New 4K Restoration
Indian master Satyajit Ray crafts the ultimate hangout film whose breeziness belies its deep exploration of human connection. New 4K restoration.
Desperate to flee Calcutta’s rat race, four friends drive to Palamu, one of India’s rural “tribal lands,” where they bribe a watchman into letting them stay at a guesthouse. Despite vowing to get away from it all, the crew soon mixes with the locals while simultaneously trying not to fall back into bad habits (aka booze, gambling, and girls). Filled with some of Ray’s most indelible characterizations and lavish images (shot by longtime cinematographer Soumendu Roy), Days and Nights in the Forest touches on masculine vulnerabilities and Indian class divisions with the graceful complexity of a master at his peak. [115 min; drama; Bengali with English subtitles]
Restored in 4K in 2025 by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Film Heritage Foundation in collaboration with Janus Films – The Criterion Collection at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, from the original camera and sound negatives provided by Purnima Dutta and the magnetic track preserved by BFI National Archive. Funding provided by the Golden Globe Foundation. Special thanks to Wes Anderson and Sandip Ray.
"Ray's language of cinema is a kind of miraculous vernacular, all his own. It has mystery, eroticism, and delight." — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"To explain why Days and Nights in the Forest (1970) is a masterpiece is a bit like explaining why flowers are beautiful: the film’s glories are so natural and self-evident that describing them feels redundant." — Ben Sachs, The Chicago Reader
"A major film by one of the great film artists." — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
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