Nagarik, also spelled as Nagorik, was the first feature-length film directed by legendary Indian director Ritwik Ghatak. Completed in 1952, it preceded Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali as perhaps the first example of an art film in Bengali cinema, but is deprived of that honor, since it was released twenty-four years later, after Ghatak's death. On 20 September 1977, it finally premiered at the New Empire theatre in Kolkata, India. Ritwik Ghatak directed only eight feature films, but is generally regarded as one of the auteurs of Indian cinema and virtually unsurpassed as a creator of powerful imagery and epic style by directors such as Satyajit Ray and of transcendental power and extraordinariness by critics such as Derek Malcolm.