Silver Bear, Berlin Intenational Film Festival 1957 | President's Gold Medal, National Film Awards 1957
An Afghan fruit seller befriends a small Bengali girl in Calcutta because she reminds him of his daughter. He gets a letter notifying him of his daughter’s illness and decides to return, but kills a man in a dispute on the eve of his journey and spends the next ten years in jail. Adapted from a story by Rabindranath Tagore.
Tapan Sinha is one of India's most prominent filmmakers, and one of the forerunners of the 'Parallel Cinema' movement. In his six-decade long career, he made films in Bengali, Hindi and Oriya languages, straddling genres from social realism, family drama, labor rights, to children's fantasy films. His most noted films include Kabuliwala (1957), Louha-Kapat, Sagina Mahato (1970), Apanjan (1968), Kshudhita Pashan and children's film Safed Haathi (1978) and Aaj Ka Robinhood (1987). Sinha is known for forming a legendary quartet with contemporary filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen.