawn
(Ek Din Pratidin)
by Mrinal Sen
India
Script: Mrinal Sen
Cinematographer: K.K. Mahajan
Editor: Gangadhar Naskar
Music: B.V. Karanth
Cast: Satya Bannerjee, Gita Sen, Mamata Shankar, Sreela Majumdar, Umanath Bhattacharya, Arun Mukherjee
Production: Mrinal Sen
Distribution:
TNS Production
3 rue du Maine
75014 Paris
France
Tel: 0033 1.42.79.93.72
Mail: [email protected]
Year: 1979
35 mm, Colour, 92 min
OV Bengali with French Subtitles
Unreleased
Official Selection - Cannes Film Festival 1980
Calcutta, 1978. One evening, Chinu, the elder sister who works to provide for her family of 7, does not come back from her office. Time is passing, they are waiting for her with an increasing anxiety. Feeling upset for not being informed of her delay, fearing that she might have had an accident or might have been aggressed, not to mention the fear of what the neighbours will say, the panicky family gradually lets its underlying conflicts show.
Mrinal Sen transforms the daily life of an ordinary lower-middle class family, into a introspective suspense with unity of time (one night) and unity of place (an ordinary dilapidated building in Calcutta where twelve families are packed). He questions the position of woman in society in general and patriarchal society in particular, and probes into the reality of women at work in India, without whom most of the families would not survive..
