Communication and Culture of Bangladesh

Telecommunication sector under threat

2012-01-14T09:55:00.000-08:00

The latest news in the telecom sector is "International Terrestrial Cable (ITC) license holders will be allowed/issued International Internet Gateway (IIG) license by default." The ITC license holders have already had meetings with the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (MoPT) and Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission (BTRC) on the matter.

The reason they have shown in issuance of IIG license in their favour is that, as Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL) and Mango Teleservices Limited (Mango) are holding both IIG and ITC licenses, if they are not given IIG license then they don't have any valid business case with ITC license only. One may be surprised to know that MoPT and BTRC may be considering such a request.

Issuance of the IIG license to ITC license holders would clearly cause procedural and legal difficulties for which the government/BTRC could come under questioning. If ITC license holders are of the opinion that BTCL and Mango are a threat to their business and they don't have any valid business case with ITC license only, then we may conclude that these five ITC license holders have submitted incorrect/wrong business documents/

feasibility reports without assessing their business risk factors; or they don't have any clear idea regarding ITC business; or BTRC/MoPT have failed to assess bidders properly and awarded these license wrongly. Before bidding, these ITC license holders knew that BTCL as an incumbent would be allowed one ITC license by MoPT/BTRC and Mango, as a prospective bidder for ITC license and as per the ILTDS Policy-2010, would also be awarded ITC license.

If the decision is taken to give IIG licence to ITC license holders, the telecom sector will face a lot of difficulties.

Since the independence of Bangladesh, the governments and the regulator have never entertained any such unjustified request of any license holder or acted with the policy "one type of license is free if you are awarded another type of license." Thus, it would be unwise for MoPT/BTRC to consider dependency of one license on the other license (i.e. ITC license impact on IIG license or vice versa). Issuance of IIG license to these ITC license holders would just create a very bad precedence.

The application for BWA/WiMax license by Mango Teleservices Limited is under processing by MOPT/BTRC. Mango is holding IIG & ITC license too. Thus, if the ITC license holders are awarded IIG license, then existing BWA/WiMax License holders, i.e. BanglaLion and Augure (Qubee), may also claim IIG and ITC license by default from the MoPT/BTRC. In addition, Mango Teleservices Limited and the two other ITC license holders would also claim for NTTN License by default from MOPT/BTRC, as Summit Communication Ltd. and Fiber@Home are currently holding NTTN and ITC license.

If the existing five ITC license holders are awarded IIG license by the MOPT/BTRC, then the other prospective bidders for IIG License may go to court for third-party remedial measures. It would just stop the whole procedure for the issuance of these licenses.

Issuance of IIG license to the existing ITC license holders would also create a monopoly business environment, because of which the subscribers would suffer at the end of the day. It is now clear that these five ITC license holders have already made a consortium and are asking for undue favour from the MoPT/BTRC. They would also work as a consortium regarding tariff. But we have seen that the subscribers never get benefit from such business consortiums.

Issuance of unjustified IIG license and/or any other license (IGW, ICX, WiMax, etc) would just promote illegal business activities by those operators as there would be no valid legal business case. We may refer PSTN business case in this regard.

Issuance of IIG, IGW, ICX, ITC, NTTN, WiMax license to the existing license holders would be a clear violation of the spirit of the original ILTDS Policy (ref ILTDS Policy 2007), which encourages democratic participation in telecom sector and discourages monopoly. This would create an unhealthy business environment, because of which the whole telecommunication sector would suffer.

These five ITC license holders, in addition to the IIG license, have also applied for IGW, ICX licenses. Now, if they are awarded IGW and ICX license, then the existing IGW License holders (BanglaTrac Telecommunication, NovoTel & Mir Telecommunication) and ICX License holders (Getco Telecommunication & M&H Telecommunication) could also ask for IIG licenses. Which, in turn, would promote more monopoly business environment and no new entrepreneur would be allowed to enter this sector.

MoPT/BTRC should not, under any circumstances, promote any entity for doing monopoly business, or do anything that is not in line with their policy.

First Published: The Daily Star, 14 Jan, 2012

Cinema as the Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction

2011-05-11T00:34:00.000-07:00

Benjamin, Aura and Digital Reproduction
In his ground breaking article entitled 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' Walter Benjamin (Benjamin, 1936) depicted how mechanical reproduction has changed the nature of production and consumption of art work. The most important thing is that the work of art has lost its aura. Aura is indicative of art's traditional association with primitive, feudal, or bourgeois structures of power. For the case of painting, there is always an original one, hanging in a museum or in the house of an elite person. One's claim of seeing Monalisa is not complete until he or she goes to the Louvre and sees the original work of art. But in the case of press, photography or film, one cannot differentiate between the copied one and the master. In the age of reproduction, the work of art loses the aura of originality. Benjamin (Benjamin, 1936) says the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence. Even the printed copy of Monalisa can be found in front of the Louvre which contributes, to some extent, to the loss of aura. According to Robert Kolker (Kolker, 1999), Benjamin, unlike most of his Frankfurt School associates, did not look at this loss of aura with alarm. Rather, he thought about the growth of popular culture as something to be understood not as an oppressive reality, but as a potentially liberating one. The mechanical reproduction system could democratis e art. One who has a still camera can be a creator of a work of art.

Robert Kolker says nothing is so entirely without aura as digital (Kolker 1999: 71). There is no distinction now between 'original' and 'reproduction' in virtually any medium based in film, electronics or telecommunications. Douglas Davis (Davis, undated) says the fictions of 'master' and 'copy' are now so entwined with each other that it is impossible to say where one begins and the other ends, resembling lovers folded together in ecstasy. Any video, audio, or photographic work of art can be endlessly reproduced, without degradation, always the same and always perfect. Digital bytes, with the presence or absence of signals (1 or 0), have created the option of enormous numbers of replication with the same quality of the primary creation. A digital file can be copied from one disk to another storage device and can be released or uploaded in the Internet.

Walter Benjamin says:
The contemporary decay of the aura rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life. Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction (Benjamin, 1936).

Benjamin mentions 'the desire of contemporary masses to bring things closer spatially and humanly', and this desire works in the same way among new and young filmmakers of Bangladesh and other Third World countries to make films from a mass level. The digital film offers making diversified patterns of films -- short or full length, feature or documentary or animation, shot in HDV or on mobile phone, distributed in mainstream theatres or as flash streams on the internet.

Though Benjamin mentioned film as a mode of mechanical reproduction, 35mm film had a certain aura. Especially the production management, huge expense and business and projection state of 35 mm film had the impression of a gigantic task. Anybody who wanted to be a filmmaker, saw its gigantic impression as a hindrance. But the digital film has come to lessen the aura of film. It has created an opportunity for everybody to be a filmmaker. Benjamin's implied idea of welcoming democratisation of art medium has appeared in a truer sense. Not only the production expense or easy management, even the size of digital camera is much smaller than a 35mm camera.

The debate is still going on over whether digital video camera can achieve the quality and aesthetics as of 35mm film. Several directors -- including James Cameron, David Fincher, George Lucas, David Lynch, Robert Rodriguez and Lars von Trier -- have claimed that celluloid film is dead and that future filmmaking will be an all-digital medium. Yet other directors -- including Tim Burton, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino -- have said that they will continue to shoot on film (Barsam, 2007: 368). But the advent of HD (High Definition) or HDV (High-end Digital Video) camera have reached the quality of 35 mm film. Moreover, digital filmmaking offers the option of less expense and time, easy management and more creative control of the director over his/her film. Throughout the world, shooting film in digital format is gaining increasing popularity among makers who want to represent the reality in the film instead of entertainment.

According to Xeni Jardin (Jardin, 2005 cited in Barsam, 2007: 369), digital filmmaking has some advantages in comparison with 35 mm film -- aesthetic and cost advantages.

Holly Willis says, countless pessimists have bemoaned the passing of 'real' film, while as many champions of digital video had heralded the advent of a new democratised form of filmmaking, one that will release us from the tyranny of the Hollywood film industry and the pitfall of the massive consolidation of media within a few transnational corporations (Willis, 2005: 1).The democratic nature of digital film allows more people to be filmmakers. This is especially important in a country like Bangladesh where many talented people want to make films, but the high cost of 35 mm film does not permit it. The low cost and easy management of digital cinema offer new makers a way to start making film and thus changes the cine-scenario of the country.

In big studios, digital cinema is the vehicle of making movies more spectacular and glossy, but in the Third World countries it is considered the new medium for new cinema. This study tends to investigate the potential, trends and problems of digital cinema of Bangladesh. In Bangladesh it remains in its primary phase, however, new filmmakers are proponents of digital cinema. Some senior independent filmmakers have also engaged themselves in making cinema in digital format while some mainstream filmmakers are also showing interest making film in this format.

Bangladesh perspectives
Digital cinema of Bangladesh is only passing through its primary stage. And at this stage, the term 'digital cinema' has become two glamorous words in the cine-scenario of Bangladesh. But the term has created a lot of misnomers at the same time. The technological phenomenon sometimes has been described with wrong interpretations. Even the telefilms broadcast on television channels are sometimes called digital cinema or video fiction as some young makers, many of them from film society background and who dream of making 35 mm films, have tried to apply their film sense in their television productions. Again, the fashionable term is tagged with some ordinary productions made for television channels to enhance credit. Some productions are made in DV camera and transferred into 35 mm. Some productions are shot and edited in digital technology, not sold to television channels, but are never released in mainstream theatres. Others were shot and edited in digital technologies, released in mainstream theatres but not exhibited through professional digital technology. All these productions are called digital cinema in the context of Bangladesh.

Digital technology inspired the digital generation to make films. The government's decision to recognise digital cinema in 2010 has inspired more. The young people of the new generation are well oriented with digital technology. They have grown up digitally -- mobile phones, computers, Facebook. They are living in a visual world -- from billboards on the street to the computer screen at home. So they want to create visual image -- they want to be filmmakers. And the gap between the dream and reality is not very big, with many young people already having started their productions. They reveal their plans of making films on Facebook and on blogs, they collect cast and crew from the online community, they update their production process, release promos on YouTube and invite online friends to see the movie after release. These are going to be really all-digital productions -- pre-production, production, post-production, promotion -- everything is done digitally and with the help of online. If it is a very short film, it is released on YouTube for free. The director needs only the appreciation and criticism from his/her online friends.

The major problem of digital cinema in Bangladesh is its distribution and exhibition. Digital cinema can be distributed and projected in several ways. One is direct projection from the digitally enabled projectors from a hard drive or from similar other external drive. The other distribution systems are satellite systems, terrestrial broadband and the Internet. There is no ideal digitally enabled theatre in Bangladesh for direct projection, not even satellite, terrestrial broadband or the Internet systems for distributing digital cinema. Because of the absence of professional distribution channel and exhibition system, Tareque Masud transferred his digitally made film Ontorjatra (2006) into 35 mm. He went for non-theatrical alternative distribution with the help of film societies throughout the country for his next project, Runway (2010). Tokon Thaakoor made his film Blackout 2006 and has been waiting for five years for its professional release. Morshedul Islam exhibited his film Priotomeshu through an advanced multimedia projector 5000 Lumen. Nurul Alam Atique had to sell his film Dubshatar (2010) to Impress Telefilm because of absence of digitally enabled projection systems. Apekkha (2011) by Abu Sayeed was shown in mainstream theatres with the help of advanced multimedia technology.

However, projector rental is not a professional approach. Bangladesh needs digitally enabled professional cine theatres. This can be done in two ways -- one, digitising the existing theatres, two, establishing new theatres. The problem is, who will do it. The government can develop a digital cine theatre network. This can also be done by entrepreneurs. But until now, there is no sign of that. If the digitally enabled exhibiting theatres cannot be developed, the potentials of digital cinema, the expectations from new cinema will not materialise. Some other non-professional exhibitions, such as exhibition by the rented multimedia projector will be abandoned by the audience. Most of the audience has left the cine theatres decades ago. They prefer to watch movies at home on DVD players or on television. In the cinema hall, if they get the same image and sound as they watch at home, they will reject the so-called digital film. Audience want to see film in theatres, unconcerned about its format. So the projection system has to be improved in terms of in-depth image, surround sound in a comfortable theatre environment. But the utmost precondition is the quality of film. If the digital infrastructure is developed and a good number of quality films are produced every year, then digital cinema can bring a positive change in the declining cine scenario of Bangladesh.

References
Benjamin, W. (2008, originally 1936). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Badmington, N. and Thomas, J. (ed.). The Routledge Critical and Cultural Theory Reader, p. 34-56. Oxon: Routledge.
Kolker Robert. (1999). Film Form and Culture. Boston: McGraw-Hill College.
Davis, D. (undated). 'The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction: An Evolving Thesis/1991-1995'. http://cristine.org/borders/Davis_ Essay.html, undated, accessed on 30 April, 2010.
Barsam, R. (2007). Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film (2nd ed.). New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Allen, M. (2003). Contemporary US Cinema. Harlow: Longman.
Willis, H. (2005). New Digital Cinema: Reinventing the Moving Image. London: Wallflower Press.

First publish in The Daily Star: http://www.thedailystar.net/forum/2011/May/work.htm

New book on Digital Cinema in Bangladesh

2011-03-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

This book tried to investigate the potentials, trends and challenges of digital film in Bangladesh. The study has studied four digital films as cases to understand the digital film situation in Bangladesh. However, the theoretical notions by Walter Benjamin (1936) and Samira Makhmalbaf (2000) were instructive in guiding this study. According to their approach, new technological art medium always liberate and democratize art forms. Enthusiasts indicate that new filmmakers will embrace digital film as the preferred format and create a new cinema tradition in Bangladesh. Responding to that euphoria of technological liberty, this study has examined the potentials of digital cinema in Bangladesh, the trends of existing digital filmmaking practices and problems of digital cinema in Bangladesh. After in-depth analysis and discussion, this study suggests how to progress digital filmmaking practices in Bangladesh.

Lists of Content

Preface
1. Introduction
Film is Dead, Long Live Cinema
Analog versus Digital Technology
Defining Digital Cinema
Origin and Development of Digital Cinema
Digital Intermediate
Distribution and Exhibition
2. The Work of Art in the Age of
Digital Reproduction
Work of Art in the Digital Age
3. Research Framework and Methodology
Exploratory Study
Qualitative Study
Measures: In-depth Interview and Case Studies
Interview Respondents
Selected Films for Case Studies
Limitations of the Study
4. A Historical Account and
Some Digital Productions
The Beginning
The Turn
Digital Mainstream Cinema
Future
Case 1: Ontorjatra
Case 2: Blackout
Case 3: Priotomeshu
Case 4: Dubshatar
5. Potentials, Trends and Problems
Potentials
Trends
Problems
6. Call for a New Cinema?
Digital Deployment in Bangladesh
Recommendations
References
Criticism of a Digital Film: Blackout

40 Years of Media Experiences in Bangladesh: A Critical Overview

2011-01-07T08:38:00.000-08:00

As in other countries, journalism in Bangladesh, too, has experienced three phases. The first was initiated by the politicians, with the media being used as the voice of political parties or for serving political agendas though, for Bangladesh, it was serving the agendas of people also as the country was fighting for rights against West Pakistan central government in 1960s. With time, questions were raised against biased and political journalism and there was advocacy for objective and ethical journalism. Worldwide, behind the introduction of objective journalism, there was a contribution of journalism schools. Today is the age of corporate-owned journalism, a contemporary reality that is both global and local. There are differences in the objective and style of these three kinds of journalism.

Bangladesh as a nation turns 40 in 2011. In this article I will review the trends and developments of journalism in Bangladesh in the last four decades. I will also try to forecast here the trends of the news industry in the coming decade after which Bangladesh will be a 50-year-old nation.

The Ittefaq and Sangbad, two Bangla dailies established in the Pakistan era, are the last two representatives of the first phase of journalism (political journalism), though they can now be identified as doing journalism of the second phase (objective journalism). These two newspapers played historical roles in the different periods of the independence movement. Bangladesh Betar and Bangladesh Television were also involved in different historical moments of the nation. The existence of Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra was transient but it was a very unprecedented radical media during the Liberation War in 1971. Other than a few of these media, all print or broadcast outlets appeared in the last two decades. It is to be noted that these two decades are the age of globalisation based on the idea of a free market economy after the fall of communism. As a result, an influence of capitalist globalisation is felt in the media institutions. On the other hand, in the expanding capitalist activities driven by the globalisation process, media remained as part of that process. The existing media situation around the globe as well as in Bangladesh is both the cause and effect of globalisation.

The length of the second phase of (objective) journalism was short in Bangladesh, and this is the difference with the experiences of other countries. After independence, the necessity of political journalism came to an end, even though we saw it until the end of the 1980s. Ajker Kagoj was a prominent representative of objective journalism. The idea of objective journalism, as repeatedly taught in journalism schools, was reflected in Ajker Kagoj. The founding editor of the newspaper was a graduate from the journalism department at Dhaka University. Ajker Kagoj brought several changes in the journalism practices of the country. Besides objective and ethical journalism, the newspaper showed its inclination towards Bengali culture and decency in approach. The newspaper also provided neat printing quality with the help of the then modern desktop publishing and offset printing technology. A significant change was the participation of the intelligentsia and the readers in the daily. Other than staff editorial writers, intellectuals and even readers started writing in the middle page of the daily. All of them were tagged as columnists, and quickly a civil society started to take shape by writing in the middle page of Ajker Kagoj. Later, novelty in journalism was transferred into Bhorer Kagoj. But this short period of objective journalism disappeared after the advent of Prothom Alo in 1998.

Corporate journalism began with Prothom Alo (PA), with journalists who had come from Bhorer Kagoj. The ownership pattern of the daily compelled the same journalists to shift from objective towards corporate journalism. The leading English daily, The Daily Star (DS), established by SM Ali, was taken by Transcom Group, the owners of Prothom Alo which formed a media conglomeration. The PA-DS duo became influential dailies within a few years. Before them, Janakantha and Muktakantha appeared as corporate media outlets, but they could not influence the media industry. The journalism pattern set by PA-DS is followed by other media outlets of recent times. The question is, what is this pattern?

Before answering this question, it is necessary to describe the socio-economic scenario of Bangladesh in the last two decades. The globalisation process based on free market economy in the world and Bangladesh’s democracy after a prolonged autocratic regime came at the same time in 1990. Now the election-centric, immature democracy was in no way against a free market economy. Rather, the parliamentary democracy welcomed the free market economy with the imperialistic influence of countries like United States or alliances like NAFTA. In this global economic system, Bangladesh was at the receiving end. The peripheral capitalist countries of the Third World like Bangladesh have become the market of globalisation. However, other than the readymade garments industry based on cheap labour and the telecommunications sector based on foreign direct investment, in the 1990s, there arrived a class of traders who mainly imported products from foreign countries. These three sectors were parts of the emerging corporate class. A country of 150 million people meant a big potential market. From the traders’ point of view, there was a need to change people into consumers and a consumer culture became an essential prerequisite of the prevailing economic process.

This responsibility of creating a consumer culture fell on the media. Transcom is a group which import foreign products in Bangladesh and PA-DS are two corporate media owned by Transcom. In that process, the prime roles of media since the late 1990s included serving the interests of respective mother companies, upholding the interests of private or business sector as a whole, flooding the pages with advertisements, serving the news of market and corporate companies, informing readers about products in disguise of news -- and thus creating a habit of purchasing. Other than creating a market and introducing consumer culture, the leading corporate media identified the undisciplined activities of political parties as the main obstacle to the expansion of the business sector. In response, they tried to establish a civil society that would advocate for ‘democracy’, ‘good governance’ and a stable political environment; and the leadership of the society would be at the hands of businesspersons. For the same reason, some of the media outlets supported the military-backed interim government in 2007-08. The civil-corporate-media-military alliance has a unified vision of Bangladesh. By depoliticising all organisations, they want a hassle-free business environment. Developing and establishing the discourse of depoliticisation was one of the key responsibilities of the media.

The channel boom in the first decade of the millennium is another phenomenon in the industry. The pattern of today’s television programmes was set by Ekushey Television (ETV) – especially the news presentation, programme selection and graphical presentation style of ETV which are still followed by other channels. Currently, 12 to 13 channels are operating in the country, with more on the way. But all the channels including Channel I, ATN Bangla and NTV are operating within corporate journalism. These channels are totally dependent on advertisement market and as a part of corporate branding they have sold all of their news slots to advertisers. To get their stakes from the competitive advertisement market, they have made their news slot cheaper. The broadcast channels are submerged in the corporate journalism created by the print media. However, it is also true that in the last decade, the middle class has developed a habit of watching television news daily. The government-controlled news served by Bangladesh Television for decades prior to that kept the audience news-hungry. While the government has freed the print media, it still controls the broadcast media. Channels such as ETV, CSB and Channel One were shut down due to political considerations. Because of the covert threat of government censorship, channels still in operation lack boldness in their reporting.

In the first decade of the millennium, the FM channel arrived as a new phenomenon. Four FM channels based on pop music are now on the air. The target audience of these channels are young people and teens who have grown through the consumer culture or who are eager to access that culture. The channels with English-influenced Bengali accents serve hourly news, traffic updates and stock updates. These channels also include talk shows and interviews along with music. These stations survive on the corporate culture created by other media before them.

Against this trend of corporatisation, community radio is going to be started. This radio will work for the development of the local community. But the ownership and license of community radio are only given to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), thus raising questions of whether they can transcend the existing development discourse.

The introduction of Right to Information Act (RTI) at the end of the first decade of the millennium, initiated by NGOs and supported by leading newspapers, is also an important incident in the existing media environment. In India, RTI was a demand of the people, but in Bangladesh it was pushed by NGOs whose agenda is fixed by foreign donors. Still, community radio and the RTI Act are two important developments in the media scenario.

At this moment, the media situation in Bangladesh is quite different from other countries. Where in other countries newspapers are gradually closing down because of the growth of cyberspace, in Bangladesh, new newspapers are coming into operation. The economy of Bangladesh is expanding and the usage of Internet is less than in developed countries. Arrival of new newspapers complies with the prevailing socio-economic situation in Bangladesh. As a result, not only television channels or FM radio, the print media is also expanding here. It should be noted that, until today, the print media is the most influential media in Bangladesh.

The age of Bangladesh as a nation will be half a century in the next decade. There came a great change in the media sector in the last one and a half decades, making it difficult to forecast what changes will come in the next decade. However, the change in the next decade will not be very radical. A few more television channels will go on air. But the existing advertisement market cannot support, say, 20 channels. So either some channels will not start at all or others will close down. Some more FM radio stations and newspapers might be started, but this media expansion may stop after market saturation.

The mainstream traditional media will face a new challenge in the form of cyberspace. More people will be connected with the web and they will be active netizens. In the last five years, some Bangla blog communities have been formed with a membership of some 200,000. Around a million people are connected on social networking media Facebook. These few hundreds of thousands of people will create an impact by non-professional but citizen journalism. This cyber community may make the mainstream journalists insecure in the coming decade. The traditional media will also try to make their presence felt on the web but their symbiotic relations with other powers will result in a lack of spontaneity characteristic of citizen journalists. A friction between professional and non-professional journalism on the web may well be the media conflict of the next decade.

Cinema(s) of Bengal(s)

2010-04-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

Until 1956, Bengali cinema meant cinema made from Kolkata. It was a big industry within India since 1930s and Bengali Muslims from East Bengal were basically the consumers of the film. However, the international recognition of Satyajit Ray and artistic success of some other filmmakers like Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen from West Bengal, India had created a profound impact on the filmmakers of Bangladesh. The Dhaka-based first full length sound feature film Mukh O Mukhosh (The Face and the Mask) was made in 1956, just after the next year of the release of Pather Pachali by Satyajit Ray. The film industry of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC), was established in 1957. One of the earlier film Ashia (1960), produced from BFDC and directed by Fateh Lohani was highly influenced by Pather Pachali. After the independence, the first internationally recognized film from Bangladesh, Suryo Dighal Bari (The Ominous House, 1979) by Masihuddin Shaker and Sheikh Niamat Ali was also influenced by Satyajit Ray’s neo-realist filmmaking style. The first film Dhire Bahe Meghna (Quiet Flows the River Meghna, 1973) by Alamgir Kabir – one important auteur of post-independence Bangladesh – was a co-production with India. He had cast several actors from India in most of his films. The three great filmmakers of West Bengal – Ray, Ghatak and Sen – all of them either born in East Bengal and later migrated to India after the partition in 1947 or their ancestors were born in East Bengal.

So the plight of partition, or the reminiscence of their homeland were the subjects of some of films by Ray, Ghatak and Sen. Ritwik Ghatak is one of them who never accepted the artificially created partition of India as well as partition of Bengal and he had always talked about the cultural unison of two Bengals. He made an important film Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (The River called Titas) in Bangladesh in 1973. Thus both of the Bengals had influenced each other which was reflected in cultural expressions like literature, theatre and film. It is not surprising that the independent filmmakers of Bangladesh are influenced by art cinema tradition of West Bengal. Zakir Hossain Raju says:

"In an informal setting such as within the film societies, they [the independent filmmakers] watched and discussed western films from Europe, the US and Indian art films before they embarked in making their own films. Therefore the [independent] short films of the 1980s-90s followed the textual forms of these foreign cinemas, especially of the Indian art cinema and Italian Neorealism." (Zakir Hossain Raju, Bengali or Muslim?: Islam, Identity and Art Cinema in Contemporary Bangladesh, Jamini: Cinema and Identity, ed. Ziaul Karim, vol 5, no. 1, 2009)

Satyajit Ray portrayed the cultural identity of Bengal in his films but he had a universal outlook at the same time. Ritwik Ghatak concentrated in the issues of Bengal only – its politics and culture were his areas of concentration; he talked about the cultural unison of Bengalis and he incorporated melodrama and acting style in his films from local folk drama Jatra. Jatra is a form of folk drama of Bengal combining acting, songs, music, dance, characterised by stylised delivery and exaggerated gestures and orations.

But the cinemas from West Bengal and Bangladesh have distinctiveness as well. Since 1947, both of the Bengals are experiencing different political incidents. Bangladesh has gone through a language movement, and a bloody liberation war. The two predominant religions in two Bengals have created different ways of life, different thinking patterns. In earlier politics, culture and economy, Hindu Bengalis were predominant in all senses. Even the Ghatak’s idea of cultural unity of Bengal was awkward for using abundance of Hindu symbols and icons which might work as hindrance to the unity. According to Sugata Sinha, "He [Ghatak] basically considered that Bengali identity had emerged from an archetypical layer of Hindu mythology present in the collective unconscious." (Sugata Sinha, Ritwik Ghatak and Bengali Identity, Jamini: Cinema and Identity, ed. Ziaul Karim, vol 5, no. 1, 2009).

After 1947, Bengali Muslims from East Bengal had got the opportunity to create Dhaka as their own hub of culture and economy. Now Bengali Muslim filmmakers are more interested in portraying their own history and culture which rarely transcend the timeline of 1947. On the other hand the Bengalis of West Bengal, instead of looking back to the common Bengali language and culture, are eager to get their stake in national Indian context. Observers say the future capital of Bengali literature and culture would be Dhaka. The distinctiveness between two Bengals is getting clearer as time passes.

Seminar: Cinema of Bangladesh: Re-reading Popular Culture and Construction of Identity

2009-08-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

The Event

Date: 18 August, 2009, Tuesday, 10:30 am

Vanue: Senate Building, Dhaka University

Organized by: Dept. of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka and Bangladesh Film Archive

Papers
1. “6 Song, 10 Fights and 1 Affair: Re-reading Bangla Cinema”
Presenter: Lotte Hoek, Lecturer, University of Amsterdam
2. “Construction of Identity in the Independent Films of Bangladesh”
Presenter: Fahmidul Haq, Assistant Professor, Mass Communication and Journalism, Dhaka University

Discussants
1. Manosh Chowdhury, Faculty Member, Anthropology Department, Jahangirnagar University
2. Matin Rahman, Filmmaker
3. Zahidur Rahim Anjan, President, Bangladesh Short Film Forum
4. Salimullah Khan, Writer

Abstracts

Presentation 1: “Six Songs, Ten Fights, One Love: Re-reading Bangladeshi Cinema”
By Lotte Hoek

In this paper, I argue that an understanding of popular cinema cannot rely solely on a reading of a film text. Instead, such a text must be placed in its production context and its technological environment before it can function as an object for social scientific enquiry. Currently, the analysis of popular Bangladeshi cinema lacks any thorough engagement with its production context. In this paper, I will highlight one part of the FDC production environment. On the basis of this I will suggest a possible way of re-reading popular Bangladeshi cinema by investigating the diegetic results of the lack of use of wild tracks in the FDC.

Presentation 2: “Construction of Identity in the Independent Films of Bangladesh”
By Fahmidul Haq

This paper tends to analyze how Bengali Muslim identity, the national identity of Bangladesh, is represented in selected independent films. The analysis finds independent cinema of Bangladesh as an influential cultural institution and as an ideal ‘system of representation’ it tries to ‘homogenize’ the nation through depicting Bengaliness, the ethno-linguistic identity approach, as the only identity approach of Bengali Muslims, and it suggests this preferred identity as progressive and modern and portrays Muslimness, the religious identity approach, as the ‘other’ identity which is or should be considered as non-progressive and primitive. As a part of homogenizing the ‘imagined community’, independent cinema widens the prevailing gap between the two conflicting identities – Bengaliness and Muslimness. The findings also suggest that to sustain the ethnic and cultural elements of Bengaliness on the screen, directors don’t hesitate to orientalize themselves to the global audience. The paper highlights and tries to establish popular religion, the syncretic identity approach within Bengali-Muslim identity, which is ignored in prevailing identity discourse in Bangladesh and it examines how this approach is dealt in the independent films.

BLACKOUT: A Vigourous-Bold-Experimental Story Without A Tale

2008-10-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

A one-day-fine-arts-student and poet Tokon Thaakoor starts his journey in the premises of cinematography with Blackout. Not strictly a biography, though, it is a part of the same. He, here, himself apportioned into two, as does a bacterium; the two main protagonists Rafi and Madol are an artist and a poet respectively. In many way, they are identical with Thakoor- above thirty, unmarried, live on a garret (an attic), smitten with reverie-love-lust... all carnal desires. The way the poet (in the Blackout) is overwhelmed of his childhood, it seems, Thakoor is visualizing his autobiography. Though Blackout doesn’t show us the every details of an autobiography, it is certainly a documentation of a part of contemporary youth lifestyle and practice of dreamy obsession, the worse for intoxicating drug or liquor, unmet desire for sex. Specially, it is the documentation of artistry-love-lust of those fresh-blood youths, within a-some hundred yards between Dhaka Fine Arts Institute and Aziz Super Market, by whom the contemporary Dhaka-based art-culture-literature is being practiced and exercised. Rather the director didn’t follow the usual narrative of conventional documentary or feature-film; he went through the complex experimental course of metaphor-metaphysics in addition to animation. Probably, it is the Blackout presents before us with large-scale experimental relish ever in our country.

The prime criterion of this video fiction is its statelessness; self-perception dominates here as does in experimental short story. A used-to-viewer of simple narrative cinematography doesn’t feel ease here. This is rather an expression of feelings of this transition period youth- as a poetry, or as an artwork, partly revealed, the rest remains unrevealed. Blackout will definitely touch those young afflicted with creativity-love-lust-liquor-agony; also those non-young interested to realize the present-day youth. Others may refuse to accept Blackout, due partly to its unconventional complex type of presentation, and partly to its immoral (!) unaccustomed (!) commentary. Fortunately, it was not captured in celluloid; in that case, the scythe of the censor-board would be sharper. Here, in Blackout, an artist sketches a mature penis and calls it missile; masturbation contexts are there; character here is both homo- and hetero-sexual. Films released from FDC shows raw nudity, unreliably though; even then, those easily pass the censor-board. Nevertheless, undoubtedly, Blackout would be caught by the board.

In brief, the story of this film is: poet Madol and artist Rafi lives in a garret of two compartments. They sleep together, share all their weal and woe. Rafi named his room Tahiti, the name he borrowed from the Tahiti series of paintings of European Artist Gauguin. Rafi has a girlfriend, he imagines her as Tahiti-girl, loves her, and even wants to marry her. But the girl Miti, though doesn’t disregard him, not certainly loves him. Rafi wants to portrait Miti, he wants Miti offers him a sitting as a model for that. Miti doesn’t exactly want to be a model for him, but for commercial advertisement. At the end of the film, she flies away from Rafi’s Tahiti Island to the Island Bali; she becomes model of an advertisement. However, before that, their relation came off. Another protagonist, Poet Madol is a homebird, depressed; in many of his poetry, there is reference of a girl Shalmoli. Visibly, their relationship didn’t develop anyway. Shalmoli is in her imagination: far away from the town, laid down beneath thousands of Marigold flower on a foggy open meadow, he approaches her crossing the meadow, uncovers her face of flowers, and kisses her. The snapshot of her face covered with colorful flowers remains deeply static in his mind; nothing more than this he can remember. Rafi has got another world outside the room- Miti, Dadu (common Dadu, the living legendary Grandfather of all at Fine Arts Institute), many other friends he often meets on road, senior artist Dhruba Esh, and he has aimless walking on footpath. On the contrary, Madol has a world of one room, the top of the roof, standing on that bickering through beckoning with the little girl at the neighbor building, and a vast world of imagination, where he remember an incidence of his childhood- rubbing his nose on the ground as a punishment for smoking, the very moment of blowing the trumpet of the missing Baul, and some women like Shalmoli-Shokuntola. If Rafi’s room is Tahiti, then Madol’s room is Mokam, where he composes poetry in Photoshop instead of MS-Word. When Rafi goes on a dating with Miti, Rafi has got the option of masturbation. The rest of the film shows casual conversation between Rafi and Madol, sitting or lying on the bed; sometimes discuss on important issues however.

In the film, there is no-story in the above-described story. No-story is the story of this film. So what is the film about? The director wanted to visualize his Time. Madol writes a poetry on a photoshop file: Time, you greeny witch/ you live across the earth/ in the twilight zone/ you sketch the picture of the sunken ship/ with the dead sailor’s bones. Here in Blackout, Dhaka Fine Arts Institute and Aziz Super Market is present as it is, as well is present contemporary singer Kofil Ahmed and his songs, artist Dhruba Esh, writer Ahmad Sofa and his Pushpo Brikshya and Bihongopuraan. This is how accurately the director wanted to present his Time before us. Multiple presence of the song Time, you greeny witch... also indicates that. However, he wanted to visualize his time, but only a part of that could he visualize. Except a still picture of the Buddhijibi Smritishoudho (Martyr Monument) at Royer Bazaar, no other context of his present-time own national politics or fanatic fundamentalism was visualized. The commercial usage of the female in this globalization era is presented through the character Miti a bit; something in reference to politics or others could have been represented through the main two protagonists.

Through the two principal protagonists (probably the two halves of director himself), the references of cannabis-liquor-masturbation-homosexuality were visualized. These were so long been avoided carefully in the visual media of our country. The social structure and the viewers’ conservative mental structure might be the leading cause there. Tokon Thakoor, overcoming that conservatism, took a groundbreaking enterprise obviously. Homosexuality demands a further elaboration in this regard. The two main protagonists pass their casual time together, one leaning on another, or one makes another his pillow. Touching each other or passing one’s hand lightly caressingly over another’s is a very natural for them. Rafi makes inquiries whether Madol has taken something after taking liquor. Their attraction for each other is deep, but the expression is quite natural. Rafi has a Miti, Madol is devoid of any female mating. Once, Miti leaves Rafi. The only real friend remains is Madol, with whom Rafi can share each and everything in the world. Depressed Rafi expresses his pain to Madol; to let alone those pains, they together sings and dances. In the meantime, it is revealed that Madol is truly depressed; he expresses that to singer Kofil: he finds nothing good in anything. In a very sensitive moment of self-contempt, Rafi wants to kiss Madol. Madol says, “O my Elton John, this is Bangladesh”. In response to that, Rafi come back telling, “Oh I was about to forget that”. No other but this kissing scenario represents the homosexuality. Rafi didn’t get Miti, nor did Madol Shalmoli. The real friendship, the real love sustains between Madol and Rafi. Taking reference from Freud’s psychoanalysis, it is a sort of homosexuality. There are a number of artistic films on homosexuality and lesbianism in Europe and America. Specially, Gay-films are studied in queer studies. Molly Haskel terms these films as Buddy Movies. Tokon touches this special field in his artwork.

In addition to the subject matter, he also experimented in relation to the artistry form. Let me repeat, it is the Blackout, the full-length video-film, presents before us with large-scale experimental relish ever in our country. The complex narrative is structured taking help from metaphor-metaphysics. Thakoor acknowledges and dedicates this film to Hrithwik Ghotok and Kuroshawa as his Murobbi (Senior) at title-card, though no sign of Hrithwik’s melodrama or Kuroshawa’s Samurai culture is observed. Rather, it seems he is a follower of Bunuel or Fellini. The horse presented here with a great metaphor. Thakoor’s production company is Astabol (a stable for horse) Love Factory. The calling-bell of Madol-Rafi’s garret sounds the neigh. The neigh sound is also used several times in the soundtrack of Ornob. At the end of the title card, a horse is seen coming from a mountain down along the valley. May be, it symbolizes youth, power, force and virility. Thakoor used foggy morning for his metaphysics. To symbolize blowing trumpet, to make the running of Rafi to flower-cover faces of Shalmoli dreamy, he used foggy mornings. Nevertheless, the limitations of the director must also be noted. One among those is: still pictures of Rafi and Miti are being visualized while in soundtrack, lovely poetic but enigmatic dialogues are being heard. After this sequence, Rafi and Miti is seen coming up on a staircase wearing wedding dress. After that, they stand before a gate. Rafi wants to open the lock on the gate, but the lock doesn’t response. Embarrassed Rafi told Miti that he had brought a wrong key. Here this dreamy scene came to an end. The scene is really nice as a concept that Miti is not going to be his life-partner. This scene could have been visualized in a more attractive and artistic way: let us visualize ourselves a white staircase, no wall around, only emptiness all around, at the end of the staircase there is a metaphysical gate, and a lock of that sort... We may rememorize the scenario of Federico Fellini’s Eight And Half. There are a number of long shot in Blackout, but the action of big close-up will be able to attract the vision of alert viewers. The question of excessive big close-up remains unanswered. Does Thakoor, this way, like to create his own cinematographic language? Visualization of adolescent and young Madol, dissolving the time boundary, is praise-worthy presentation of the director.

The acting phenomenon here is very casual, so reliable and praise-worthy. Tanvir Hasan and Rahul Ananda deserves appraisal for working as Rafi and Madol character respectively. But, Tina as Miti is not so spontaneous. Specially, her dialogue throwing was weak enough. Bappi Ashraf, Borsha Bivabori, Belayet Hossain, Zuena Ferdous Mitul and Dadu worked very well. The conversation between Rafi and Dhruba Esh could have undergone more perfection. Dialogue in this frame seemed to be a bit irrelevant. Rafi comes out of Dhruba Esh’s residence, even then their conversation at floor is seen. Is it editorial problem, or unconventional whimsy of narrative, remains undetermined?

One of the major contributions of this film is its music. Shayan Chowdhury Ornob is a young musician, known for fusion of Bangla songs. He used western musical instrument tremendously here, especially notable here is piano. He is also the sound director of the dreamy part of the film. Therefore, he could handle the music and literary part himself with proven creativity. He proved his excellence in singing the songs “why is the moment so long” and “Time, you greeny witch...”. The former he sang with his own characteristic tone and tune; and the later, actually a poetry of renowned poet Ronojit Das, “Time, you greeny witch...” carried us to a desert. Kofil Ahmed’s song “I eat fire, Sleeps in fire...”, “Be here friend...”, “Jesus....” made a different exaggeration in this film. His songs, non-romantic non-rebellious, are well-put in Thakoor’s film.

Most of the videography, editing and sound editing was perfectly performed by young genius Sameer Ahmed. He has done a great job with tremendous perfection. The superimposition technique, ultimately mandatory for dreamy scenarios, used by the editor is excellent to acknowledge. Along with documentation of the script, like documentary, camera moved without prior preparation. Drinking scenario at garret is to be noted here. The editor proved his expertise in visualizing, at the end of the film, the artwork of Picasso-Dali-Van Gough-Matisse-Bonnard-Klee-Chagall-Jackson Pollock-Kandinski-and-others, photography of known-unknown faces, attractive and erotic images of female body-parts within moments. In the background of this collage, along with journey-music soundtrack of Azarbizan-Iranian sufi singer Ashik Hasan Iskandari, there was soundtrack of Nigerian singer Fela Kuti and Femi Kuti, songs of Bimol Baul, Lalon’s songs, and Don Mackmillan’s Van Gugh song… Starry starry night...

Another notable portion of Blackout is its animation and imagery. Sketching, art direction, playing card design and title animation- this Herculean job was done by Abdul Halim Chanchal. Such extensive animation works were never used in Bangla film before. The director visualized the metaphorical scene “a lonely eagle at moonlit night” with the help of animation, in addition to the title-card at starting and at the end. Chinmoy Devorshi paid his utmost care in visualizing this scene, and the scenario of coming down of the tired horse from the mountain along the valley. The animation at the end title card conceptualized from Dali’s “persistence of memory” is a nice creation indeed. Richard Rozario has done a great job in the field of still photography. A complete sequence was synthesized with the help of still photography only.

Well, Blackout, a 97-minute-video-format film, is straight in its statement, is experimental in its form-technique. Director Tokon Thakoor proved his talent-maturity in his very first film. It seems, he had a long course of preparation before going in for Blackout.

Originally written in Bangla; translated by Auboni Aunarjo.

For Bangla article visit: http://www.somewhereinblog.net/blog/fahmidulhaqblog/28861673

Brick Lane: A Tale of Transformation of an Immigrant Woman

2008-08-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

One can easily discover the thematic similarities between the film Brick Lane (2007) by British director Sarah Gavron and Paroma (1984) by the Indian director Aparna Sen. After serving her husband and caring for her children for several years, an ordinary housewife suddenly discovers that she has passed a large part of her life meaninglessly, not taking car of her own need. Of course, these feelings appear within herself after contact with a young man and she discovers how she has been deprived of the charms of life, how her mind and body have been dispossessed of heavenly happiness on Earth. Gradually, the late-thirties woman turns into a lover from a conventional housewife and feels like a young woman who has fallen in love for the first time. And most importantly, she becomes self-determined and self-asserting.

It is the first feature film by the documentary and short filmmaker Sarah Gavron. Though the title of the film is Brick Lane, adapted from the best selling novel of Monica Ali of the same title, you will not find the presence of Brick Lane or the Bangla Town, London much in the film. The storyline progresses as an indoor family drama. After the incident of 9/11, the ethnic Muslims faced racial hatred from white natives which is there in the text; even then you cannot say it is a political film. Rather, it is a story of a woman who came to London in the 1980s as the wife of an immigrant Bangladeshi. The story tells us about the crisis and relationship within the family and above all, the transformation of the housewife into a self-determined woman.

The adolescent Nazneen had passed her playful life with her sister Hasina by running through green and rich paddy or yellow mustard fields. But Nazneen's life changed when from the wide paddy field she was sent to a flat in Brick Lane, at the age of 17, as the wife of a fat and ugly looking 'educated' man, Chanu Ahmed. From a village girl she becomes an obedient housewife. He goes outside only for shopping. Chanu and Nazneen have two daughters. The elder daughter Shahana, aged 13, likes the western lifestyle and chooses mini skirts or jeans as her dress, which is not appreciated by her father. But the younger daughter Bibi, unlike her sister, is habituated with the Bangladeshi way of living.

In the early part of the film, Chanu resigns from his office because he was not offered the long-awaited promotion. His ego as an 'educated man' created financial uncertainty in the family which he tried to overcome by borrowing money secretly from a lender. But Nazneen came forward with a job which she can do by sitting at home. In relation to her job, she met Karim, a young man, who supplies garments to housewives for sewing. An emotional and physical relationship develops between Nazneen and Karim. From the affair, Nazneen comes to know what real love is. From a soft-spoken ordinary woman she gradually turns into a happy and bright woman. Meanwhile, Chanu tries to leave London, where he finds himself unfit and looks for jobs in Bangladesh. But their elder daughter Shahana does not want to leave London. She knows London, not Bangladesh, as her home.

Then there comes the event of 9/11 which made the living of Muslim immigrants in London difficult. To protect themselves, the young generation started upholding Islam as their identity. Karim becomes the leader of the community and with his newly-kept beard, he becomes a sincere Muslim. A community meeting has been called to decide how the racial hatred they are facing can be dealt with. Chanu and Nazneen attend the meeting where Karim is a speaker in favour of Islamism.

Though the character of Chanu is driven by patriarchy, his extensive reading makes him a humanist as well; he stands against Islamism. Chanu's speech in the community meeting was convincing, but not enough to divert the Islamists. He leaves the meeting and asks himself whether this is the right time to go back. Surprisingly, we see Nazneen hold Chanu's hand for the first time. We see the couple walking, holding hands, in the lonely street at night. The long shot creates an impression that Nazneen is not acknowledging Karim's stand in the period of ethnic crisis and supports her husband. Nazneen is not only becoming financially solvent but also growing politically aware and mature.

Karim asks Nazneen to divorce Chanu and marry him but Nazneen refuses. Nazneen came to know, after everything, that her husband and children are her reality and Brick Lane is her home. She joins her 'short-haired and smoker' neighbour Razia who also provided her the earlier job with Karim, in a sewing job. Nazneen tells Chanu that she cannot go and Chanu says that he cannot stay. Chanu leaves London. The film ends with the scene showing a happy and settled mother and her daughters playing in the white courtyard of the house complex after snowfall. But the plane in the sky makes Nazneen's happy face a bit gloomy with worries.

Though the film is on the Bangladeshi diaspora in London, little participation of Bangladeshis can be mentioned here. The main character Nazneen was performed by Tannishtha Chaterjee who is a rising Indian-Bengali actress in the art house cinema circuit. Satish Kaushik, a known face of Bollywood acted as the character of Chanu. Christopher Simpson as Karim is also not an ethnic Bangladeshi. Other than casts, there was little participation by Bangladeshis as crew. Even the Bangladesh part of the film was shot in West Bengal, India.

The responsibility of the musical score was on Joselin Pook of Eyes Wide Shut and Gangs of New York fame. She has successfully created her scores, but she used very few Bangladeshi or Indian musical tracks. But Pook's soundtrack was really mystic and created the environment of the internal complexity and crisis of the struggling characters.

Sarah Gavron and her cinematographer Robbie Rayan have extensively used close-ups to create their own film language. Especially, some big close-ups of Nazneen's face have been used to describe her internal crisis, transformation and dilemma. Tannishtha Chaterjee was very successful in expressing that complexity. Nazneen's dark brown look could easily represent a Bangali housewife. Her expressions of an introvert and fearful outsider on the streets of Brick Lane perfectly suit the character. Her hesitant involvement in the intimate scenes with Karim reflects reality. Her transformation was not revolutionary, rather gradual and natural. Her hesitance and softness were carried out to the end of the film; hence, her change does not shock us. She regrets the proposal of marriage by Karim and Chanu's insistence to go back in such a soft but firm tone that both of them could not circumvent the position of their 'own' girl. Satish was also successful in portraying his character and in the true sense, it was his show. Nazneen may be the main character of the film, but the narrative was carried by Chanu, who keeps the events live. Albeit his self-contradictory character and ugly look, his style and wise roles do not make him a villain of the text. Except for his figure, we do not hesitate to applaud Satish (Bangladeshi men are not usually so fat). Christopher Simpson also performed well as Karim.

The cinematography was stunning in capturing the bright and colourful nature of Bangladesh. The London part was gloomy. The opposite weather of the opposite worlds can be felt by the which convey Nazneen's reminiscence of her adolescence. Also, the indoor scenes of movement were shot with a hand held camera, especially when Chanu runs to beat his elder daughter, Shahana. Rayan created tension and drama in those scenes. In the novel, the Bangladesh part was stretched with much detailed description. For adaptation's sake, Sarah had to cut it very short with slices of scenes with smooth cuts which was a right choice by the editor.

Paroma's transformation was aesthetic and psychosexual; internationally acclaimed photographer Rahul inspired her in exploring her dormant art sense. Rahul appreciated her skill of playing the sitar. But in Brick Lane, the transformation of Nazneen was economic and psychosexual; the catalyst Karim was no talent but an ordinary small businessman. Hence Nazneen represents thousands of immigrant housewives or hundreds of thousands women back in Bangladesh and makes the film realistic and believable.

First Published: http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2008/08/01/film.htm

Fahmidul Haq Talks on Mainstream Bangla Cinema in The Daily Star Weekend Magazine

2008-05-30T10:31:00.001-07:00

Bangla Cinema: An Industry in Decay
By Kajalie Shehreen Islam
30 May, 2008

The theme and storyline of Bangla cinema has taken several shifts since the 1970s. Fahmidul Haq, an assistant professor at the department of Mass Communication and Journalism at Dhaka University, says this shift ranges from social storytelling to high tone violence.
“The major genre of films made in the 1970s,” says Haq, “was social, particularly rural social life such as Lathial and Sujon Sokhi (1975) and Sareng Bou (1979). In the 1980s, the major genres were costume-fantasy, for example, Nagin (1980), Banjaran (1983) and Beder Meye Josna (1989) and action (Jony, 1983; Nasib, 1984). In the 1990s we saw two more genres: teen romance (Chandni, 1991; Keyamat Theke Keyamat, 1993) and violence (Danga, 1992; Ammajan, 1999). The present decade,” says Haq, “is wholly dominated by violent films with pornographic insertion (out of text hard core 'cut pieces' and within text soft pornography).”
The song and dance routine, according to Haq, who has co-authored the recently published book Bangladesher Chalochchitro Shilpo: Sangkote Janosangskriti (The Film Industry in Bangladesh: Popular Culture in Crisis) along with Dr. Gitiara Nasreen, has not changed over the years but the nature of visualisation has. “Once, songs in Bangla films were used as a romantic expression of the protagonists and became very popular among the audience. But in recent times, they have been used as spectacles of sexually explicit materials with appealing dance.” After the drive of the special task force led by RAB in late 2007, however, Haq says that the making of so-called vulgar films (which are actually violent films with vulgar songs) has stopped. With people expressing their satisfaction about the retrieved cine environment, some directors have taken up making social films again which are drawing an audience.
Technology and cinematic techniques in Bangla cinema have also deteriorated. With the decline of the industry since the 1980s, the FDC studios and cinema halls have not been renovated or updated with the latest technologies, rather, their condition has worsened. “Very recently, a digital lab has been incorporated in the FDC and a few theatres in the capital have introduced DTS technology,” says Haq, “but we are yet to see the effects of new technology established in FDC.”
According to Haq, there have been no auteurs in recent years as there were in the1960s and 1970s such as Zahir Raihan, Alamgir Kabir, Salauddin, Subhash Dutt and Amjad Hossain, and so more decline in terms of cinematic technique and representation.
The stream of independent or alternative films, however, has improved over the years and achieved international recognition. “But these films are not viewed by the broader audience of the country,” says Haq. “The target audience of these films are international film festivals and the advanced and literate audiences of Dhaka. Some of the films produced by TV channels are enchained in TV premieres.” The shutting down of prominent theatres indicates the decline of the cine business, says Haq.
Just the phrase “Bangla cinema” evokes images of brutal violence and vulgarity, but how big a problem are they really? According to Fahmidul Haq, neither violence nor vulgarity are problems if films are well-made and refers to many critically acclaimed Hollywood and Bollywood films with violent and sexual content. In Bangladesh, however, the problem is that such films have no grading or ratings.
“During our research, we found that 22.36% of the audience were adolescents with no entertainment options other than going to the movies. This is where the problem lies,” Haq points out. Other than that, he believes that the worries of middle class civil society around only the vulgarity of Bangla cinema is more an expression of religion-driven morality and “sympathy from a better class” towards the lower class “rickshawala” audience. The main problem, he thinks, lies elsewhere, in the total decline of cinema in terms of storyline, cinematic technique and lack of originality.
Most mainstream filmmakers today give the audience as an excuse for their work, claiming to be giving viewers what they want. This is a largely false claim, however, seeing as that the audience, especially those living in peripheral towns who do not even have access to television, have little choice and so go for whatever is offered, becoming a sort of captive audience of such films. While working on their book, Dr. Gitiara Nasreen and Fahmidul Haq conducted an audience survey in which they found that a large part of the audience (37%) wanted to watch social films or films that could be enjoyed with the family. Some of them (24%) wanted films with good stories. Though women comprised a large part of the audience of Bangla cinema in the past, today, they hardly ever go to theatres due to the content of the films themselves as well as the environment of the cinema halls.
The cost of making a film ranges from 50 and 80 lakh takas, depending on the scale and grandeur of the song-and-dance routines. Though the exact profit margins for these films are unknown, according to the FDC website, the organisation paid Tk. 6 lakh 38 thousand in revenues to the government in 2004-2005.
As with everything, the government has a major role to play in the development of the film industry in Bangladesh and this includes infra-structural development. “The government never had a plan to nurture the popular media,” claims Fahmidul Haq. “Its role should not be only to collect taxes or even just prevent vulgarity. It has to have a plan and policy to improve the overall situation of the sector.” A film can overcome language barriers and play a vital role in society through entertainment and teaching, says Haq. “The government must consider cinema an important aspect of popular culture and medium of entertainment.”
Watching films on a big screen should be a completely different experience from watching them at home, believes Haq, who is currently doing his doctorate abroad in Cinema Studies. He suggests a number of ways in which this can be done -- by establishing cineplexes in major towns and introducing the latest cine technologies, by supporting filmmakers through regular grants, producing human resources through the establishment of a film institute, film centres and a film archive.
Before, a good story was enough for the success of a film, but now, with so many entertainment options, the audience want more. "You have to project a colourful movie in a cool theatre with good décor, widescreen and Dolby digital facilities," says Haq. "You have to provide the audience with visual pleasure, recreating the aura of film watching, making the audience think it's different, larger than life. You have to alter TV viewers to movie goers, and that is a big challenge.”
Haq also believes that in this day and age, with the rising popularity and availability of media content on the internet, censorship is a dying concept and should be liberalised. “The government has to respect the freedom of expression of the creator. Censorship means controlling creativity. Since the 1960s, countries have been liberalising censorship. The questions of sex, violence, religion or morality can be easily met by a grading system.” Many countries have boards but to certify or register films, not to censor them, and are even known as film certification boards, says Haq.
“In our country, the Film Censor Board never worked as it should have,” says Haq. “It was used to pass bad ones and act as an obstacle for good films. The corruption of some boards was an open secret. The Censor Board was a total failure in controlling so-called vulgarity, which is considered to be the board's prime duty.”
An improvement in the quality of films accompanied by the latest technology and a good environment in theatres can bring people back to cinema halls. “You have to make filmmaking difficult (in a positive sense) for directors and producers which requires extensive preparation,” says Fahmidul Haq. Instead of making several low-budget films, make fewer but better films with the same budget, export them. “There is a Bangladeshi audience in many parts of the world, you just have to explore the world market and provide quality films for them.”

Book Review> Film Industry of Bangladesh: Popular Culture in Crisis

2008-05-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

Published On: 2008-05-03
Star Books Review
The rise and steady decline of our cinema
Nazma Yeasmeen Haq recommends a scholarly work on movies to readers

Although not unprecedented, yet Bangladesher Cholochitro Shilpo assuredly is rather unique in the sense of its being the product of a research work carried out systematically and that in turn attains academic standard as a thesis. The book raises a number of questions, diagnoses the malaise that has been eating into the vitals of our film industry, in particular since the 1980s. Once the diagnosis is made correctly, etiology is determined and thus very confidently the writers come up with a prescription to be administered to cure the ills of the disease prevalent in the films that are there.

The factors that are inextricably related to the making of a film that ideally ought to cater to the taste of a wide spectrum of viewers, thus qualifying it to be of a popular genre, have very ably been dealt with by the authors. One can accomplish this only when one has a full grasp of the subject one is involved with. Only those with an intention of delivering things beneficial to society can be so succinct and painstaking in their endeavour, as we see the authors progress in their work. Trying to mend or fill a cavernous hole in our filmdom that has apparently come to exist demands much tenacity on the part of its doers. As the writers themselves have stated, coming back to trends that are healthy in essence might, although they can be considered as an achievement, nevertheless cause a feeling of a sense of complacency about it that must not be there in the right frame of one's mind. That is because it would only mean moving to zero from a minus from where it is a very long way to reach the positive. This assertion tells us, the readers, about the abyss we are in in terms of having access to one of the vital social outlets of recreation in our lives.

The authors have been much methodical in tracing the history of film making in this part of our region through a synoptic treatment of it in a chronological order, which is very useful to a reader to check for quick reference. As it is, in these days of haste, most people go for reading things that are presented in a concise form and exactly this is fulfilled by this particular presentation. One gets a very clear view of the growth and development of films both in terms of their quality, quantity and genre along with the proceedings of the chapters that are arranged as clapstick 1 to clapstick 7. Designating the chapters with terminologies of film thus keeps reminding one of what the book deals with that often transforms it into a film in print.

The authors have applied primarily a methodology of survey research to collect data for their purpose. Content analyses supplemented by audience analysis have revealed the quality of the content of three films of the present time that are absolutely devoid of any sense of purpose, let alone some residual sense of beauty which is part and parcel of any creative work. To a sensible person such a job is truly a product of empty-headed people who think that they can make viewers consume whatever they feed them. This myth that keeps film makers engulfed in their daydreams has been altogether dispelled by analysing the responses of the audience statistically. Demand for a good film has been indicated even by people from lower income groups. Such viewers are more often than not taken as primary consumers of low quality films. The indication of the authors regarding this make-believe perception of the film makers is most palpable in their strongly worded utterances.

The latter part of the book deals elaborately with the erosion that has consciously been brought about by many associated with the film industry. A regression of a vicious nature thus has taken place, creating an abyss. When the authors wistfully talk about the lost glory of cinemas, one feels a kind of frustration knowing that there was once a time when the cinema hall was not only a centre for entertainment but also a hub for social interaction in a community.

The most vital lesson one learns by going through this book is that the audience by and large demand good films the same way they ask for other amenities of life since wholesome entertainment is part of life, society and our culture. Dedicating this very recently published book to the memory of the unforgettable Hiralal Sen is laudable, although his production is not recognised as the first film of Bangladesh owing to some debatable issues.

Since the focus of the book is on the intensity of decay in popular culture in terms of film making, the prescriptive approach contained in the last chapter is most useful as a set of recommendations. To highlight the contrast between present day films and quality films of yesteryears, the authors could have incorporated content analysis of a couple of films from the latter. Also the photo frame on the front cover page could have had a display of the same to draw a distinction between these two classes of films rather than having all from a bunch of incredulous ones. This would have been more in keeping with the sub-title of the book.

We wholeheartedly agree with the authors that we too love to see films and therefore would like to see how early things can be put back on the right track. Let us raise a slogan echoing the authors that we demand healthy entertainment through films.

Nazma Yeasmeen Haq is a critic and Principal, Radiant International School, Dhaka .

A New Book on Popular Cinema of Bangladesh

2008-03-19T01:24:00.000-07:00

A new research based book on popular cinema of Bangladesh by Giti Ara Nasreen and Fahmidul Haq has been published from Shrabon Prokashoni in the Ekushey Bookfair, February 2008. The book is now available at Shrabon's showroom at Shahbag book market.

For an impression, here are some relevant information:

Title: Bangladesher Chalochchitro Shilpo: Sangkote Janosangskriti
(The Film Industry of Bangladesh: Popular Culture in Crisis)
Authors: Giti Ara Nasreen and Fahmidul Haq
Publisher: Shrabon Prokashoni
Cover: Robin Ahsan
Number of Pages: 186
Price: BDT 200

Lists of Contents

Acknowledgement

Clapstick 1
Wide Angel: Film as Popular Culture

Clapstick 2
Flashback: The History of Film of Bangladesh (1996-1999)

Clapstick 3
Zoom-in: Contemporary Trends of Film Industry

Clapstick 4
Slow Motion: Government, Censor Board and Film of Bangladesh

Clapstick 5
Mise-en-scene: Textual Analysis--What Do Public Swallow?

Clapstick 6
Close-up: The Face of the Audience and the Theatres

Clapstick 7
Deep Focus: Solution Formula of the Crisis

End Notes, References of Stills and References

Mass Media in Bangladesh: A Brief Overview

2007-12-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

After 1990, in a changed global economic and political situation, the scenario of Bangladeshi media was also changed as consistent with global and regional media scenario. Globalization demands market liberalization along with the liberalization of media as well. In that process, though the government of Bangladesh always heavily controlled the state owned radio and television channels but, in the early 90s, they gave permission to broadcast the satellite channels commercially. As a result, Bangladeshi audience was flooded by immense of foreign television channels, which had only the experience of Bangladesh Television (BTV) before 1990s.

The electronic media of Bangladesh is expansive at the moment. Now there are eight private satellite channels, which broadcast entertainment programs and news, in general. There are two FM radio channels, major programs of which are music and news. In media discourse, community radio is a much-talked issue but the government is yet to give permission of any community radio. According to the National Media Survey (NMS) in 1998, the national reach of the various media was radio 39%, television 42%, newspapers/magazines 15%, and cinema 17%. (Chowdhury, 2003: 107)

Just after the landmark of 1990, there was a ‘boom’ of print media. In 1990, the beginning of globalization and ending of direct and indirect military rule, of more than one decade, occurred simultaneously. On December 6, 1990, the first Caretaker Government, which was formed to arrange a free and fair election in the process of democratization, withdrew a newspaper control regulation from Special Powers Act, 1974. With this step, obtaining registration for a newspaper became easier. In a country of 130 millions of people, though only about 1.3 million of copies of newspapers are sold daily, there were 300 dailies in Bangladesh at the end of the millennium. (BCDJC, 2003: 4) For electronic media, there was one TV and another radio channel owned by the government. But for print media, it is an all-private-ownership show, mostly by corporate companies, which replaced politicians.

According to NMS in 1998, 15% of population read newspaper at least once a week. But newspaper reading is still an urban habit. Around half of city dwellers (44%) read newspapers against 10% in rural areas. (Chowdhury, 2003: 107) According to a study conducted by the Press Institute of Bangladesh in 1994, the findings of which were released in 1998, only 12% of the readerships consider newspapers to be credible and about 55% believe that there is a freedom of expression. The factors here include government intervention, pre-censorship, political pressure, obstacles put forward by different quarters, lack of neutral outlook and dependence of newspapers on government advertisements. (Rahman and Ahmed, 2004)

Although Article 39 (2) of Bangladesh constitution guarantees (a) the right of every citizen to freedom of speech and expression and (b) freedom of the press, there are 20 constraining laws, including Official Secrets Act, designed to repress freedom of expression. The specific areas of restrictions are related to the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence. After the strong demand of journalists and civil society, the government has decided to introduce Right to Information Act in 2007.

However, since 1990, Bangladeshi newspapers enjoy moderate level of press freedom as per the government control is concerned. But the electronic media is deprived of enjoying that freedom. Not only the state owned BTV or Bangladesh Betar (the radio channel), private TV channels are also under close supervision of the government. In 2007, the military backed present Caretaker Government, which took power on January 11, 2007 after series of political violence, ruled a state of emergency and the media went again under control and lost the gained freedom.

Press freedom in Bangladesh is also restrained by physical harassment of journalists in Bangladesh. Six journalists were killed and 282 injured, mostly the local reporters, in attacks across the country in three years till December 2003. (Rahman, 2004: 7) According to a study by Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF), Bangladesh’s position is the 118th in terms of press freedom and it is because ‘political parties constantly endanger the lives of journalists’. (Rahman, 2004: 8) The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on March 5, 2004 described Bangladesh as the most violent country for newspersons in Asia. (Rahman, 2004: 71) Besides governmental control by laws and strict watch and physical harassment against journalists, corporate control by advertising and other media business related matters, restricts media to perform proper journalism.

Reference

Chowdhury, Afsan (2004). Media in Times of Crisis: National and International Issues. Shrabon. Dhaka.
Rahman, Golam and Ahmed, Helal Uddin (2004). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh. Multimedia CD. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Dhaka.
BCDJC (Bangladesh Centre For Development, Journalism and Communication) (2003); Madhyam (Bangladesh Media Directory); BCDJC; Dhaka.
Rahman, Mahfuzur (2004). The State of Media in Bangladesh. News Network. Dhaka.

Reporting on HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh: Media Content Analysis

2007-11-19T02:23:00.000-08:00

Introduction
While HIV/AIDS is a key health issue in the world, the role of media is very important to create awareness against the fatal disease. In several studies in the area of communication, it was found that mass media can be used for informing and awareness building of any issue, though interpersonal level of communication could be the best way for persuasion and behavioral change of people. On the other hand, the capacity of mass media in influencing behavior is no less important in respect to its cost-effective nature and its cumulative effect on the population. For Bangladesh, standing in the edge of the risk of spreading HIV/AIDS in epidemic form, awareness building program through mass media could play very important role. For that, in spite of program taken by GOs and NGOs, it is important to examine the content and standard of reporting in mass media of Bangladesh in the area of HIV/AIDS. As there was no comprehensive study in the area of above mentioned topic, this study is going to explore some aspects in the area, though it may bear some limitations.

Bangladesh and HIV/AIDS
Bangladesh is said to be a country of low prevalence but high risk for HIV/AIDS. The first HIV/AIDS case was detected in the country in 1989. Bangladesh has a population of around 14 million. According to Bangladesh government, in this country the number of people living with AIDS (PLWHAs) are only 500, by December 2004, a total of 465 people were confirmed as HIV positive 87 of whom developed AIDS and among them 44 have died. But WHO said there are 20,000 HIV infected persons in Bangladesh and according to UNICEF the figure is 15,000.
Some important high-risk factors for spread of HIV in Bangladesh are: poverty and population density, highly affected neighboring countries with HIV/AIDS, inadequate awareness among high risk group and general population, high external and internal migration, unsafe blood transfusion and injection practices, significant number of people have pre or extra marital sex etc.
Bangladesh government has taken National AIDS/STD Program (NASP) to reduce the spread of HIV and impact of AIDS for the high-risk group as well as the general population of Bangladesh by undertaking targeted interventions among the high-risk groups and making general population aware about HIV/AIDS.

Print Media in Bangladesh
Bangladesh has a very extensive and relatively free print media, comprising of 990 publications among which, there are 328 dailies. The newspaper readership among the total population is 26%. (BCDJC, 2004) Just after the landmark of 1990, when Bangladesh entered into a democratic process after an urban-based revolution against an autocratic government, there was a ‘boom’ of print media. Even now, two or three newspapers are adding themselves in the row every year. Though Bangladesh is a country of 140 millions of people, only about 1.3 million of copies of newspapers are sold daily. (BCDJC, 2004)
There is no in-depth study so far of the media coverage on HIV/AIDS issue, but it is very much evident that Bangladeshi media covers the issue frequently as the Bangladesh government and NGOs are working on the issue for years. But the standard and depth of the news stories are yet to examine.

Methodology and Objective
In this research, all HIV/AIDS related news items (282 items) published between July-October 2005 in 17 local newspapers (9 of which in local language and 8 in English) of Bangladesh, have been analyzed where quantitative data are provided on aspects such as story subject matter, length, placement in newspaper, source of the item and inclusion of PLWHA viewpoints. The time period for examining HIV/AIDS reporting in Bangladeshi newspapers was selected in random basis with the expectation that all items of almost all leading newspapers published in any quarter of a year would be representative enough to get an impression about the content and qualitative standard of the reporting.
The objective of the media content surveys, conducted between July-October 2005, was to gain a deeper understanding of the frequency and quality of local reporting on HIV/AIDS and in particular to investigate the use of language and inaccuracies in the reporting.
A random selection of the collected stories is also qualitatively assessed. Stories are evaluated on both journalistic quality and on their HIV/AIDS content.

Quantitative Analysis of Data
• English newspapers publish more news than Bangla newspapers, but their sources of news on HIV/AIDS are heavily external. For example, The New Nation has published as many as 47 items but only 5 of them were from internal sources. But though Bangla newspapers publish a few number of news on HIV/AIDS, they try to publish those from internal sources.
• Out of 6 1st page news, a Bangla newspaper named Bhorer Kagojpublishes 4 of them, though 3 of them were of single column. The poor number of 1st page news depicts the newspaper houses don’t consider HIV/AIDS a key health issue of the time.
• Among English newspapers, The New Nation published maximum number of news (43) and The New Age published minimum number of news (9) on HIV/AIDS. The news Today (26), The Bangladesh Today (26), The Independent (33) and The Bangladesh Observer (34) also published significant number of news item on HIV/AIDS. Among Bangla newspapers, The Bhorer Kagoj published maximum number of news (19) and The Ajker Kagoj published minimum number of news (3) on HIV/AIDS.
• Apart from news, there have been published a total number of 22 comments and features. But Out of 22 there were only 3 editorials, which reflects sort of policy level negligence on HIV/AIDS issue.
• Though the leading English and Bangla daily The Daily Star (11) and The Prothom Alo (4) published very few number of news item, but the news of these two newspapers were comparatively elaborative, in-depth and by-lined.

Qualitative analysis
For qualitative analysis, 17 news (2 foreign stories included) have been selected from 17 newspapers. Although a significant number of stories (13.5%) were too brief (of 1 column and 1 paragraph) and those stories were badly written (i.e. the content just describe ‘seminar/workshop/round table meeting held’, doesn’t describe what was found/said/discussed in that meeting), for qualitative analysis comparatively important and bigger news have been selected in random basis.
The sample were scored for:
• Story construction (newsworthiness, structure, lead well written, answers who what where why when); provides background.
• Story content (accuracy, reporters views absent; information correctly attributed); provides a full and fair picture; information is clear; quotes used effectively); tone is appropriate;
• HIV/AIDS related content (avoids stigmatizing language; coverage of PLWHA empowering rather than victimizing; information is accurate; local voices appropriately used.
• Presentation (headline well written; layout good; appropriate length)
The researcher scored a random selection if 17 better stories as follows :
• Average score on overall quality: 71.5%
• Story construction: 75.3%
• Story content: 75.3%
• HIV/AIDS related content: 61.2%
• Presentation: 72.9%

General Trends in HIV/AIDS Reporting in Bangladesh
While HIV/AIDS appears as a topic fairly regularly in print media of Bangladesh, the coverage lacks breadth and depth and some key aspects of the issue rarely appear or are absent. A significant amount of inaccurate and stigmatizing terminology appears in the reporting and viewpoints of PLWHA are barely covered. General story-writing standards are weak (for example story construction, accuracy, and writing the lead) though some stories were found in standard. It was also noticed that little independent research by journalists is evident; journalists tend to rely heavily on news releases from government, NGOs and foreign news agencies for their stories, rather than taking the initiative to investigate the issue independently.

Conclusions
Given the great social, economic and human suffering costs the HIV/AIDS, the results suggests that the Bangladeshi press is still significantly under and inadequately reporting the issues.

The press in Bangladesh needs to develop and focus on:
• Improving awareness and usage of non-stigmatizing terminology (glossary provision and distribution).
• Improving awareness around the relationship with PLWHA with a view to increasing their voice and reducing stigma.
• Improving journalists general knowledge and interest around HIV/AIDS issues and pointing towards potential story angles, tailored to particular country situation.
• Avoiding publishing news taken from external sources and providing staff articles for meaningful coverage.
• Strengthening general journalism skills (writing, story construction and development, etc)
• Encouraging the writing of features, editorial, the practice of independent research.

Reference
BCDJC (Bangladesh Centre for Development, Journalism and Communication) (2004); Madhyam (Bangladesh Media Directory); Dhaka: BCDJC.

Note: This is an excerpt from a research article of the same title conducted by Fahmidul Haq.

Top 20 Film Directors of Bangladesh

2007-11-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

1. Zahir Raihan (Stop Genocide, 1971)
2. Alamgir Kabir (Dhire Bahe Meghna, 1973)
3. Salahuddin (Surjasnan, 1962)
4. Suvash Dutt (Dumurer Phool, 1978)
5. Sheikh Niamat Ali (Surja Dighal Bari, 1979, with Masihuddin Shaker)
6. Khan Ataur Rahman (Abar Tora Manoosh Ho, 1973)
7. Humayun Ahmed (Shrabon Megher Din, 1999)
8. Chashi Nazrul Islam (Ora Egaro Jon, 1972)
9. Amjad Hossain (Golapi Ekhon Trene, 1978)
10. Kabir Anwar (Suprovat, 1976)
11. Tareque Masud (Matir Moina, 2002)
12. Catherine Masud (Ontorjatra, 2006, with Tareque Masud)
13. Morshedul Islam (Chaka, 1993)
14. Abu Sayeed (Shankhonad, 2004)
15. Tanvir Mokammel (Chitra Nadir Pare, 1999)
16. Touqir Ahmed (Joyjatra, 2005)
17. Nurul Alam Atiq (Choturtha Matra, 2002)
18. Shahin Dil-Reaz (Jibon Jole Bele, 2001)
29. Yasmin Kabir (Swadhinota, 2002)
20. Mostofa Sarwar Farooqi (Bachelor, 2003)

[Directors made more than one film have been considered for the list. The list doesn’t follow any order of choice]

Film of Bangladesh

2007-11-08T10:16:00.000-08:00

Bangladesh has a medium sized film industry that produces around 90 feature films annually and those films are screened in more than 800 theatres all over the country. Bangladesh had started producing ‘industry films’ from 1956 when it was the eastern part of Pakistan. But the earliest filmmaker of Bangladesh is Hiralal Sen who is a man from Manikganj, Bangladesh (the then East Bengal) and made Loumiere Brothers-like one-reelers in Kolkata at the end of 19th century and who can be considered even the fist filmmaker of Indian Sub-continent. From the very beginning, the film industry of Bangladesh had been producing films that blend art and commercial elements and flavors. Later, the art elements disappeared gradually and commercial elements grabbed the industry films totally.

Simultaneously in the mid 1980s a new stream of independent films of Bangladesh has been introduced to the mediascape of the country which is popularly known as alternative films, primarily which were short in length. Albeit limited in numbers and distribution, these independent films are accepted by the urban middle class viewers. Individual producers, TV channels and external sources are investing in the films of some reputed independent filmmakers. On the other hand, being branded as the films of ‘poor taste’, the industry films are not getting back their investments and struggling for their existence. Many cinema halls have been shut down and some others planning to as the business seems to be a loosing concern. While yet not financially profitable independent streams are still continuing to produce ‘good’ films. Zahir Raihan and Alamgir Kabir can be named as the most prominet filmmakers of 1960s and 1970s respectively. Salahuddin, Subhash Dutt, Amjad Hossain, Chashi Nazrul Islam are some other filmamers of early part of film history of Bangladesh though some of them are still continuing filmmaking. On the other hand Tareque Masud, Catherine Masud, Morshedul Islam, Tanvir Mokammel and Abu Sayeed are leading independent filmmakers of Bangladesh. Some eminent filmmakers from India also made films in Bangladesh. Ritwik Ghatak, Rajen Tarafdar, Goutom Ghosh, Basu Chaterjee are some names among them.

Some prominent films of Bangladesh are: Surjasnan (1962) by Salahuddin, Nadi O Nari (1965) by Sadeq Khan, Stop Genocide (1971) by Zahir Raihan, Ora Egaro Jon (1972) by Chashi Nazrul Islam, Dhire Bahe Meghna (1973) by Alamgir Kabir, Titas Ekti Nadir Naam (1973) by Ritwik Ghatak, Basundhara (1977) by Subhash Dutt, Golapi Akhon Traine (1978) by Amjad Hossain, Surjo Dighal Bari (1979) by Masihuddin Shaker and Sheikh Niamat Ali, Chaka (1993) by Morshedul Islam, Chitra Nadir Pare (1999) by Tanvir Mokammel, Matir Moina (2002) by Tareque Masud, Shankhonaad (2004) by Abu Sayeed.

Independent Film of Bangladesh

2007-11-08T10:03:00.000-08:00

There is debate about the starting point of independent filmmaking of Bangladesh. One noted film commenter and filmmaker Manjare Hassin Murad likes to count Stop Genocide (1971), the documentary made by Zahir Raihan, the greatest filmmaker in 1960s as the first independent film in Bangladesh. The film was funded by newly formed Expatriate Government of Bangladesh staying in India while the country was battling with West Pakistan Army. Some other critics like Zakir Hossain Raju identified Suryo Dighal Bari (The Ominous House, 1979) as the first independent cinema which was the first film funded by Bangladesh Government after independence in 1971 and it was made within the production and distribution network by Film Development Corporation (FDC), the only major studio in Bangladesh. The film brought first international success in post liberation era though it experienced different constraints in releasing and screening in theatres at home.

But most of the film buffs consider Agami (Time Ahead, 1984) as the starting point of independent filmmaking. Because for critical and commercial success of Agami, independent filmmaking arrives as a movement. The movement was popularly known as ‘short film movement’ and later as ‘alternative film movement’. The movement got the shape after both critical and commercial success of Agami by Morshedul Islam and Hulyia (Wanted, 1984) by Tanvir Mokammel. Agami got the silver peacock in the best director category in Delhi International Film Festival. Hulyia also got admirations of critics and audience. These films were funded by directors themselves with support of friends and family members and were shown outside cinema theatres: among the friends, local groups, especially among the students of college and universities and cultural activists. The directors were involved in the entire process of the filmmaking: writing scripts, funding, making and screening. These two films were shown together in different corners of the country and these are real examples of independent films: low and independent funds, alternative distribution channels, shot in 16 mm, without any studio involvement and commercial motives and in content, very much related with national culture and politics. With this set standard and format, a lot of young makers came forward later and a movement started.

However, while the contemporary mainstream films have failed to achieve any accolades at home or abroad; directors of the independent genre such as, Tareque and Catherine Masud, Tanvir Mokammel, Morshedul Islam and Abu Sayeed have gained national and international recognition. Matir Moina by Tareque Masud is the most famous independent film and also the most prominent film so far from Bangladesh. Some other good independent films of Bangladesh are: Chaka (1993) and Khelaghar (2006) by Morshedul Islam, Chitra Nadir Pare (1999) and Lalsalu (2001) by Tanvir Mokammel, Shankhonaad (2004) and Nirontor (2007) by Abu Sayeed, Muktir Gaan (1995), Ontorjatra (2006) by Tareque and Catherine Masud, Swapnodanai (2007) by Golam Robbani Biplob.

Khelaghar (Doll House, 2006) by Morshedul Islam

2007-11-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

In July 1971, there live two friends Yakub and Mukul in a far-flunge village of Bangladesh. They are teachers in profession, Yakub in the village college and Mukul in school. Yakub by nature is a cowardly and confused person. Though he loves his country no less, he has not joined the liberation army for his personal misapprehension. Mukul in contrast has linked himself with the war though not actively. Giving assistance to the freedom fighters has been his main preoccupation. Rehana comes to the village along with the other refugees from the city. She is sister of Yakub’s friend Tunu who requested him in a letter to give her shelter for a few days. In the army crackdown night on March 25, 1971, she was staying in a hall of Dhaka university and was taken by army in a camp. She was raped there and released after some days of captive period. Physical torture by Pakistani Army resulted psychic breakdown on her. But both Yakub and Mukul were not informed about this background of Rehana, they decided to keep Rehana in an abandoned house at a corner of the village and Yakub to be stayed with her. Locked by monsoon water and trees and bushes a story of anguish and love between two young man and woman unfolds in a dilapidated old but palace-like house. They made up a dollhouse by playing, gossiping, cooking together. The dollhouse breaks down after three days when Tunu comes in the scene, tells Rehana’s mishap-story and takes Rehana back. Yakob joins with a guerrilla group.
Based on a novel by prominent writer Mahmudul Haq and with very elegant photography, the film deals with the ethnic struggle towards the formation Bengali-Muslim identity. It also constructs a unique identity of gender where woman becomes the ultimate victim of war.
The film was released in April, 2006 and screened in several international festivals.

Kittonkhola (2000) by Abu Sayeed

2007-11-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

There was a village fair in the bank of the river Kittonkhola. Shoppers have brought different kinds of products in their temporary shops which can attract customers. The girls from gypsy tribe Bede have anchored their fleet of boats near the fair to sell their items like wrist-rings, ribbons and offers of exorcism in the fair. The main attraction of the fair is a Jatra troupe ‘Adi Mahua Opera’. Gambling and local narcotics have been brought as the part of the fair. Idu Contractor, the feudal lord of the village is the organizer and owner of the fair.
A simple and easy youth Sonai falls in love with Bede-girl Dalimon at the first sight. On the other hand, Idu Contractor wants Banasreebala, the actress of the Jatra troupe in his bed. The owner of the troupe Subal Das agrees with Idu to send Banasreebala, who has joined the troupe from brothel for a better life. The actor Ravi Das and Chhaya protest against Subal and asked him not to send her to Idu. Both the actors love Banasreebala and the actress also dreams to marry someone. But an actress with brothel and Jatra background cannot find her way of better life. She commits suicide and the simple villager Sonai as well doesn’t get the Bede-girl Dalimon because of rigid caste system maintained by Bede leaders. Meanwhile Sonai looses all his money and lands in the gambling by the conspiracy of Idu who sees Sonai’s lands lucrative. Jatra troupe members like Chhaya, who are predominantly Hindu in religion, wants to join majority Muslims by converting himself and Bede members, who are predominantly Muslims, want to leave their boat-life for better life.
Based on a play by eminent play-writer Selim Al Din, Kittonkhola deals with the identity struggle of villagers, Bede-Caste people and Jatra-troup members, especially their ethnic, religious and gender identity has been constructed in the film.
The film received national awards in nine categories including best film and best director.

Lalsalu (Tree Without Root, 2001) by Tanvir Mokammel

2007-11-08T09:35:00.000-08:00

In a remote aggregation village, suddenly a haggard-looking Mullah named Majid appears. He cleans up an old dilapidated grave and by declaring it as the shrine of a famous Pir (a holy and spiritual man) begins to worship it. The shrine, over the years, provides Majid not only economic solvency but psychological domination over the community as well. From a vagabond desperado, he becomes a man well rooted in the society. He marries Rahima, a not-so-young but hard working peasant woman who though robustly built, remains a docile wife. But as Majid’s wealth and power increases he feels the need of a younger wife. He marries Jamila, a teenaged girl ultimately becomes the nemesis for Majid. And the Mother Nature, in the form of deluge, finally strikes the shrine as Majid oversteps the boundaries of humanity.
Based on popular novel by the prominent writer Syed Waliullah, the film deals with religious identity of rural people of Bengal. And it deals with the gender identity as well where the first wife Rahima remains silent under patriarchal domination but Jamila revolts.
The film got the special jury award in the International Film Festival, Dhaka in 2002. Also it received eight national awards including the best film and the best durector of the year 2001. The film was screened in several international film festivals and got critical admiration.

Matir Moina (The Clay Bird, 2002): A film by Tareque Masud

2007-11-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

Set against the backdrop of the turbulent period in the late 1960s leading up to Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan, The Clay Bird tells us the story of a family torn apart by religion and war. Based on the director’s own childhood, the film follows a young boy Anu, who is sent off to a strict Islamic school, or madrasa, by his deeply religious father Kazi. As the political division in the country intensifies, an increasing split develops between the moderate and extremist forces within the madrasa, mirroring a growing divide between the stubborn but confused Kazi and his increasingly independent wife. Touching on themes of religious tolerance, cultural diversity and complexity of Islam, The Clay Bird has universal relevance in a strife-ridden world.
The Clay Bird deals with ethnic emergence of the nation Bangladesh, religious multiplicity of Islam and gender identity as well.
The film got FIPRESCI International critics’ prize in the Cannes Film Festival 2002, best film and two other awards in Karafilm Festival, Pakistan 2003, best screenplay award in Marrakesh International Film Festival, Morocco 2003 and some local awards. It was first Bangladeshi Film in Oscar Competition. It was released commercially in Europe, America and some other parts of the world and got huge critical admiration in foreign press.

Media Scenario and Pedagogy: Bangladesh Experience

2007-11-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

Introduction
New media arrives, but the impact of old media on audience is still unexamined— that is the pedagogic problem in media studies in Bangladesh. Before 1990’s, it was not felt seriously to study the impact of media on audience as there was only a radio and a television channel owned and heavily controlled by the government, 5 to 10 regular private dailies which were less professional and only remarkable role of those dailies was political activism and a film industry which produces generally low and occasionally mid-quality films. So researchers were not enthusiastic and aware enough, probably, to study these apparently harmless and less professional media. But it was their limitations also not to study extensively the print media at least, which had experience of more than 200 years. Moreover media studies were not recognized and had no good status in the academic arena for a long time.

Electronic Media: Control ‘ours’, liberalize ‘others’
After 1990, in a changed global economic and political situation, the scenario of Bangladeshi media was also changed as consistent with global and regional media scenario. Globalisation demands market liberalization and the liberalization of media also. For that, though the government always heavily controlled the state owned radio and television channels but, in the early 90s, they gave permission to broadcast commercially the satellite channels. Before that, the government even started relaying the news of BBC and CNN through the state owned channel Bangladesh Television. As a result Bangladeshi audience were flooded by Immense of foreign channels who had only the experience of BTV before 1990s. Now There are eight private satellite channels which broadcast entertainment programs, in general. There are two FM radio channels, major programs of which are music and news. In media discourse community radio is a much talked issue but the government is yet to give permission of any community radio.

Print Media: Most powerful?
Just after the landmark of 1990, there was a ‘boom’ of print media even. In a country of 130 millions of people, though only about 1.3 million of copies of newspapers are sold daily, there were 300 dailies in Bangladesh at the end of the millennium. After 1990, in an environment of globalisation, corporate companies came ahead to invest in print media. Till now, print media is the most powerful media in Bangladesh.

Film: Media at stake
Film industry of Bangladesh has about 50 years of experience and has released more than 2000 films in total and 82 in 2002. But the tradition of the industry is not glorious enough. In 1980s and 1990s the quantity of films increased but the quality of films fell down in an alarming manner. Sex and violence are essential elements of mainstream films and which are failed copies of Bollywood. But at the beginning of new millennium, some makers are coming ahead who has the experience of film society and the experience of independent cinema movement and producing quality films. Film like ‘Matir Moina’ (The Clay Bird) has achieved international recognition.

The Internet: New media, new concerns
In 1990s, like many other countries, the Internet emerged as a new media, which has been appeared in urban areas only. Mushroom growths of Cyber cafes in the city like Dhaka, Chittagong or Rajshahi proves the significant expansion of Internet in urban life, though according to the total number of people the rate of using the internet, is very low (in 2000, 60 per thousand people). But of course, it doesn’t seem unusual in an agriculture based and technologically poor country like Bangladesh.

Mediation
Here comes the question of mediation, cultural intervention and feelings of studying the impact of sky and cyber cultures. But like many other countries, the impact is yet to be comprehended due to the sparse and unorganised research materials. Some small-scaled researches were done by individual researchers and also by some research institutions; but those were content analysis type of research, in general. And the goals of the research were not clear. In Bangladesh, when it was a part of Pakistan before 1971, the Radio and Television were established to use the media for development effort. For that, some researchers had their research from effect point of view. Those were not taken as the cultural practice approach (i.e. symbolic interactionism, semiology). Extensive audience research was not taken up which could identify the impact of new media and technologies.

In search of Pedagogic Possibilities
To my view, extensive audience research and also research from cultural perspectives of the content are needed to understand the nature of cultural mediation in Asia. My hypothesis is, the impact of new media would be a bit different in Bangladesh and also in other Asian countries from western countries as the eastern and Asian countries have unique and different cultural backgrounds. I want to focus on the point that, what cultures are seen in new media, are far different from the culture we practice in real life. The question is how the audience is managing the cultural gaps (the gap between real and virtual culture). If we can identify the impact of new media, we can develop/analyse alternative forms of resistance, subcultures and progressive movements, which attempt to understand issues of class, caste, gender etc in more complex and honest ways.

Favorite 10 Films of Bangladesh (Doesn't follow order)

2007-11-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

1. Matir Moina (The Clay Bird, 2002, Tareque Masud)
2. Shankhonaad (2004, Abu Sayeed)
3. Chaka (The Wheel, 1993, Morshedul Islam)
4. Stop Genocide (1971, Zahir Raihan)
5. Chitra Nadir Pare (In the Bank of the River Chitra, 1999, Tanvir Mokammel)
6. Muktir Gaan (The Song of Freedom, 1995, Tareque and Catherine Masud)
7. Simana Perie (1977, Alamgir Kabir)
8. Joyjatra (2004, Touqir Ahmed)
9. Nadi O Nari (River and Woman, 1965, Sadeq Khan)
10. Surjo Dighal Bari (The Ominous House, 1979, Masihuddin Shaker and Sheikh Niamat Ali)