The restored version of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Aranyer Din Ratri’, which premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival in May, will have its North American premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The restoration was also showcased at Italy’s Il Cinema Ritrovato in June.
The festival’s official X account announced: “#TIFF50 North American Premiere of the 4K restoration: Days and Nights in the Forest, directed by Satyajit Ray.”
Based on Sunil Gangopadhyay’s novel of the same name, the film follows four men from Calcutta — played by Soumitra Chatterjee, Subhendu Chatterjee, Samit Bhanja and Rabi Ghosh — as they embark on a weekend escape into the wilderness. The cast also included Sharmila Tagore, Kaberi Bose and Simi Garewal.
Sharmila Tagore and Simi Garewal, the only surviving members of the cast, attended the Cannes screening of the restored classic, alongside filmmaker Wes Anderson and Purnima Dutta, head of Piyali Films and producer of Aranyer Din Ratri.
Originally nominated for Best Film at the 20th Berlin International Film Festival in 1970, the film later inspired a sequel, Abar Aranye, directed by Goutam Ghose and released in 2003, which revisited the friends and their families on a return trip to the forest.
TIFF 2025 is scheduled to run from September 4 to 14.