Release of Documenting Agony: Ritwik, a 53-minute documentary September 11, 2008

The documentary depicts how Ghatak’s films dealt with migration of people from East Bengal to West Bengal during the Partition of India. Forced to leave the Padma’s banks for Ganga’s neighbourhood, the populace had much fear and aspiration. The documentary has six interviews with people who either knew Ghatak or were witness to the agony suffered by the middle-class in the migration. Two of the interviews are with his former students at the Pune film institute, filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Kumar Sahani, when Ghatak was the institute’s director. The two talk about Ghatak’s mind and how the division of Bengal hurt him.

There is another interview with Ghatak’s wife, Surama Ghatak, now over 80, who talks about how the Partition brought stress on women.