Mrinal Sen (Late)

Mrinal Sen was the Settlor when the India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) was registered in Kolkata as a Public Charitable Trust in 1993.

He was a filmmaker primarily working in the Bengali and Hindi languages. Mrinal studied Physics at University of Calcutta but it was his association with the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) in the 1940s that sparked an interest in both filmmaking and Marxist philosophy. His film Bhuvan Shome (1969) is considered a pioneering work of the ‘Indian New Wave’ cinema.

His deeply political feature films and documentaries, with their realist aesthetics, were a response to the changing political landscape of the country. In his later films, he tackled themes of middle class bourgeoisie lives and relationships in modern India. He was also a Member of the Parliament from 1998 to 2003.

His films received several National Film Awards in India and at international film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Karlovy Vary, Chicago and Cairo. He also served as a jury member in the Berlin and Moscow International Film Festivals. Mrinal was conferred with the Padma Bhushan and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award by the Government of India for his contribution towards cinema.