“Ekjon Kobi'r Mrittyu” gets rave reviews at KIFF
The audience and critical response to Bangladeshi director Abu Sayeed's latest work “Ekjon Kobir Mrittyu”, competing in the Innovation in Moving Image category of the ongoing Kolkata International Film Festival, has “overwhelmed” him.
“I was overwhelmed by the audience response after the film's first screening at the Nandan complex on November 12, a day after the Festival was inaugurated,” the director told The Daily Star.
“For about five hours after the screening, I had to hold two separate media interactions to cater to their growing demand and received a tremendous response from the audience,” Sayeed said.
The film, featuring Jayanta Chattopadhyay and Irene Sultana among others, had its world premiere at the festival. German film critic Rudiger Tomczak writes in his review of the film that Sayeed's “admirable” film “is a “wise and exciting essay on cinema.”
“The collision of reality and fiction gives the film a nearly dream-like quality,” he adds.
Reviewing the movie, leading Indian Bangla daily Anandabazar Patrika commented that the traditional filmmaking method is absent in this “highly experimental” work by Sayeed. “There is an amazing simplicity and honesty in the film's story-telling,” it adds.
The review says that Sayeed's film shows a “new path” as to how simplicity in story-telling and experimental way can be successfully blended.
“Innovation and simplicity are seldom seen in Bangla cinema and honesty is another trait that is almost lost. But Sayeed's film has shown us a new path, given us courage and proved that a how a film can be made this way,” the review in the newspaper says.
Pointing out that Sayeed has crowd-funded the film, the daily says that such an initiative is commendable because the director is no longer dependent on the producer. “One hopes that films can be made through crowd-funding in this part of Bengal.”
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