Biographies of cinema virtuoso on the anvil

Gifted cinematographer from Bengal, Soumendu Roy, has recently penned a biographical book that will be published by Dey's Publishers in a few days from now. Titled 'Chalachitra Chalachitra', the hardcover will offer readers a glimpse into Roy's working experience with the great maestro Satyajit Ray and the shooting of several Ray classics like Teen Kanya, Pather Panchali, Aranyer Din Ratri – 21 films in all. The book will be released on June 1.

The first segment of the 250 page book talks about Roy's experiences in the world of cinema and then he talks about the various stalwarts in the film industry that he worked with: Uttam Kumar, Tapan Sinha, Tarun Majumdar, Bansi Chandragupta and of course, Satyajit Ray.

In the next section, Roy has put up five interviews that he gave to the media over a period of time.

Starting off as a trolley and lighting hand in an early Ray film, Roy went on to work on 21 of Ray's films including 15 feature films, the Golden Bear winning film, Ashani Sanket (1973) and Aranyer Din Ratri (1969). He also worked with directors like Tapan Sinha, Tarun Majumdar, Buddhadeb Dasgupta and MS Sathyu.

In his long and illustrious career, he won the national award for Best Cinematography three times and one Best Non-Feature Film Cinematography award for documentary film, 'Suchitra Mitra' in 1993, directed by Raja Sen.

In 2006, a 30 minute documentary on him, 'Portrait of a Cinematographer', was screened at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, directed by Papia Roy and subsequently, 'Soumendu Ray' a 70 minute documentary by Arindam Saha Sardar. Now the ace cameraperson is an advisor of cinematography at the department of "Roopkala Kendra" under the information and cultural ministry of the Government of West Bengal.

Another book to be published on the same day will be famous Bengali director Tarun Majumdar's 'Batil Chitranatya'. Both the books are priced at Rs 250.