In Search Of Famine

Smita Patil stars in a self-reflexive meditation on filmmaking about a film crew attempting to make a film on the Bengal famine.

A self-reflexive meditation on filmmaking, director Mrinal Sen explores the haunting legacy of the 1943 Bengal famine that resulted in the deaths of at least three million people. The story follows a film crew that arrives in a small village in an attempt to make a film on the Bengal famine. Smita Patil delivers a mesmerising performance as a young actress grappling with the blurred lines between art and reality. This is one of the great statements on film making, comparable to Kiarostami’s Life, and Nothing More (1990) and Wender’s The State of Things (1982). 

"One of Indian cinema's most probing recorders of the country's social fabric, Sen has made a lively, truthful film, no less profound for perceiving the comedy in the situation of clashing worlds." - Ronald Bergan, Robyn Karney, Foreign Film Guide