Mrinal Sen

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Mrinal Sen
Mrinal Sen
Born	May 14, 1923 (age 89) Faridpur, British India (now Bangladesh)
Awards	Moscow Film Festival - Silver Prize 1975 Chorus 1979 ParashuramKarlovy Vary Film Festival - Special Jury Prize 1977 Oka Oori Katha Berlin Film Festival - Interfilm Award 1979 Parashuram 1981 Akaler SandhaneBerlin Film Festival - Grand Jury Prize 1981 Akaler Sandhane Cannes Film Festival - Jury Prize 1983 Kharij Valladolid Film Festival - Golden Spike 1983 Kharij Chicago Film Festival - Best Film 1984 Khandhar Montreal Film Festival - Special Prize of the Jury 1984 Khandhar Venice Film Festival - Honorable Mention 1989 Ek Din Achanak Cairo Film Festival - Best Director 2002 Aamaar Bhuvan  (2000)

Mrinal Sen (also spelled Mrinal Shen) is a renowned Bengali Indian filmmaker based in Kolkata, India. Along with his contemporaries Satyajit Rayand Ritwik Ghatak, he is often considered to be one of the greatest ambassadors of Indian parallel cinema on the global stage.^[1] Like the works of Ray and Ghatak, his cinema is known for its artistic depiction of social reality. Although the three directors shared a healthy rivalry, they were ardent admirers of each other's work, and in so doing, they charted the independent trajectory of parallel cinema, as a counterpoint to the mainstream fare of Hindi cinema in India.

Early life and education

Sen was born on 14 May 1923, in the town of Faridpur, now in Bangladesh in a Hindu family. After finishing high school there, he left home to come to Calcutta as a student. He studied physics at the well-known Scottish Church College, and subsequently earned a postgraduate degree at theUniversity of Calcutta. As a student, he got involved with the cultural wing of the Communist Party of India. Although he never became a member of the party, his association with the socialist Indian People's Theatre Association brought him close to a number of like-minded culturally associated people.