The Inner Eye

The Inner Eye
Title card of the film
Directed by	Satyajit Ray
Produced by	Films Division of India
Written by	Satyajit Ray
Screenplay by	Satyajit Ray
Based on	Life and works of Benode Behari Mukherjee
Starring	Benode Behari Mukherjee
Narrated by	Satyajit Ray
Music by	Satyajit Ray
Cinematography	Soumendu Roy
Edited by	Dulal Dutta
Distributed by	Films Division of India
Release date	1972 (1972)
Running time	20 Minutes
Country	India
Language	English

The Inner Eye is a 1972 short documentary film made by Satyajit Ray on Benode Behari Mukherjee, a blind artist and a teacher from Visva-Bharati University, a university founded by Rabindranath Tagore at Santiniketan. The twenty minutes documentary features the life and works of Mukherjee in the form of paintings and photographs, starring himself. The documentary covers his journey from childhood till his blindness along with much of his works and features his words, "Blindness is a new feeling, a new experience, a new state of being". The documentary was awarded as Best Information Film (Documentary) at 20th National Film Awards in 1972.

Mukherjee is known as the most informed Indian artist of his generation and a legend of modern Asian Art. Born with severe eye problem, being myopic on one eye and blind in the other, Mukherjee lost his sight completely after an unsuccessful cataract operation. However, he continued his work as an artist.

The Academy Film Archive, part of the Academy Foundation, took an initiative to restore Satyajit Ray's films and could successfully restore 19 Ray films. The Inner Eye is yet to be restored but found to be in good condition for the restoration. The film's original script was included in a book named Original English Film Scripts Satyajit Ray, put together by Ray's son Sandip Ray.

Benode Behari Mukherjee was an Indian artist, born on February 7, 1904, into a well-educated family in Behala, in the state of West Bengal. He could not pursue normal schooling due to his poor eyesight. However, his family recognized his interest for art and literature and sent him to Santiniketan for further studies in an art faculty, Kala Bhavan. He eventually became a teaching staff member at Santiniketan in 1925. Later he joined as a curator at the Nepal Government Museum in Kathmandu and taught at the Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan, during 1951–52. He returned to Kala Bhavan in 1958 and then became the principal of art theory. He lost his eyesight completely in an unsuccessful cataract operation. As an artist, Mukherjee worked with different media like murals, watercolor, and oils. In his work, he used a complex fusion of idioms absorbed from Western modern art and the spirituality of oriental traditions. In 1974, he was awarded with Padma Vibhushan, the second-highest civilian award in the Republic of India. Mukherjee died on November 19, 1980, at the age of 76.