Soumendu Roy

Soumendu Roy Biography

Soumendu Roy is a highly acclaimed cinematographer of Bengali cinema, best known for the association with legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray and his films, starting with Teen Kanya (1961). Roy has worked in 21 films of Ray which included 15 feature films. He won the National Film Award for Best Cinematography four times including one in the non-feature film category, Sucitra Mitra in 1993. He has been one of the leading cinematographers since mid-1970s who won 3 National awards in the mid-1970s - Ashani Sanket (1974), Sonar Kella (1975) and Shatranj Ke Khiladi (Hindi) (1978) and all these movies were directed by Satyajit Ray.

Ghosh’s association with Ray began during the making of the 1969 fantasy classic Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne when Ghosh came to the film sets to show a few photographs to the film director. The photographs excited the director a lot, as they were shot in the same way the director has imagined about and in the same angles. Thus began the long term association of two legends that lasted for about 25 years till Ray’s death. His association began with the movie, Pather Panchali, in which Roy worked as a technician handling trolleys and equipment and Teen kanya in 1961 marked his debut as a full-fledged cinematographer. He got the movie when Ray's former cinematographer Subrata Mitra developed an eye problem and quit the project.

Roy later went on to work with many legends of Bengali cinema - Tapan Sinha, Tarun Mazundar, Buddhadeb Dasgupta and MS Sathyu. "Portrait of a Cinematographer" was a documentary film made in 2006 on the life of this legendary cinematographer.

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Updated: July 23, 2014