Reetu Sattar's 'Harano Sur' at International Film Festival Rotterdam
Promising Dhaka-based performance artist Reetu Sattar's film, 'Harano Sur (Lost Tune)', was screened thrice at the 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film also vied for an award in the prestigious Bright Future Department of the Short Competition. Sattar is now in the Netherlands to participate in the festival.
“The film was widely appreciated by film enthusiasts both at the festival and in Dhaka. I am still receiving many compliments in the form of mails and messages,” she said.
The film documents a performance that took place earlier in the 17th installment of the Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh and at the 4th edition of Dhaka Art Summit. It brought together many performers, each playing three of the seven notes of the harmonium. The artist uses the sustained droning sounds as a way to explore the violence and social upheaval that have recently affected Bangladesh, and as a wider metaphor for issues of cultural control, Diasporas and partition. By playing a sustained note, the performers make the powerful statement that they and their traditions are here to stay.
Harano Sur was commissioned by Liverpool Biennial and Dhaka Art Summit, as part of the New North and South. Sattar also works
with video, text, objects and photography.
Comments