Archive: Keswick Film Festival - Bangladeshi Arthouse

Bangladeshi Arthouse

There is more to films from the sub-continent than Bollywood!

Tareque Masud

Tareque was involved in the film society movement from his university days and started his first film in 1982. His 1995 feature length documentary on the "71 Liberation War, Muktir Gaan (Song of Freedom)" brought record audiences and became a cult classic. He also made many other films on the war. "The Clay Bird" (2002), based on his childhood experience in the madrassa won the Critics' Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and was the first Bangladeshi film to compete in the Oscars. In addition to his filmmaking work, he was also a pioneer of the independent film movement in Bangladesh. He was also known as the "Cinema Feriwalla" for the way in which he showed his films, touring remote towns and villages throughout the country with his mobile projection unit. Masud died on August 13, 2011 in a road accident

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Saturday 1st March 6:00 PM - Studio (TBTL)

Runway

Tareque Masud (2010) Bangladesh 90 mins TBC

Runway centres on young Rahul who lives with his family in a small hut next to the runway of the international airport. His mother struggles to support the family by selling milk from a cow bought with a micro credit loan and his sister works long hours in a garment factory. What happens when the disaffected Rahul meets someone who he thinks has it all?

This is the final film of acclaimed director, Tareque Masud, before his tragic death in 2011.

Thanks to Catherine Masud

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Sunday 2nd March 6:30 PM - Studio (TBTL)

The Clay Bird

Matir moina

Tareque Masud (2002) Bangladesh 95 mins PG

The second film of the Festival set around the liberation struggle; this was the first-time feature from the husband-and-wife team of Tareque and Catherine Masud.

Young Anu is subject to his father's fundamental Islamic religious belief whilst his uncle is active in the political movement for reform and change. A young boy faces life when all around him is change.

Thanks to Catherine Masud

Mostofa Sarwar Farooki

Variety's Jay Weissberg wrote "Mostofa Sarwar Farooki is a key exemplar of the Bangladeshi new wave cinema movement". He is a contemporary Bangladeshi film director and screenwriter, and pioneer of an avant-garde filmmakers' movement called "Chabial". Television (2012) was the closing film at the Busan International Film Festival 2012, won the Special Mention Award in Dubai, and has also been nominated and screened in various festivals around the globe. "Farooki's 2009 feature Third Person Singular was his breakthrough on to the international festival scene." Festival Scope

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Friday 28th February 1:00 PM - Theatre By The Lake

Third Person Singular Number

Mostofa Sarwar Farooki (2009) Bangladesh 124 mins TBC

Acclaimed as a Bangladeshi Film that avoids traditional stereotypes and presents its characters as rounded - perhaps even flawed, Third Person Singular Number is a thoroughly modern, stylistically-assured story of a young woman (in a career making role from Numrat Imroz Tisha as Ruba) negotiating independence in a society unwilling to grant single females a place of their own.

Thanks to Mostofa Sarwar Farooki

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Sunday 2nd March 1:30 PM - Alhambra

Television

Mostofa Sarwar Farooki (2012) Bangladesh 106 mins TBC

Television is set in an isolated Bangladeshi Village where the devout community leader has banned the dreaded box. The film is a nicely underplayed comedy of manners and has been selected as an entry in Best Foreign Language film category for the 2014 Oscars

Thanks to the Director Mostofar Sarwar Farooki