20 Great Bangladeshi Films of the 21st Century

After the advent of new technologies such as satellite TV, CD/DVD in 1990s and Internet streaming in 2000s, Bangladesh’s mainstream industry, which was once vibrant, started declining. Meanwhile, since the  mid-1980s, there was a slow but steady growth of independent cinema which started representing the national cinema of Bangladesh by documenting politics, culture and society, both in fiction and documentary genres and by participating in international festivals. Primarily these films were artisanal in look – short in length and technically ordinary; gradually they started to be more mature – full length in duration and comprehensive in film techniques. Since 2000 and onward, Bangladeshi cinema is trying to find its own voice internationally, which is often overshadowed by Indian Bengali Cinema that reached its peak by the contributions of Satyajir Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and others. In the new millennium, Bangladeshi cinema has elevated from the ‘artisanal’ to the ‘global’ stage. Also, there was an evolution in the themes of Bangladeshi Cinema – from rural to urban and from traditional-cultural archetypes to post-modern and post-globalized complex realities.

Bamboo Stories: Poetic and Humane

Berlin based director Shaheen Dill-Riaz's latest documentary 'Bamboo Stories' (বাঁশ বৈভব) is an ethnography of the people of North-Eastern Bangladesh who are segregated in the long-practiced divisions of labor -- loggers, rafters, retailers, wholesalers and lease holders, all are the part of the chain -- collecting bamboos from the forests in the hills and selling it in the market.

I liked the observational nature of the documentary and the approach of telling a humane story. I was amazed to see the creative use of the drone shots and was stunned by the background score which enhanced the depth of the story. The last sequence was excellent -- the way bamboos were brought down from the hill to the plane by using the strong current of the stream coming down from the hill.