‘Jothorleena’ to be screened today at Goethe-Institut auditorium
Goethe-Institut Bangladesh, in cooperation with the International Film Initiative of Bangladesh (IFIB), has organised the film screening and discussion series ‘Through Her Eyes - A space to watch and discuss films with women filmmakers of Bangladesh’, today at 5 pm at its auditorium.
In the seventh edition of this popular film screening series, a documentary film titled Jothorleena, directed by Dilara Begum Jolly, is scheduled to be screened. In addition, some performance arts videos by the same filmmaker will also be shown at the event.
Shabnam Ferdousi, national award winning documentary filmmaker, will moderate the Q & A session after the screening of the film.
Jothorleena is the first documentary film by Dilara Begum Jolly. The cardinal strength of this film is its aesthetic presentation. It is a uniquely experimental production in the sense that, it stretched the customary generic parameters of a documentary film to transport it from the veridical to the poetic field.
War initiates the destruction of the womb; yet it is eclipsed by the avowed resoluteness of the survival of humanity -- this is what is irrefutably established by the role Roma Chowdhury played, in contributing to building a post-war society fed on the spirit of the war. The anguish of a brow- beaten mother, who had lost a child and now confronts the turbulent waves of war; nature mirroring her agonising silence; a display of indefatigable zest for life, are the recipes that constitute the soul of this film. The death-defying resilience of human spirit, a passionate radical mind nestling hidden within a ravaged body, a sapling amidst a wasteland of destruction nourished by nature’s regenerative care, and many such unarticulated dialogue, found expression through mind blowing succinct visual images in this film.
In Bangladesh, we currently see a number of women filmmakers actively creating and working in all genres of filmmaking. However, it remains a challenge for women to be directors. Worldwide, relatively few women can carve out that opportunity for themselves.
Through Her Eyes gives film enthusiasts, film students, academics, film professionals, funding agencies, broadcasters, rights groups and journalists a regular opportunity to watch films by women filmmakers currently working in Bangladesh, and to interact with them directly at the end of the screening.