General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Unishe April

Unishe April (উনিশে এপ্রিল, "Nineteenth April") is a 1994 Bengali-language drama film written, directed, and edited around a single day in the lives of a celebrated classical dancer and her estranged daughter, in Rituparno Ghosh's second feature¹^•². It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film (Golden Lotus) and the Best Actress award for Debashree Roy at the 1995 National Film Awards³, and is credited with reviving urban Bengali audiences' habit of going to the cinema⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Director and writer	Rituparno Ghosh, his second feature after Hirer Angti (1994)¹^•⁴
Lead cast	Aparna Sen as Sarojini Gupta, Debashree Roy as Dr. Aditi Sen, with Dipankar Dey (Somnath), Prosenjit Chatterjee (Sudeep), and Chitra Sen (Bela)⁵
National awards	Golden Lotus for Best Feature Film and Silver Lotus for Best Actress (Debashree Roy), 1995; nominated for the New Currents Award at the Pusan International Film Festival, 1996³
Setting	One day, April 19, the father's death anniversary and the day Sarojini wins a prestigious award⁶
Production	Producer Renu Roy for Spandan Films; budget reported as Rs 1.8 million (Rs 18 lakh) by India Today and approximately Rs 2 million (Rs 20 lakh) by the film's executive producer⁶^•⁴
Format	Color, 14 reels, 35 mm; censor certificate dated December 30, 1994, Kolkata, rated U⁷^•²
Audience rating	7.7/10 on IMDb (about 650 votes)⁵

Spoilers

Story and structure

The film follows Aditi Sen (Debashree Roy), a medical student in New Delhi who returns to her mother's Calcutta home on April 19, the anniversary of her father's death and the day her mother, the classical dancer Sarojini Gupta (Aparna Sen), wins a prestigious award⁶. Aditi grew up largely in boarding school after her father's death while her mother pursued her dancing career, and she harbors resentment toward her for that neglect⁸. The film tracks the two through a single day: Sarojini is visited by reporters and basks in the attention of the award, while Aditi grieves that her mother cannot share her sorrow over her father⁶.

The crisis comes when Aditi's boyfriend Sudeep (Prosenjit Chatterjee) calls from New Delhi to say his family objects to his marrying the daughter of a dancer⁶. According to the Indiancine.ma summary, most of the film takes place in a single night in Calcutta, ending with the two women reconciled not through resolution of their problems but by reconfirming the filial bond². India Today noted the recurring role of the telephone, which interrupts mother and daughter whenever they try to share something important and figures in the climax⁶.

The film is widely described as inspired by Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata (1978), another drama of a famous performing mother and her resentful daughter⁹^•². A Bengali-language academic account instead links it to Satyajit Ray's Jon Aranya (as transliterated in that source)¹⁰.

Production

Ghosh came to the film from years in the advertising industry⁶. His first film, the children's film Hirer Angti (The Diamond Ring), achieved cult status in film circles but was never released commercially⁶. The National Film Development Corporation had the Unishe April script modified but still rejected it⁶.

Financing was precarious. Executive producer Souvik Mitra recalled that no producers came forward at first, and that Aparna Sen introduced Ghosh to Renu Roy⁴. Roy could pool about Rs 1.2 million (Rs 12 lakh) of an approximately Rs 2 million (Rs 20 lakh) budget and told Ghosh to begin shooting; composer Jyotishka Dasgupta, cinematographer Sunirmal Mazumdar, and editor Ujjal Nandi worked for free or for token remuneration, and a corporate backer brought in by Roy finally paid for post-production⁴. India Today reported the budget as Rs 1.8 million (Rs 18 lakh), paid for by Spandan, a Calcutta-based cultural organization⁶.

The credited crew included Sunirmal Mazumdar on camera, Ujjal Nandi as editor, Jyotishka Dasgupta as composer, and Indranil Ghosh for art direction⁷.

Release

The release record is inconsistent across sources. The Times of India places the release in March 1994⁴, and a RadioBanglaNet retrospective gives 14 March 1994¹¹; the eTimes movie database gives 11 October 1994¹²; the Bengal Film Archive records a release on 17.05.96 at the Minar, Bijoli, and Chhabighar cinemas⁷; and BookMyShow lists 12 May 1996⁸. The censor certificate was issued in Kolkata on December 30, 1994², which is consistent with a 1994 premiere followed by a later general theatrical run, but no single source reconciles the dates.

Reported runtimes also differ: 2 hours 13 minutes on Apple TV and JustWatch¹³^•⁵ against 2 hours 18 minutes on eTimes and Rotten Tomatoes¹²^•¹⁴; Indiancine.ma lists 138 minutes².

Reception and awards

The film won two National Film Awards in 1995: the Golden Lotus for Best Feature Film, with the jury citation praising "a complex and impeccable rendition of fragmenting family relationships in urban India," and the Silver Lotus for Best Actress for Debashree Roy, cited for her "complete identification with character of lonely doctor"³. It was also nominated for the New Currents Award at the 1996 Pusan International Film Festival³.

Box office and audience. Mitra recalled that after Uttam Kumar's demise, urban Bengalis had largely stopped going to theaters, but Unishe April ran housefull, with packed night shows and full parking lots at the Minar, Bijoli, and Chhabighar cinemas⁴. India Today, reviewing it in 1995, called it a powerful film by a new director in a Calcutta industry that had produced little of note since Satyajit Ray's death, and singled out the performances of Sen and Roy, with Roy's inspired turn a surprise after years in Bengali commercial cinema⁶.

Retrospective criticism has been broadly favorable with reservations. The Chasing Cinema retrospective credited the performances but found the script's handling of Aditi's romance and its storm-and-suicide imagery clichéd, rating it 3.9 out of 5⁹. On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 45% Tomatometer from three reviews; Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express wrote that Ghosh's "spiky relationship drama about a successful mother and resentful daughter gave us a new voice in Bengali cinema"¹⁴.

Legacy

The film marked Ghosh's arrival as a major filmmaker and began a career that produced 19 films and 12 National Film Awards before his death in 2013⁹^•¹⁵. It is listed as the 42nd National Film Award winner for Best Feature Film, for 1994¹⁶. Indiancine.ma's summary notes that it departed from the melodramas of its time, which were aimed at "female and rural" audiences, and instead addressed the urban middle class².

The film remains available on Indian streaming platforms including Amazon Prime Video, Hoichoi, and Eros Now¹⁷. The title was later reused for an unrelated eight-episode Bengali web series about the 1970s death mystery of Surupa Guha, directed by Arindam Sil and starring Arifin Shuvoo, announced in 2023¹⁸.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Films in other Indian languages

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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