A gift for the New Year

A scene from “Aha” by Enamul Karim Nirjhar.

A three-day festival of Bangla-deshi feature films by four eminent directors began on April 16.
Inaugurating the festival at the Siri Fort Auditorium number 2 , the first-ever in the Indian capital, India's Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Choudhury Mohan Jatua said the cultural event "would contribute towards a better understanding of the composite ethos of Bangladesh amongst our people."
"Festivals of a similar nature could be organised across different cities, enabling a wider and diverse audience to view films and correlate with the value-driven, broad-based and secular cultural fabric of Bangladesh," he said.
The Minister said the people of India and Bangladesh shared a common bond with regard to history, culture and social values. In the current scenario, it was imperative that the media played a pro-active role in familiarising the people in India with the cinematic brilliance of film directors from Bangladesh, he added.
M Khan, Director of the Directorate of Indian Film Festivals, said in his welcome address, "We have been trying to organise this festival for a long time and we thank the extra efforts put in by Bangladesh High Commissioner to India A Tariq Karim and First Secretary Mahbub Saleh to make it happen".
Speeches over, Jatua, A Tariq Karim, Kobori, Faridur Reza Sagar, Tauqir Ahmed and Aupee Karim each lit a special lamp to mark the start of the film festival.
This is for the first time that a festival of Bangladeshi feature films is being jointly organised by the two countries. In all, seven films “Ontorjatra” by Tareque Masud, “Joyjatra” by Tauquir Ahmed, “Bachelor” by Mostafa
Sarwar Farooki, “Rupkathar Golpo” by Tauqir Ahmed, “Matir Moina” by Tareque Masud and “Aha” by Enamul Karim Nirjhar will be screened during the festival.
The Directorate of Film Festivals in India, Indian Information and Broadcasting Ministry and Bangladesh High Commission have jointly organised the festival.
The inaugural ceremony was followed by the screening of “Ayna”. The film, starring Kobori in the role of a women's rights activist and a lawyer, director Subhash Dutta, Rani Sarkar, Ferdous and A T M Shamsuzzaman among others, was seen by a packed audience.
After the screening, Kobori, during an exclusive conversation with The Daily Star said that she was in search of a script to direct her second feature film which will be shot in her electoral constituency in Narayanganj.
Tauquir Ahmed agreed with Kobori that direction is far more challenging and difficult than acting. Two of the seven films shown on the second day of the festival are directed by Tauqir“Joyjatra” and “Rupkathar Galpo “which also has him in the cast.
Faridur Reza Sagar said five to six films produced by Impress Telefilm will be released this year and in collaboration with Indian producers, efforts are underway to get 82-year-old Indian director Basu Chatterjee back behind the camera after a long hibernation with a Bangla remake of his hit Hindi film Ranjnigandha.