‘Unexpected; a threat to artistic expression’
Filmmakers said about arrests of filmmaker, actor
Arrests of a film director and an actor over "obscene dialogues" in a recently released movie is a threat to artistic expression and freedom of speech, noted filmmakers said.
Police arrested filmmaker Anonno Mamun, 33, and actor Shaheen Mridha, 42, from the capital's Mirpur area on Thursday night in a case filed with Ramna Police Station under the Pornography Act, over obscene dialogues in the movie titled "Nabab LLB".
Later, they were produced before a Dhaka court on Friday and were then sent to jail.
"This is a huge threat to our artistic expression. Every single thing only paves the way for more interference in the future, leading to the complete eradication of freedom of speech," said Nurul Alam Atique, noted scriptwriter and director.
He said that even though he has not watched the film yet, the lack of tolerance will heavily disrupt the artistic community.
Atique used Humayun Ahmed's BTV classic "Bohubrihi" as an example, where doctors blamed Humayun Ahmed for "ruining" their image.
"Such incidents are always dangerous and we have to make sure that we have the freedom to call a spade a spade", he said.
Atique went on to mention that the greatest barrier to creative thinking is the fear of censorship and persecution.
"It is getting suffocating, and as an artiste, it makes me extremely sad," Atique said.
In a scene of the movie Nabab LLB, actress Orchita Sporshia was seen going to a police station to file a case as a rape victim.
A police sub-inspector, played by actor Shaheen Mridha, asked her offensive questions about the rape.
The police had objections about the scene.
Referring to the scene, Shariful Islam, deputy commissioner of the Cyber and Special Crimes Department, said the scene related to the police interrogation -- when a rape victim comes to the police station and complains to police -- was portrayed with extremely offensive language.
He said it is not possible to watch it sitting together with the family and will create negative perceptions about the police among the public. Such videos will discourage victims from going to the police station to seek services in the future.
"The video is very defamatory for the Bangladesh Police Force as we have been portrayed in a very negative way," he added.
Shariful further said that the filmmaker and the actor used the uniform of Bangladesh Police without their permission.
Film Director and Screenwriter Giasuddin Selim termed it an unexpected incident.
"Since the project has been released on an OTT platform, people have the option to pay and choose what they want to watch."
The director also mentioned that if corruption and other negatives in our system cannot be portrayed in cinema, it will be more difficult for people to judge the truth for what it is.
Selim further stated that the actions taken would have been somewhat logical if there was a law for web content that had been violated. However, such harassment is not to be condoned, according to him.
Half of the movie "Nabab LLB" was released on December 16 in an app named I-Theater. The rest of the movie is scheduled to be released on January 1, 2021.
Among others, Shakib Khan, Mahiya Mahi, Sporshia and Shahiduzzaman Selim have starred the film.