Channel 4 acquires Yash Chopra movies

Channel 4's Bollywood season returns next week with a selection of Yash Chopra movies being premiered for the first time on UK terrestrial television.

The Yash Chopra movies will be showcased under a slot called "World Of Yash Chopra". The channel is also paying tribute to director Ritwik Ghatak, marking the 30th death anniversary. 'Discovering Ritwik Ghatak' will begin Channel 4's Bollywood Season this Monday with the telecast of 'Meghe Dhaka Tara'.

Remembering Bimal Roy is a season of films to mark the 40th anniversary of the director’s death. The films being shown are from the 50s, with the highlight being 'Do Bigha Zamin', Hindi cinema’s early neo-realistic film, rewarded with two awards at Cannes.

Cinema Bangladesh marks the 50th anniversary of Bangladeshi cinema – even before Bangladesh became a separate nation in 1971, there was a thriving film industry in East Bengal. Highlights are 'Shyamol Chhaya', the country’s submission to the 2006 Oscars, and 'The Clay Bird', which won director Tareque Masud the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes.

The full list of films are:

Discovering Ritwik Ghatak
Meghe Dhaka Tara
Subarnarekha
Komal Gandhar
Titash Ekti Nadir Naam

The World Of Yash Chopra
Veer Zaara
Bunty Aur Babli
Lamhe
Dhoom
Darr
Hum Tum
Dil To Pagal Hai
Mohabbatein

Remembering Bimal Roy
Devdas
Do Bigha Zameen
Parineeta
Madhumati

Cinema Bangladesh
Shyamol Chhaya
Duratta
The Clay Bird
Ontorjatra

Please note: Films above are not in telecast order. Please check TV listings for further details. Films will be shown on every Monday after midnight.

This isn't anything to do with DVD but Channel 4 in Britain, now that Big Brother has finished for another year, are showing four of Ritwik Ghatak's films over the next few weeks. Cloud-Capped Star was last night and Subharnekha is next week.

According to Mark Cousins in the latest Sight and Sound (page 8 ) Komal Gandhar (A Soft Note On A Sharp Scale) and A River Called Titash are also being shown, with River Called Titash being introduced by Mani Kaul.

I'm excited about this since I hadn't gotten round to getting the BFI DVDs. It looks like the TV print of Cloud-Capped Star was the same as the DVD, as it even starts with the BFI logo.

I was posting this to ask if there was any interest in my transcribing the introductions to each film for everyone to read (the Cloud-Capped Star was introduced by Ghatak's son).

I certainly consider Nasreen Munni Kabir, who creates the introductions for the Indian film seasons on Channel 4 as being up there with Nick Freand Jones who used to do the same thing for the BBC with Moviedrome and its like (Do you have to have three names to work in this field?). If there is interest I could try putting up a list (in the lists section) of the films Channel 4 has shown in Bollywood seasons since 1998 (when introductions to the films began). Then perhaps the list could be used to discuss the films.

My other reason for posting was to do what Annie/Lino previously did and re-ask for opinions on the four films. Any comments for Subarnarekha or Soft Note On A Sharp Scale in particular would be exciting!