Titash Ekti Nadir Naam (), or A River Called Titas, is a 1973 film that was a joint production between India and Bangladesh directed by Ritwik Ghatak. The movie was based on a novel by the same name, written by Adwaita Mallabarman. The movie explores the life of the fishermen on the bank of the Titas River in Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh.
Rosy Samad, Golam Mostafa, Kabori, Prabir Mitra, and Roushan Jamil acted in the main roles. The shooting of the movie took a toll on Ghatak's health, as he was suffering from tuberculosis at the time.
Alongside Satyajit Ray's Kanchenjungha (1962) and Mrinal Sen's Calcutta 71 (1972), Titas Ekti Nadir Naam is one of the earliest films to resemble hyperlink cinema, featuring multiple characters in a collection of interconnected stories in the style of The Rules of the Game (1939), predating Robert Altman's Nashville (1975). The film topped the list of 10 best Bangladeshi films in the audience and critics' polls conducted by the British Film Institute in 2002.
Plot
A fisherman by the River Titas, Kishore, marries a young girl, Rajar Jhi, accidentally when he visits a nearby village. After their wedding night, Rajar Jhi is kidnapped on the river. On losing his wife, Kishore becomes mad. Meanwhile, his young bride fights with the bandits, jumps into the river and is saved by some villagers. Unfortunately, the young bride knows nothing about her husband, she doesn't even know her husband's name. The only thing she remembers is the name of the village Kishore belongs to. Ten years later, she attempts to find Kishore with their son. Some residents of Kishore's village refuse to share food with her and her son because of the threat of starvation. A young widow, Basanti, helps the mother and child. Later it turned out that Kishore and Basanti were childhood lovers. Director Ghatak appears in the film as a boatman, and Basanti's story is the first of several melodramatic tales.