The Indian film industry was never short of talents or movies. But those hundreds of films made yearly after the end of the Second World War were almost exclusively intended for domestic viewers and remained hidden from Europeans’ sight. It was only the following decade that saw a few directors who abandoned local conventions and began to make films that were comprehensible to Western audiences.

Nejznámějším z nich dodnes zůstává právě Satjádžit Ráj, jenž k sedmému umění inklinoval odjakživa, ale na dráhu filmaře ho definitivně svedl až Vittorio De Sica svými Bicycle Thieves (1948). In the neorealist fashion – only in exteriors, with non-actors, without musical acts (!) – he made his low-budget debut Song of the Little Road (1955) that was screened and awarded at Cannes in 1956.

Inspired by this success, Ray decided to follow up on his first feature with two more sequels that received similarly warm reception. In The Unvanquished (1956) and The World of Apu (1959), we observe the further life of the protagonist Apu who grows into a man and becomes a father. Get ready for a long journey that will take you from the Indian countryside to the hearts of the cities crisscrossed by trains as the symbols of modernity.