English, August (film)
| English, August | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Dev Benegal |
| Produced by | Anuradha Parikh |
| Written by |
Upamanyu Chatterjee (novel, English, August and screenplay) Dev Benegal (screenplay) |
| Starring |
Rahul Bose Tanvi Azmi Mita Vashisht Shivaji Satham |
| Music by | D. Wood |
| Cinematography |
Anoop Jotwani K U Mohanan |
| Edited by |
Dev Benegal Allyson C. Johnson |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
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Release date
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Running time
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118 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | English |
English, August, made in 1994, is an Indian film and director Dev Benegal's first feature film. This film ignited the next generation of Indian cinema and is acknowledged as a landmark in contemporary Indian cinema. A humorous and irreverent study of bureaucracy and the Indian Generation X, English, August won several awards at international film festivals.
English, August became the first Indian independent film to break the stranglehold of mainstream Indian Bollywood cinema when it was acquired by 20th Century Fox and became a theatrical success in the country. This has led the way for other low budget, independent movies such as Bombay Boys and Split Wide Open, which are part of the next generation of "middle cinema".
The film is based on the novel English August by Upamanyu Chatterjee.
The negatives of the film were lost due to flooding at a storage facility of Prasad Studios. An attempt at restoration is underway.
Agastya Sen (Rahul Bose), nicknamed "English, August", speaks and thinks in English. A lover of poetry, he listens to Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, rock and jazz and reads Marcus Aurelius. He is also an Indian Administrative Service Officer, a member of the most influential and powerful cadre of civil servants in India. He is sent off for a year's training to Madna, the hottest town in the country. Culture shock and a language barrier in his own country follows (August's mother tongue is Bengali). He feels like a foreigner, but must survive.
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