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Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's Television to close Busan film fest
Press Trust of India | Sunday, September 16, 2012 (New Delhi)
Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's latest feature film Television has been chosen to bring the curtain down on the Busan Film Festival
In yet another sign of the growing strength of parallel cinema in Bangladesh helmed by a crop of young directors, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's latest feature film Television, which deals with the theme of tradition versus modernity in a rural setting, has been chosen to bring the curtain down on the Busan Film Festival in South Korea next month.
It is for the first time that a Bangladeshi feature film gets the honour of being the closing film of Asia's biggest international film festival where Television will have its world premiere.
Understandably, 39-year-old Farooki, who has made just three feature films before Television, is elated.
"I believe that the selection of my film for the closing of the 10-day Busan festival, ending on October 13, is a recognition not only for the young directors of the new wave of cinema in Bangladesh but also for South Asia because it is not often that one finds a film from this region getting the honour of either to be the opening or closing film," the director told PTI over phone from Dhaka.
The film opens with a television being thrown into water by a powerful villageman. Even as people in the village are very curious about the idiot box, the man tries to keep the villagers away from what he considers 'sin'. However, by the end of the film, the 'television', which the man disliked so much, helps him reach a transcendental state where he and his God are unified.
However, Farooki insists religion is not important in Television, which stars Mosharraf Karim, Chanchal Chowdhury and Tisha, the faces you will find in the director's previous films also.
"What I am dealing with in the movie is a conflict between an imaginary world and a real world. I have tried to study whether the imaginary world at times overtakes the real world.
"The film is a study of two different times meeting at a critical point. At the end of the day, it is just a story of different angles of human relation," he said.
According to the executive programmer of Busan Film Festival, for a long time, Bangladeshi cinema was not ready to be featured or highlighted in international film festivals but the recent advent of young and coming of age filmmakers is changing this idea.
Film lovers in Delhi would recall Farooki's previous feature film Third Person Singular Number (2009), sensitively dealing with the plight of a single woman deserted by her husband in a male-dominated society, which was screened at the Siri Fort Auditorium at a festival organised by Bangladeshi High Commission a year ago.
That film too had its world premiere at the Busan Festival and it fetched him the best director award at Dhaka International Film Festival.
A veteran of TV filmmaking, Farooki made his debut in full-length feature with Bachelor (2003) which was screened at numerous international film festivals. Four years later, he directed Made in Bangladesh.
Farooki said the audio tracks of Television would be released soon and the film may be released commercially either in November or December.
Farooki would not be the only star at Busan. Another young Bangladeshi filmmaker Abu Shahed Emon's The Container is also competing in the Wide Angle Section of the festival.
Press Trust of India | Sunday, September 16, 2012 (New Delhi)
Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's latest feature film Television has been chosen to bring the curtain down on the Busan Film Festival
In yet another sign of the growing strength of parallel cinema in Bangladesh helmed by a crop of young directors, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki's latest feature film Television, which deals with the theme of tradition versus modernity in a rural setting, has been chosen to bring the curtain down on the Busan Film Festival in South Korea next month.
It is for the first time that a Bangladeshi feature film gets the honour of being the closing film of Asia's biggest international film festival where Television will have its world premiere.
Understandably, 39-year-old Farooki, who has made just three feature films before Television, is elated.
"I believe that the selection of my film for the closing of the 10-day Busan festival, ending on October 13, is a recognition not only for the young directors of the new wave of cinema in Bangladesh but also for South Asia because it is not often that one finds a film from this region getting the honour of either to be the opening or closing film," the director told PTI over phone from Dhaka.
The film opens with a television being thrown into water by a powerful villageman. Even as people in the village are very curious about the idiot box, the man tries to keep the villagers away from what he considers 'sin'. However, by the end of the film, the 'television', which the man disliked so much, helps him reach a transcendental state where he and his God are unified.
However, Farooki insists religion is not important in Television, which stars Mosharraf Karim, Chanchal Chowdhury and Tisha, the faces you will find in the director's previous films also.
"What I am dealing with in the movie is a conflict between an imaginary world and a real world. I have tried to study whether the imaginary world at times overtakes the real world.
"The film is a study of two different times meeting at a critical point. At the end of the day, it is just a story of different angles of human relation," he said.
According to the executive programmer of Busan Film Festival, for a long time, Bangladeshi cinema was not ready to be featured or highlighted in international film festivals but the recent advent of young and coming of age filmmakers is changing this idea.
Film lovers in Delhi would recall Farooki's previous feature film Third Person Singular Number (2009), sensitively dealing with the plight of a single woman deserted by her husband in a male-dominated society, which was screened at the Siri Fort Auditorium at a festival organised by Bangladeshi High Commission a year ago.
That film too had its world premiere at the Busan Festival and it fetched him the best director award at Dhaka International Film Festival.
A veteran of TV filmmaking, Farooki made his debut in full-length feature with Bachelor (2003) which was screened at numerous international film festivals. Four years later, he directed Made in Bangladesh.
Farooki said the audio tracks of Television would be released soon and the film may be released commercially either in November or December.
Farooki would not be the only star at Busan. Another young Bangladeshi filmmaker Abu Shahed Emon's The Container is also competing in the Wide Angle Section of the festival.
