The Cloud-Capped Star

The Cloud-Capped Star (Meghe Dhaka Tara), directed by Ritwik Ghatak, is a Bengali film about a refugee family living in a slum near Kolkata after the 1947 Partition of India, and their daughter Nita, who alone carries the family's finances while sacrificing her own happiness and health for them. Ghatak himself was born in East Bengal and became a refugee in Kolkata during Partition; the film is the first entry in his three film Partition Trilogy processing that trauma. Ghatak is known for Brechtian techniques such as using a non diegetic whip crack sound to mark a character's collapse. The film is considered the only one in Ghatak's filmography to achieve commercial success both domestically and internationally, and it ranked 152nd in Sight and Sound's 2022 poll of the greatest films of all time; it was restored in 2019 through a collaboration that included Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation. Who it's for: anyone curious about a Bengali classic, ranked among the greatest melodramas in film history, made by a director who lived through the Partition he depicts, about a woman who sacrifices everything to support her family. Who it's not for: those wanting a family drama with a happy ending, since the film is built on deep sacrifice and loss.