http://www.screenindia.com/fullstory.php?content_id=17929
Digital cinema Bangla filmmakers breathe new life Shoma A. Chatterji Digital cinema is empowering young filmmakers in Bangladesh t is the best of times and the worst of times for cinema in Bangladesh. Across this Asian sub-continent, scores of dilapidated cinema halls are on their death throes, no longer able to compete in the midst of the onslaught of satellite television, DVD and the Internet. The mainstream film industry continues to shell out its menu of formula fare to a dwindling audience. Independent filmmakers, forever facing a funds crunch, finding 35mm technology impossible to access, have chosen to fall back on digitalised cinema." Tareque Masud, internationally renowned Bangladesh filmmaker who is spearheading a movement towards meaningful and viable cinema in Bangladesh, offers his comment on the current situation. With a view to bring more visibility to this young and courageous brand of filmmakers, Masud brought a package of five digital feature films as part of the 13th Kolkata Film Festival screened under the aegis of its International Forum of New Cinema organised by Cine Central, the most active and one of the oldest film societies in the city. The films screened at Kolkata's Gorky Sadan were – Choturtho Matra (Fourth Dimension) directed by Nurul Alam Atique, Waiting Room by Mostafa Sarwar Farooki, Gorom Bhaat Othoba Nichhak Bhooter Galpo (Hot Food or a Ghost Story) by Animesh Aich, Tiner Talowar (Toy Sword) by Ashutosh Sujon and Scriptwriter by Kamruzzaman Kamu. The common factors present in this bouquet of films are – (a) they are made on digital, (b) they are in Bengali, (c) the filmmakers are all very young, (d) the films have a comparatively brief footage that ranges from 44 minutes to 80 minutes, and (e) the films are made between 2001 and 2007. "These youngsters belong to the new generation of filmmakers in my country who have the creativity and talent to harness the potential of new digital technologies to express their cinematic vision. The five films in this carefully selected package are the harbinger of a new trend in Bangladeshi cinema, emerging like a phoenix from the smouldering ashes of a dying art and industry," says Tareque. Choturtho Matra, based on a story by Shahidul Zahir is about the lonely Abdul Karim who is caught in a perpetual time warp where he hangs as if in limbo, between reality and dreams, with a maid, his cat and a grandfather clock for company. It is as if he is trapped within a closed world of déjà vu where the same things happen again and again, and the same things are said. What happens to Karim? Mostafa Sarwar Farooki has based Waiting Room on his own script. Farooki is the founder-leader of a group of young filmmakers that goes by the name of Chhobial. The narrative opens in 1992 where a man and a woman meet each other at the waiting room at a railway station three years following their divorce. The narrative moves fluidly between the past and the present till Hasan, the woman's present husband steps in to add to the drama. The camera and the script visit the same waiting room in 2007, 15 years later. The basic incident is the same but the protagonists are different. Will their experience be different too? Gorom Bhaat Othoba Nichhad Bhuter Golpo is based on a famous story by Sunil Gangopadhyay. It is one of the most shocking perspectives on what lengths abject poverty can drive a man to. Set against the backdrop of the famine, it unfolds the story of Haradhan, pushed to the last dregs of poverty. When Biren, a young man of the village rounds a group of other young men promising to pay ten taka for every ghost that is caught in the night, no ghosts fall into their trap of live torches and loud songs. So Biren raises the amount to hundred taka. Haradhan decides to kill his father in order to collect the reward. Is he morally wrong in taking the decision? Or is the state responsible for driving an ordinary man to killing the very man who hired him? Or is it the sheer economics of hoarding indulged in by the grain merchants that is the culprit? Chanchal, a Hindu Brahmin, lives in a mess in Dhaka city where all the other members are Muslim. That makes him the sole member coming from a fanatic Hindu family. He constantly reels under the dual pressure of being in minority among a majority of Muslims, and his love for the landlord's daughter, a Muslim. He has severe money problems too. But the beauty of his life is that all this does not stop him from dreaming on. This is the story of Tiner Talowar directed by Asutosh Sujan who prefers to follow the documentary style with non-professional actors picked from the field. Poet, writer and lyricist Kamruzzaman Kamu with a track record of three poetry books, directed Scriptwriter based on his own script. It is the story of Ratan, a poet who finds it difficult to make both ends meet with his poetry. His problems escalate with a pregnant wife so he decided to write scripts for films. But he is devoid of ideas so he banks on the live experience within the family, writing each scene as he sees it happen. This is somewhat reminiscent of Kieslowsky's Camera Buff but the interpretation varies within a different cultural, financial and linguistic ambience. "Breaking away from the heavy-handed, melodramatic style of theatrical acting predominant in both art and commercial cinema, these young filmmakers have focussed on spontaneous, natural and unaffected acting captured easily with the flexibility that a hand-held camera offers and the live sound capability of digital video. In terms of content, the films reflect the light-hearted and self-referential sensibilities of the new generation, infused with contemporary realism. Freed from the shackles of celluloid, these new filmmakers seem to have finally found the wings to fly," sums up Tareque. -- Members of the ZESTMedia list exchange news and views about the media in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan. Write to [email protected] If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTMedia by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/ Get all ZESTMedia mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], OR, if you have a Yahoo! 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