Bangladeshi cinema goes from success to success

It was celebration time for makers of meaningful Bangladeshi cinema in the year 2015 with accolades and appreciation pouring in at international film festivals.

If veteran Morshedul Islam returned with his trademark competence in “Anil Bagchir Ek Din” in December, the young torch-bearers of the meaningful cinema like Abu Shahed Emon, Rubaiyat Hossain and Shahnewaj Cacoly began the journey earlier in the year with works like “Jalaler Galpo”, “Under Construction” and “Nodijan” to drive home the point that the promise held out by Bangladeshi meaningful cinema is not flash in the pan. Zahidur Rahman Anjan-directed “Meghmallar” was also a notable release this year.

Besides critical appreciation, “Jalaler Galpo” achieved a hat-trick by winning awards at  International Film Festivals in Jaipur, India, in February last year and then in Portugal in June and Thiruvananthapuram, India, in December this year. As an icing on the cake, the film also brought Mosharraf Karim the best actor's award. “Under Construction”, Hossain's construction, also took the top award at the Mindanao Festival in the Philippines in December.

Both Emon and Hossain's films featured at several festivals across the world.

National award-winning Cacoly's “Nodijan”, a fine film on a sensitive subject, got a very good response at the non-competitive category in Third Eye Asian Film Festival in Mumbai in December when she was also part of the jury in the competitive section. One of the admirers of her film is none other than accomplished Marathi and Hindi cinema and stage actor Mohan Agashe who headed the jury. This was the first time that Cacoly became a member of the jury.

 “Anil Bagchir Ek Din” was also screened at international festivals in Bangkok and Colombo before its theatrical release in Bangladesh on December 11.

While these filmmakers helped Bangladesh to be taken seriously by the discerning international audience,  another notable contribution to draw the world's focus on cinema in the country was made by veteran Australian writer John W Hood's book “The Bleeding Lotus: The Notion of Nationhood in Bangladesh cinema ” brought out by New Delhi-based Palimpsest  Publishing House.

Hood, who knows Bengali well and is a familiar face in Kolkata, has in the past written several articles on films by masters like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen and Buddhadeb Dasgupta. This is the first time that he has devoted a full book on meaningful feature and documentary films made by some Bangladeshi directors based on the Liberation War. The book's almost frame-by-frame analysis of the works of directors like Morshedul Islam, Tareque Masud, Tanvir Mokammel, Humayun Ahmed, Touqir Ahmed, Naseeruddin Yusuf Bachchu, Shameem Akhtar, Sajib Bakul and Khizir Hayat Khan has mirrored the immense potential of Bangladeshi cinema.

Buddhadeb Dasgupta's blurb for Hood's book makes out a strong case, as much as the book itself, as to why the world should look at meaningful cinema in Bangladesh as it had done in the case of Latin American cinema almost three decades ago.