In Search of Famine takes a Felliniesque look at a young film directors effort to portray with

commitment and honesty the famine that ravaged Bengal in 1943. Forty years after the event and within a

village setting the young filmmaker comes up against a famine that still runs relentlessly on and he is

faced with a community of elders which resists both reality and the cinema. As a result, his task becomes

irretrievably difficult. Mrinal Sen built his screenplay out of an original story by Amalendu Chakraborty.

The film script is a reconstruction and translation based on the original working script and a shot by a shot

viewing of the film. In Search of Famine won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival 1981 and

the National Award for the best feature film best direction best screenplay and best editing.