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Climate Change and Bangladesh Community Abroad

March 2, 2015September 10, 2014 by bidici

This article is about climate change and role of Bangladesh community living abroad. Ok, let’s get started.

People’s Climate March Poster by Crystal Bruno — People’s Climate March | Crystal Bruno

On Sunday, September 21, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to take to the streets of New York, and cities worldwide to pressure world leaders to take action on global warming, in what organizers claim will be the biggest climate march in history.

The UN Climate Summit happening right after the march, on September 23. World leaders will join at this summit on climate change, the first time world leaders have come together on the issue since the landmark Copenhagen summit in 2009, which was seen as a failure.

The People’s Climate March on 21 September is intended to send a strong signal to those world leaders and could be the ‘last chance’ for an international deal. If world leaders aren’t forced to step up, ‘then many believe that political progress is impossible.’ The People’s Climate March is a crucial factor in insuring the world gets on the right path.

Climate Change and Bangladesh

By the end of this century, best estimates predict between a 1.8⁰ C and 4⁰ C rise in average global temperature, although it could possibly be as high as 6.4⁰ C. This will affect many parts of the whole world in unprecedented ways.

For Bangladesh, the impact of climate change extremely severe. Already average weather temperatures rising; rainfall being less when it is most needed; more extreme hot and cold spells every year; rivers altering the hydrological cycle; more powerful tornados and cyclones are becoming common; sea level rising displacing communities, freshwater becoming saline; etc. The impact will be intensified by the fact that Bangladesh is both one of the most populated and one of the poorest. A conservative estimate predicts that by 2050, population of Bangladesh will reach 220 million. However, by then nearly 17%-20% of Bangladesh will be claimed by the sea, displacing about 20 million people.

Scientific data, solid predictions, real-life experiences and negative effects of the climate change on Bangladesh are everywhere. The worst senario is not unreal if the people are not united and demand action NOW.

What is happening in New York?

On Sunday, September 21, in New York City, people from all walks of life and organizations of all types will march together to put pressure on world leaders to address the issue of climate change. There is a very wide range and diversity of people, including immigrant rights groups, social justice groups, faith communities, students, professionals, unions, women, youths, businesses, not-for-profit organizations, you name it, are coming to join the event. Whoever you are and wherever you are, climate change threatens us all, so it brings us together.

The march will be happening all major cities around the world but New York City march is the most important and center of attention because world leaders are gathering in the United Nations in New York.

Why is this march important for Bangladesh community abroad?

As the negative impacts of climate change on Bangladesh are very high, it can be safely assumed that the Bangladeshi community living around the world can raise their voices to demand urgent, practical and political measurements to address the issue. Almost every Non-Resident Bangladeshi has some kind of ties to Bangladesh – familial, economic, social, cultural, emotional or ethnic. Therefore, Bangladeshis abroad should be at the forefront of the march.

The march and summit are happening in New York City. Fortunately, New York is one of the largest hub of Bangladeshi community living outside of Bangladesh. Therefore, it should be easy to attend for them.

Plus, the event is on Sunday. Sundays in summer season are generally a picnic day for Bangladeshi community in New York. Let’s do a ‘picnic-walk’ that the future generations will remember. Pack some food, take some water and come with your family, friends, festoons and flyers.

What Bangladesh community abroad can do?

First thing they can do is to show that they care for their country, Bangladesh. Geographically it is a distant land but memory of the land is closer than the heartbeat, specially for first generation immigrants!

Everyone can do something according to their capacity,

Everyone can come and join the march.
Bangladeshi community newspapers in New York can write about the event and place conspicuous ads to draw attention of the community.
Hundreds of Bangladeshi community organizations (district, cultural, student) can notify and arrange their members to come to the march or maybe even march altogether.
‘Mainstream’ Bangladeshi community organizers can show their magical tweaks by motivating people to participate.
Businesses and business organizations can provide space for flyer, fund the event, print posters, banners, etc.

Why Bangladesh community abroad should participate?

Show you care for your country, you are concerned and you demand action.
Show your anger, dissatisfaction, awareness about the inaction of political leaders of the world regarding climate change.
In 1971, expatriate Bangladeshis around the world created awareness about the Bangladesh Liberation War. Now it is your turn – only it is another issue and mother of all issues.
Your family, friends and ordinary citizens of Bangladesh expect this global civic duty from you. They cannot join the march in New York – you can. You represent them. You do it for them.
As Bangladesh will be severely affected by climate change, Bangladesh community’s presence should be noticeable, bold and forefront.
Be part of a global community that care and concern about global issues affecting all of us.
It is a moral duty.

More information

Where and When is People’s Climate March

What to Expect at People’s Climate March

People’s Climate March – Find Your City

People’s Climate March arround the World — People’s Climate March around the World

Documentary Films on Bangladesh – Part 3

July 28, 2015July 31, 2014 by bidici

Documentary Films on Bangladesh by non-Bangladeshi Film Makers

This is the third part on documentary films on Bangladesh. First part of documentary films on Bangladesh listed nine documentaries. Second part of documentary films on Bangladesh listed nine more docs. Nine more documentaries added to this list. The lists are in random order.

Development in Bad Waters

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Director: Crelis Rammelt
2013 • 61 Min • Netherlands

In Bangladesh, millions of rural poor are currently drinking water that is contaminated with high levels of arsenic. Although the problem was described as the worst mass poisoning in history, little has been achieved to resolve it. Among the few projects that are being implemented, even fewer have managed to reach the poor and to implement water supplies and health support provisions that last. The Arsenic Mitigation and Research Foundation has implemented an integrated and participatory program that links research with project activities in a manner that reflects the priorities of local communities. More info about Development in Bad Waters here.

Le telephone portable de Halima

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Director: Olga Prud’homme
2007 • 52 Min • France

This story takes place in Bangladesh. We are in May 2000. I have come to follow the arrival of a cell phone in Halima’s life, a village woman. Halima got this cell phone thanks to a loan from the Grameen Bank, the “bank of the poor”. It is the first phone ever found in this village. It should benefit to Halima as well as to all the village people.

January 2007: back to Halima. Has the wager of professor Yunus, who in between has been rewarded with the Peace Nobel Prize, succeeded? Can a cell phone change a destiny? Can micro credit help the poor to jump above “poverty line”? What happened to Halima and to her cell phone?

Le telephone portable de Halima or Halima’s Cellphone is in Bangla with French Subtitle.

The Dust of His Feet

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Director: Janet Best
2010 • 62 Min • Canada

The film brings us into the world of two Bangladeshi folk musicians. Matal Rajjak Dewan, the ‘drunk poet’, is honored with a shrine after his death. His student, Abdul Hai Dewan, calls his teacher ‘my Allah’ and continues to sing his songs of tolerance, mysticism and love at all-night celebrations and debates.

Matal Rajjak Dewan was an eccentric poet and singer who intrigued me the first and only time I saw him perform. When I returned to Bangladesh a year and a half later he was dead and his grave was a kind of shrine. Surprised, I set out to find out more and talked to his family, fans and, most of all, to his ardent student, the charismatic singer, Abdul Hai Dewan. For Abdul Hai, Matal Rajjak is more than just a teacher. “Nobody likes my songs,” he says unless Matal mixes in my soul and sings.” But Matal Rajjak is a puzzling figure who is described in many ways, a man who gave away all his money to beggars but who also beat people.

Way Back Home

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Director: Supriyo Sen
2003 • 120 Mins • India

In this road-movie, the filmmaker follows his parents on their way ‘back home’ to Bangladesh. After the Partition of India in 1947, East Pakistan, (today’s Bangladesh) witnessed enormous atrocities. Rape, brutal killings and the separation of families, friends and neighbors literally happened overnight. After 50 years of living as ‘refugees’ in India, the filmmaker’s parents return to their home villages to see what remains of childhood memories. The journey is dangerous and challenging for those behind the camera as those in front of it. Filming takes place without the official permission of Bangladesh, which can provoke nasty reprisals. The urge to film his parents visiting home for what might be the last time in their lives though, was a great motivator. Emotional but not melodramatic, the film embodies the story of one family representing the faith of thousands of others in India, Bangladesh or Pakistan. Poetic in approach, with beautiful songs and a measured pace, this journey is one of the rare documentaries that played for weeks in cinemas in Kolkata, India.

The Bangladesh Story

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Director: Faris Kermani
1989 • 78 Min • UK

The Bangladesh Story, a three-part series, broadcast on Channel 4, tells the story of Bangladesh from its creation to military rule of 1990s.

Part 1 – Under Three Flags – Bengal was the heartland of British India, and in 1947 it became the east wing of Pakistan, after much violence. East Pakistanis felt they still suffered from domination by their west wing, and Pakistan’s first general election in 1970 confirmed this. A second Bengali bid for independence resulted in nationhood.

Part 2 – The Mujib Years – The East Bengali majority in the 1970 election caused a civil war which shocked the world. The superpowers stayed on the sidelines, but the intervention of the Indian army ensured the existence of Bangladesh. Mujibur Rahman took power, but lost popular support within three years, and a new period of government by the armed forces began.

Part 3 – Military Rules – 80% of the population has dropped below the poverty line, while rulers come and go, usually through violent coups. The last program in the series looks at some different people’s attempts to find solutions to their country’s problems.

Between the Tides

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Directors: Tyler Quintano & Nick Manning
2009 • 50 Min • USA

The sea level is rising at an alarming 3.14 mm per year in the Bay of Bengal due to climate change. An estimated 125 million people may be rendered homeless in India and Bangladesh by the end of this century. What are their options? How long do people have? Between the Tides is a feature-length documentary film that explores the human cost of climate change and those living on the front lines of sea level rise in the Ganges Delta.

The Micro Debt

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Director: Tom Heinemann
2011 • 57 Min • Denmark

Microcredit has been hailed as the #1 solution to eradicate poverty. In December 2007, the Danish independent journalist and film maker, Tom Heinemann met with a woman by the name of Jahanara – living in a slum-like house two hours drive outside the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka. Shortly before she had sold her house to pay her weekly installment\’s. For months, she had been intimidated, harassed and abused by the members of her loan group and by the loan officers from the various Micro Finance Institutions, who had given her the loans. The meeting with Jahanara was only the first in a long string of interviews with poor people in Bangladesh, India and in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico. The Microcredit loan-takers told the same story over and over again: Most of them had numerous loans in various NGO’s and Micro Finance Institutions – and many must take new loans to cover the old ones. They paid annual interest rates ranging from 30-200%, and they are under extreme social pressure from the other members of their groups.

Strong Bodies Fight

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Director: William Donaruma
2011 • 65 Min • USA

“Strong bodies fight, that weak bodies may be nourished.” This is the motto of the Notre Dame Boxing Team, which annually hosts an intramural charity tournament called “The Bengal Bouts” to support the Holy Cross development efforts in the poverty-stricken country of Bangladesh. Founded by legendary football coach Knute Rockne in 1931 and perpetuated by 80 years of blood, sweat, and tears, the Bengal Bouts represent a sacred tradition of dedicated students lacing up their gloves in a fight much larger than the ring in which they box.

In May 2008, a group of 5 student boxers embarked on a journey across the world to witness the Bangladesh missions. What they encountered was not what they had anticipated. Where they had expected to find weakness, they found strength; where they thought they would find despair, they found great resolve. They learned that the Bangladeshi people were not helpless victims to be aided but change-agents to be empowered. From the claustrophobic slums of Dhaka city to the remote tribal villages of Bangladesh, these students witnessed a world of poverty seldom seen in films or media – a world of hope.

Now 80 years in the making, Strong Bodies Fight is the unique and inspirational story of three groups of people – the Notre Dame boxers, the Holy Cross Missionaries, and the people of Bangladesh – reaching out across the globe to join forces as one Team in the FIGHT against poverty.

The Akram Tree

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Directors: Francesco Cabras & Alberto Molinari
2011 • 81 Min • Italy

The Akram Tree is a journey through the personal and professional world of the British-Bangladeshi choreographer and dancer Akram Khan. My intelligence is in my body says Akram himself, a body built by acute observations of the reality, legends, and unceasing work here well represented by Gnosis, a pièce realized in collaboration with seven artists expressly discovered in different parts of the world. These traditions and experimentations from India, Japan, Pakistan, England, Egypt, Iraq and Bangladesh collaborate together to create a work between classic Indian Kathak and contemporary dance. The film portrays the story of this peculiar human and artistic adventure often transcending the narration for the sake of a more visionary look influenced by the location where the documentary has been shot: the futuristic and conflictive city of Abu Dhabi with its desertic and metaphysical surroundings.

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Documentary Films on Bangladesh – Part 2

October 3, 2016July 30, 2014 by bidici

Documentary Films on Bangladesh by non-Bangladeshi Film Makers

So here are another list of few more documentary films on Bangladesh. First part of documentary films on Bangladesh listed nine docs. In this part, nine more are included. The subject matter of these docs are microcredit, safe work environment, water contamination, social life, natural world, etc.

Again, the documentary films on Bangladesh here are not a review, just descriptions and are in random order.

Clothes To Die For

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Director: Zara Hayes
2014 • 59 Min • UK

In April 2013, 18-year-old Shirin became one of thousands of people trapped inside the Rana Plaza building when it collapsed in the worst industrial disaster in the 21st century. In this moving documentary for BBC Two’s This World, Shirin and some of the other survivors tell their remarkable story of survival and escape. Many were rescued by ordinary local people who risked their own lives crawling into the rubble to save them. But Clothes To Die For also reveals the incredible growth of the Bangladeshi garment industry and the greed and high level corruption that led to the Rana Plaza tragedy. This tiny country has become the second largest producer of clothes in the world after China, transforming the country and providing employment for millions of people, most of them young women. As the personal stories of survivors reveal, in Bangladesh even a wage as low as £1.50 a day can be completely life-changing and many don’t want that opportunity taken away. Producing goods for several British and European high street stores, the tragedy at the Rana Plaza sent shock waves around the world about the safety of the Bangladesh garment industry. As one local factory owner said ‘At the end of the day if the retailers want more compliant factories they have to pay us more. Get the retailers together and make sure they pay us five cents more. Not even ten, we don’t even want ten cents, we want five, we’re happy with five cents on each garment’.

Bonsai People

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Director: Holly Mosher
2011 • 56 Min • USA | aka. বনসাই মানুষ

Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammad Yunus is aptly titled. Muhammad Yunus likens poor people to the artificially stunted bonsai tree, “where nothing is wrong with their seed; society never allowed them to grow as tall as everybody else.” His vision to remedy poverty and help poor people overcome their situations led to his creation of the Grameen Bank. This innovative financial institution, which furnishes microcredit loans to poor women and demands creative requirements for eligibility (such as learning about hygiene), has changed aid in the developing world in the last few decades.

From Yunus’ initial personal loan of twenty-seven dollars given to forty-two people, microcredit has become global, and has affected over a hundred million families. Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist, received the Nobel Peace Prize for this work, and has since partnered with businesses in his attempts to do “social good.”

The video focuses on the life of poor people in rural Bangladesh, traces the steps that are taken to acquire a micro-loan, and interviews several recipients of loans in the past, assessing the benefits these specific village women have derived from the loans. The footage of the Bangladesh countryside is beautifully shot; the facts about poverty, health, malnutrition, and the fragility of life in much of the world are well placed throughout the video; and the interviews with the participants are moving.

Signature of Change, the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh

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Director: Mark Aardenburg
1996 • 46 Min • Netherlands

Bangladesh with its 120 million people is one of the most densely populated countries. It is found in one of the world’s biggest river deltas. Most of the inhabitants, who are mainly Islamic, live in the beautiful countryside. Although very fertile, overpopulation and frequent natural disasters make life a continuing struggle; 85% live below the poverty line. The Bengali professor Muhammad Yunus cares about their fate. In 1983 he founded the Grameen Bank, which lends money to the poor and landless only. Today the Bank works in 35.000 villages and has more than 2 million borrowers, 94% of them are women. During the documentary Professor Yunus tells about the founding, development and future of the Bank. He seems like an impossible mix of socialist and capitalist ideals; a harmony of contradiction. His ambition is to create a poverty free world, for which he indeed set the first steps.

Bridging Two Worlds

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Director: Mark Verkerk
2005 • 56 Min • Netherlands

In a world in which the rift between rich and poor has never been greater, comes a timely story offering hope. This inspirational film charts the life of Motalib Weijters, a remarkable man at home in two contrasting worlds: Bangladesh and the Netherlands. At just seven years of age, he was plucked from a Dhaka street and taken to the Netherlands. Seventeen years later, Motalib goes back in search of his roots and family. There he begins a process that over ten years has ended up transforming a whole community. From street child to village “father”, Motalib shows that even in the face of massive global problems, individuals can make a difference.

Spoken languages and subtitling of Bridging Two Worlds are in Dutch and English.

When The World Sinks

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Director: Yorgos Avgeropoulos
2009-2010 • 52 Min • Greece

On 25th May 2009, Cyclone Aila devastated southern Bangladesh, leaving an estimated 8,000 dead and over 1 million homeless. The IPCC claims that by 2050 1 in 7 Bangladeshis will be a climate migrant, forced from their homes due to ever-advancing sea levels, and the saline contamination and unemployment that inevitably ensue. With their land under water and their crops destroyed, many southern Bangladeshis have been forced to abandon farming for fishing, an industry that can only employ a fraction of the people who once worked on the now-vanished rice fields. As one former farmer explains, ‘My conscience tells me to leave, but where else can I go? It’s like a prison here.’

More infomation about Bangladesh – When The World Sinks.

Man-eating Tigers of the Sundarbans

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Director: Ingrid Kvale
2009 • 48 Min • UK

Tiger experts in Bangladesh have a problem: how can they encourage local people to protect the beautiful and endangered Bengal tiger when these animals have developed a taste for human flesh?

The Sundarbans forest is one of the biggest tracts of mangrove forest left in the world. It is rich in wildlife and provides important forest resources for communities living around its edge. But up to 50 forest workers are killed by tigers each year and now the boldest animals are sneaking into villages at night.

This gripping film reveals the tension and heartache of living so close to a killer cat and follows the bold attempt by one village to teach street dogs to scare away the rogue tiger on their doorstep.

The Concert for Bangladesh

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Director: Saul Swimmer
1972 • 103 Min • USA

The first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise humanitarian relief funds for the refugees of Bangladesh of 1971 war.

Ex-Beatle George Harrison organized this spectacular concert on August 1, 1971 at New York’s Madison Square Garden to help and aid the people from Bangladesh with all the money raised destined to that cause. Along with Harrison the concert features Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Leon Rusell, Klaus Voormann and an Indian music section by Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan and a set by the legendary Bob Dylan. The concerts raised close to US$250,000 for Bangladesh relief, which was administered by UNICEF. The event was the first-ever benefit concert of such a magnitude.

La boda de Mawla

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Director: Zoltan Enevold
2009 • 52 Min • Spain | aka The Wedding of Mawla

Mawla is from Bangladesh and lives in Madrid. He has a job and a lot of friends but his dream is to have a family. After seven years he decides to go back to his country for the first time in order to find a bride and get married. La boda de Mawla was awarded the best medium length documentary at the Alcances Film Festival in Spain and was got honored mention at IV ACE Awards in Spain in 2010.

The Devil’s Water

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Director: Amirul Arham Sheikh
2006 • 52 Min • France | aka L’eau du diable

Every day 75 million people in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India consume water contaminated with toxic levels of arsenic. The problem has been ongoing since the late 1970s, when millions of tube wells were installed, throughout the region – unintentionally tapping arsenic tainted groundwater.

In what has been called the worst mass poisoning in human history, the World Health Organization estimates the extent of the human toll now exceeds that of both the Bhopal and Chernobyl disasters. Yet few are aware of the tragedy. Arsenic kills slowly, and its victims are poor, uneducated, and easily dismissed. The tube wells provide what appears to be clean, clear water; yet it is tainted with a tasteless and odorless poison. Millions continue to suffer in silence, slowly dying from cancer and other complications.

The Devil’s Water tells the story of three young women whose lives have been adversely affected by arsenic poisoning. Asma and Nazma are two sisters who have lost their mother to arsenic poisoning, and both suffer serious complications from arsenic themselves. Rekha is a young mother who has been rejected by her husband because of her illness, and is struggling to raise her son. The film captures the personal accounts of their tragedy and loss, set against the backdrop of scientists who examine the cause and effect of the arsenic contamination and attempt to discover a solution.

The Devil’s Water, is a film about what happens when water- the most precious of natural resources – turns deadly. The film is intended to draw world-wide attention to the humanitarian and environmental crisis that arsenic water poisoning poses to both Bangladesh and other afflicted countries around the world.

Documentary Films on Bangladesh

November 17, 2014July 25, 2014 by bidici

Documentary Films on Bangladesh by some non-Bangladeshi Film Makers

Documentary films on Bangladesh by Bangladeshi film-makers are very scanty – it is almost a non-existence genre in Bangladesh. Most Bangladeshis like films that are dramatic, action-packed, emotional, hypnotic, and non-reflective. Therefore, fact-based, non-fictional documentary film making has no place there. Not in theaters, not on TVs. However, recently, there is a subtle movement among some young Bangladeshis to focus on this genre of film making.

Indeed, there are tons of issues to make documentary films on Bangladesh – Tons. Though it was not easy, over the years many non-Bangladeshis tried to document various issues affecting Bangladesh in film. Issues like environmental pollution, climate change, women’s right, working condition, prostitution, garments industry, labor rights, education, corruption, etc.

Below are a partial list of documentary films on Bangladesh made by non-Bangladeshis (and some are of Bangladeshi origin). Some are feature-length, some are shorts, some are old, some new. This list is certainly not complete, therefore, more writing this issue may follow! The list here is in random order.

These documentary films on Bangladesh are not reviews, just descriptions.

Iron Crows

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Director: Bong-Nam Park
2009 • 93 Mins • South Korea • In Bengali with English Subtitles

This is a documentary about ship-breaking industry in Bangladesh. The world center for ship-breaking is located in the port city of Chittagong in Bangladesh — perhaps the poorest nation on earth — is home to the ship-breaking industry. Here huge megaton behemoths that once sailed the seas are sent to be broken apart by men and boys (some as young as 12, often wearing flip flops) who earn $2 a day, from which they send money home to their families. They wrestle with thousands of tons of iron and asbestos, wielding blow-torches, hammers and crowbars. Here is where half of the world’s retired vessels are dismantled by 20,000 people who risk their lives to eke out the barest living. Iron Crows is a remarkably beautiful film, in this case, not just for its superb cinematography, but also for its indelible insight into how some of the most exploited people in the world retain their courage, decency and fortitude.

“…Perhaps the most important achievement of this powerful film is the courage, dignity and humility of our heroes trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of crushing poverty. This film is a tour de force!” – IDFA 2009 Jury’s comment

Best mid-length doc, IDFA, 2009

Bad Weather

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Director: Giovanni Giommi
2011 • 82 Min • England, Germany

Banishanta Island, a tiny sliver of land 100 meters long and 10 meters wide in the Bay of Bengal, south Bangladesh, is notable for two reasons: it is on the frontline of climate change, and its population is made up primarily of a community of sex workers. With the rising river, soil erosion, and frequent cyclones gradually destroying what is left of the island, Razia, Khadija, and Shefali, three of the last 65 women left living there, are in a battle for their homes, the future of their families, and even their quest for true love.

Bad Weather by Giovanni Giommi won The Doc/IT Professional Award 2012, screened at festivals worldwide. It was also got Margaret Mead Filmmaker Award Special Mentions.

Hazaribagh: Toxic Leather

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Directors: Eric de la Varène and Elise Darblay
2013 • 52 Min • France

On the outskirts of Dhaka lies a giant slum of tanneries and over 500,000 people who work in them. Every year this living hell floods the European market with cheap leather. The workers here slave away at archaic machinery in absolute squalor, turning 14 million skins into leather. Toxic products used on the leather burn their skin, cause cancer and kill most before fifty. This film delivers a devastating insight into one of the most terrible places on Earth.

Working in a Hazaribagh tannery however is not just an assault on the senses. Every day, the workers in the busy factories are exposed to corrosive and explosive chemicals that were banned from much of the world 20 years ago. Their bodies carry the stains of this continuous onslaught. Hands and feet are malformed, and up to 90% of workers develop an illness related to their work. In her dispensary, a doctor explains her experiences: “Women working in tanneries are often frail. They suffer from vaginal infections, joint pain, fever and coughing. The men are also debilitated, suffering from heart problems and gastritis.”

However, there is no respite from the owners of the factories. The uneducated workers receive no guidance on how to use the deadly chemicals, and receive no sick pay when they are taken ill. Away from work, the chemicals seep into the water of the rivers, polluting the lifeline that the whole city of Dhaka survives on. Even though the river is biologically dead, tannery owners refuse to give concern to the hazardous results of their actions: “Of course water containing chemicals is bad for the health. But if we worried about toxicity we’d stop working. Who is ready to do that?… it’s just the way it is”.

In Hazaribagh the people are fighting back, both on the streets and in the strong sense of community that they create. This film not only charts the experiences of the workers in the factories, but shows how they defend themselves from the horror of their lives. Ultimately however, it asks if we, the West, really cannot afford to pay a little more, if only to help the millions around the world who live in hellish conditions to feed our greed for ever cheaper products.

Rory Peck Awards: Sony Impact Award 2013

Every Good Marriage Begins With Tears

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Director: Simon Chambers
2006 • 62 Min • United Kingdom

Hushnara is a bride-to-be who has cold feet on the eve of her big day. Her sister, Shahanara, has already tied the knot, but she is far more Westernised than her Islamic village-boy husband from Bangladesh, and the marriage already looks shaky after only two weeks. Their father wants to see the girls settled, and their eldest sister urges them to fulfill their duty to the family. All the elements are in place for a crackling movie about reluctant brides and intractable elders. Only, Simon Chambers’s “Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears” is a documentary about real people and their unscripted attempts to balance their individual desires with social expectations. Shahanara and Hushnara are the children of Bangladeshi immigrants from London. Chambers was as a social worker for 14 years, and the family trusted him enough to let him record their most private squabbles and confessions. Chambers followed the sisters and other family members in London and Bangladesh, and has come up with a highly personal and intimate film about different attitudes to love across cultures and generations, which is at turns hilarious and deeply sad.

My Cultural Divide

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Director: Faisal Lutchmedial
2006 • 75 Min • Canada

Filmmaker Faisal Lutchmedial goes beyond the activist stereotype as he takes a personal journey into his mother’s native country for the first time. A three-month visit to Bangladesh becomes a discovery of family and home that runs parallel with his attempt to tackle the complex issue of global trade. Starting from the opening scene My Cultural Divide questions the logic of the hardcore political activist, and wonders aloud whether ethical consuming actually does anything good for the workers behind the machines. Because of family connections Lutchmedial makes his way into some of the worst factories in Bangladesh, and talks frankly with the workers inside about their job and living conditions. Sometimes contradicting western activists, the labor leaders he speaks to soon make Lutchmedial question his own long-standing beliefs on child labor and personal responsibility. Accompanied by his ailing mother, Lutchmedial takes us on a very personal journey to bridge the gap between his heritage in Bangladesh and his life in Canada. He connects his politics with his humanity, and weaves together a story that is both thought-provoking and touching.

Eisenfresser

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Director: Shaheen Dill-Riaz
2007 • 85 Mins • Germany | a.k.a. Iron Eater

In his critically acclaimed documentary film Iron Eaters, filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz follows poverty-stricken farmers who try to escape the annual famine that strikes their home in northern Bangladesh. They trade in their plows for a blowtorch and begin to work as ship-wreckers, risking their health and their lives for a pittance.

The seasonal famine in the remote parts of northern Bangladesh forces farmers Kholil and Gadu to leave their fields. Along with several of their relatives, they travel south to work as seasonal laborers in the infamous ship yards that line the beaches of Chittagong. Their new job is to dismantle the garbage disgorged by the Western World: huge oil tankers, vast container ships and any vessel that has sailed the seas for too long.

Without heavy machinery and no protective equipment, they gut the ships right on the beach where they are driven ashore. Razor-sharp pieces of metal, toxic chemicals and hazardous tools turn the job into a living hell. > Buy this doc.

Easy Like Water

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Director: Glenn Baker
2012 • 58 Min • USA, Denmark

As flood waters threaten, a visionary architect is building solar floating schools – and creating a blueprint for his country’s survival. But can ‘Bangladesh’s Noah’ keep his imperiled nation from drowning? By turns witty and heart-wrenching, ‘Easy Like Water‘ takes you on an off-the-grid journey that offers a refreshing new perspective on the resilience of the Global South.

Easy Like Water seeks to ignite and accelerate interest in “design for good” strategies for helping communities live with climate change in the world’s most-affected regions, such as Bangladesh, where the story unfolds. Learn more about each of the interconnected issues the film weaves together.

Scrap Vessel

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Director: Jason Byrne
2009 • 55 Mins • USA

Scrap Vessel documents the last trip of the Hari Funafuti (formerly the Bulk Promotor and Hupohai – which means ‘Amber Ocean’), a cargo ship on its way to be scrapped. With a languid atmosphere using the massive ship like a landscape, the film explores what is found inside from the Hupohai’s communist past, onwards through an unseen attack by pirates and onto a distant beach and glowing ironworks factory, until the ship becomes a phantom.

Background: In 1973 the freighter ship, Bulk Promotor, is built by Norway to transport coal and iron ore throughout Northern Europe. In 1985 the ship is sold to mainland China. Renamed Hupohai, it is used to distribute coal along the Yangtze River. Thirty-two years into the ship’s life, now called the Hari Funafuti, we board the vessel in Singapore on its final journey to Bangladesh.

Filmmaker Jason Byrne boarded the ship with fellow cameraman Theron Patterson in Singapore. They documented the journey on 16mm film and video, exploring the huge vessel top to bottom, finding scraps of its past crew including photos and 16mm motion picture communist propaganda. Filming the ship’s destruction on the beach in Bangladesh, they continued with its pieces to the Ali Rolling Mill in Chittagong, where the scraps were melted down.

The ship is completely gone now, but various artifacts were saved by Byrne, including the blueprints, safety posters, some of the 16mm film footage, photos of the original crew, a diary kept by a crew member, and a cassette tape of the captain’s favorite music.

Water Wars

Water-Wars-cover

Director: Jim Burroughs
2009 • 60 Min • USA

This timely documentary uncovers critical water issues facing humanity. It takes the viewer from the floods and droughts in Bangladesh, to dam building in India, water management in the Netherlands and the latest wake-up call in America: the Katrina disaster and the drought in the Southwest. Future wars will be fought over access to fresh water, unless we come together to face this global crisis. Without water there is no life.

The tagline of the documentary is ‘When Drought, Flood and Greed Collide’

2nd International Film Festival audience

2nd International Film Festival in New York

February 24, 2025July 12, 2014 by bidici

New York Film Center organized its 2nd International Film Festival in Jackson Heights from June 19 to 21, 2014. The event was held in the afternoons. Fourteen films—three feature-length and eleven shorts—were screened at the event. Eleven were from Bangladesh, one from India, one from Sri Lanka, and one from the USA. Nine were nonfiction, and five were fiction. There was a panel discussion on the closing day. A small English souvenir with program details was published. The event was entirely free.

This festival is an excellent initiative as it may showcase Bangladeshi films and films from other countries, encourage independent filmmakers to make responsible films, build curious audiences, and provide a platform to compare and compete with other film festivals.

The festival seemed like a success! Plenty of audience showed up, which was encouraging. The location—Jackson Heights—was convenient for people to attend. The organizers advertised the festival in local Bangladeshi newspapers, distributed postcards, and arranged a press conference. Donors, sponsors, and advertisers provided financial contributions, and local Bangladeshi media outlets reported the event. There was some collaboration from the Bangladesh and Sri Lankan consulates, too. Even with hectic efforts, the festival was a success.

There are three major observations about the festival:

On the first day, the festival opened with ‘Not a Penny Not a Gun’ – a short doc by Makbul Chowdhury, and ended with ‘The Drummer’ – a film by Tanvir Mokammel. The organizers asked some notable personalities to express their thoughts on the film – The Drummer – just after the screening. However, one was too quick to say something; he needed more time to reflect. For another, it was too emotional to say anything! However, they talked a few words about the film at the end. If a discussion had been necessary, it would have been better if general audiences had been included. Most of the time, these one-sided, staged talks are not so interesting. The experts unintentionally bored the audience with their ‘expert’ opinion (visible from the panel discussion on 2nd day). Let’s keep ‘banjona’ ‘dotona’ ‘nondon thotho’ related issues for lecture room event. The festival can be light, entertaining, inclusive, intuitive, and innovative without these lecture-style discussions.

Next time, the organizers can ensure enough up-to-date event information is available online. It was hard to find any information about this festival online and the festival’s Facebook event page did not provide sufficient and timely information.

Cell phone, cell phone, cell phone! It is very rude and mega-obnoxious to let your cell phone ring loudly in the middle of a film. This happened ever day. Please audience, put your ‘ego-ring’ into silence or keep vibrating in style!

Even though it was hectic and restless and needed some effective organization, the festival was a great start. It can only go better with better planning. Cheers to all who were part of this festival, and a wholehearted big congratulations to the organizers.

The following films were shown at the 2nd International Film Festival:

June 19, 2014 Screening:

Not a Penny Not a Gun by Mokbul Chowdhury, Bangladesh, 39 mins

The effort of Bangladesh in Britain during the 1971 Liberation War is explored through the journey of a son searching for his father’s footsteps. His father, Azizul Haque Bhuia, was the convener of the Action Committee of the Liberation of Bangladesh, who left England in 1972 just after a week of the freedom of Bangladesh. In 2006, when Azizuf Haque Bhuia passed away, he was denied the recognition of a ‘Freedom Fighter’ and a state funeral which is given to freedom fighters. The local district office informed his family that they did not consider him a ‘Freedom Fighter’ as he was abroad in 1971 and he did not fight with a Gun. A documentary, for the first time, captured the stories and emotions of real people that remain missing from the glorious history of the Liberation War of Bangladesh.

Narmeen by Dipti Gupta, India, 18 mins

Narmeen is about the loss of identity and association in the trying times of the partition of India. Noor, a young woman grieving the death of her daughter, is torn between moving to a new country and holding on to the last vestiges of memory that she has. Unable to come to terms with reality, she exists in a dreamlike state. When a Sikh refugee comes in the neighborhood from the ‘other side’, Noor takes a liking for his young son. But her attempts at befriending him are blatantly thwarted by the embittered father.

Aiaao by Jaami Abdullah Farooq, Bangladesh, 13 mins

Mandi is an ethnic minority who lives in the heart of Saalban of Gazipur. Through their primitive religion was sangsarek, almost all of them migrated to Christian religious festivals and rituals – all their history and heritage are demolished today. In 2004, the Mandi people started protesting when Saalban was announced as an echo park. On 3rd January 2004, police attacked their procession, which resulted in the death of Piren and 100 more injuries. The documentary tends to portray their life and struggles.

The Drummer by Tanvir Mokammel, Bangladesh, 90 mins

During the war in 1971, when the Pakistan army occupied Jibon’s village, Jobon, along with other villagers, tried to flee to India. On the way, the Pakistani soldiers massacred his family members. Jibon survived and, after roaming around the war-ravaged countryside, finally returned to his native village, which was then being brutally ruled by the Razakars, an Islamic auxiliary force collaborating with the Pakistan army. The commander of the Razakars spared Jibon’s life on the condition that he had to play the drum for his marauding force. Jibon’s situation became very ironic, but his humanity and artistic instincts thrived in the end.

June 20, 2014 Screening:

Mechanism by Abid Hossain Khan, Bangladesh, 15 mins

The Mechanism is an experimental documentary film about workers, nature, and a transformation plot with no spoken dialog and no voice-over; it has to be experienced viscerally first and first analyzed because everyone sees differences in them. It’s a kind of exploration of the technological journey in Bangladesh and the effect the transition to Western-style modernization has had on them.

The Strike by Farid Ahmed, Bangladesh, 20 mins

General strike, popularly known as hortal, was first demonstrated in the Indian sub-continent by Gandhi to protest British colonial rule in India, but that was non-violent. Since then, hortal has been a recognized way of articulating political demand, and the forms of hortal demonstration have undergone a massive transformation over the years. It played as a strong instrument of protest in our language movement of 1952, the mass uprising of 1969, 1971 and student movement of 1990. Nowadays, hortals come with violent movements, bloodshed, and sometimes death. Hortal costs a loss of $15 million each day. The film tends to compare between the glorious history of hortal and its present scenario.

The Story Never Be End by Fauzia Khan, Bangladesh, 20 mins

The documentary is a social expression of women about marriage, sexuality, and childbirth. Four decades have passed since the liberation war, and women have advanced significantly during this time. Even now, they cannot decide on marriage, develop a career of their own, take a challenging profession, and earn fame both in the country and abroad. However, women still possess the same position within a family and within a married life. The story of Shukla, Shikoya, Nasrin, Ridita and Ritu in their married life not more than a wife or mother, not more than what was in their moms and grandmas life. From generation to generation, women’s positions and roles remain the same; their freedom in married life is a bird within a cage. This story is about other people who are considered second sex by Simone de Beauvoir.

Mrittika Maya (Earthen Love) by Gazi Rakaye, Bangladesh, 90 mins

Nimai Chandra Pal – best known as Khirmohan, was once a potter. Presently, he owns a potter homestead and a piece of land with a banyan tree. He walks leaning on a stick – the very stick that was once used to turn his potter’s wheel. One of his hands is paralyzed now. Though he doesn’t do pottery anymore because of his old age and failing health, pottery is his life support, just the way the stick scaffolds him to walk. Khirmohan has two sons – Shatyan and Nikhil. Both stay in Dhaka. One works as an office support staff member, and the other runs a shop. They do not regard their father’s profession – they are more willing to sell the ancestral potter homestead, and because of this, Khirmohan doesn’t like his sons. He had a daughter who passed away.

June 21, 2014 Screening:

A Tale of the Hilsha by Polash Rosul, Bangladesh, 22 mins

In the river Meghna, the Hilsa roams freely. The fishermen’s lives rotate around this river and this fish; they cast their nets in the river’s depths and seek the meaning• of life. The river once used to yield a huge amount of Hilsa. The life-cycle of this fish was intractably tied with the lives of the fishermen, for the Hilsa was the staple source of their income. Each fisherman used to have large fishing boats and fishing nets. But conditions have changed. Today, the lives of these fishermen are ensnared in the moneylender’s hands. The Hilsa fish, too, are in short supply. As the fishermen reminisce over the olden days, they are overwhelmed with emotion, and often they turn defiant in anger. A Tale of the Hilsa is a documentary that depicts the frail lives of the Hilsa fish and the Hilsa fishermen.

Bangladesher Ridoy by Saiful Wadud Helal, Bangladesh, 30 mins

Sahabag’s ganajagarana is the biggest documented people uprising in Bangladesh’s history. I took part in this movement from my middle-class background. Looking through the Camera’s viewfinder, I tried to understand a country as old as me. Perhaps, trying to look for the dream of Bangladesh through the eyes of thousands who came to Shahbag with hope. Can it be possible to find that dream Bangladesh standing on the footpath of Shahbag?

Untitled by Peal Chowdhury, USA, 10 mins

‘Untitled’ is a short story about an ordinary boy whose life was filled with happiness at first. But with the company of bad friends, he got addicted to drugs, and his life took a U-turn…He lost his loved ones and was involved in crimes. Thus, he saw his life crumbling in front of his eyes.

The Last Rites by Yasmin Kabir, Bangladesh, 20 mins

‘The Last Rites,’ a silent film by Yasmine Kabir, depicts the ship-breaking yards of Chittagong, Bangladesh – a final destination for ships too old to ply the oceans any longer. Every year, hundreds of ships are sent to yards in Bangladesh. And every year, thousands of people come to these yards searching for jobs. Risking their lives to save themselves from hunger, they breathe in asbestos dust and toxic waste. The elemental struggle between man and metal figures throughout the film, as men carry the weight of steel ropes over their shoulders, pull huge parts of the vessels inland, and bear great metal plates. ‘The Last Rites’ is an allegorical portrayal of the agony of hard labor.

Artist of a Changing World by Anindo Atik, Bangladesh, 30 mins

The film tells the story of a freedom fighter and a committed war photographer, Abdul Hamid Raihan. He and his camera captured and preserved the memories of the glorious War of Independence in 1971. Abdul Hamid Raihan, a freelance photographer from Kushtia, began his historical photographic journey when Bangladesh underwent political transformation. His love for photography started purely out of curiosity at a very young age. His hobby turned him into a serious photographer during the liberation of Bangladesh. His camera became a weapon of great significance – documenting Bengali life, atrocities committed by the occupation army, and the aftermath of a bloody war.

With you Without you by Mansee Kong, Sri Lanka, 90 mins

When lonely wife, tortured pawnbroker Sarathsiri meets and marries the beautiful, enigmatic Selvi, he thinks he has finally found a way to put his past behind him. But a chance visit from an old friend opens up wounds that threaten to tear open the barely healing fabric of a mutilated nation coming to grips with the unspeakable cost of a third-year civil war. Would you love to help them cross the bridge? Or will the past continue to color the present?

International Bangla Festival & Book Fair, NYC

Bangla Festival & Book Fair in NYC

November 17, 2014June 24, 2014 by bidici

Bangla Utshob and Boimela — Bangla Utshob & Boimela

Muktadhara Foundation organized a 3-day long International Bangla Festival & Book Fair at the William Cullen Bryant High School of Long Island City from June 13 to 15, 2014. According to the organizer, it was their 23rd Bangla Book Fair. The fair was attended by many people, mostly of Bangladeshi origin. Some attendees were from West Bengal part of India and some from Europe. Hence, it was international in nature. The objectives of the fair 2014 was “to project the cultural heritage of Bengali to expatriate Bangladesh and West Bengal and other communities living in the North America. And to build a sustainable link between the expatriate Bengalis and the land where they or their ancestors were born in field of information exchange, literature, culture & business.”

The festival brought together plenty of Bangla writers, readers, poets, artists, reciters, musicians, book publishers and spectators. The event was full of programs – general discussion, literary discussion, QA session with writers, song, dance, drama, recitation, children’s essay competition, youth forum, photo exhibitions, writer’s corner, short film, etc. Different programs were held in various parts of the venue – some event space were given names like Ali Anowar Room, Salman Khan Room, Aminul Haque Room, etc. There were also book stalls, cloth and jewelry stalls, food stalls, NGO stalls, and other kinds. A nice souvenir was published and a program leaflet was always available to pick up.

It was a festive, hectic and inspiring event. I went there last two days to enjoy and observe the festival. The list of guests and programs can tell that it was quite a big event. Organizing such an event successfully was certainly not an easy job! A big congratulation to organizers, sponsors, attendees, participants and all interested parties. It was better than a great festival.

Some discussion on technology, sports and more spotlight on youth forum could have been given!

I ventured different parts of the event and enjoyed them. I, however, also expected a bit more futuristic flavor from the festival. Felt that the festival was kind of past oriented. Here is my two main observations (and suggestions):

The festival was full of programs but there was no science/technology related discussion of any form! Why not, who knows! Today, our life, ‘liberty’, literature, language, likings inundated by so many technological innovations (facebook, twitter, sms, apps, robotics, vr, etc). When we are gradually moving from writing to typing, typing to touching, touching to gesturing, and gesturing to ‘thinking’ – hundreds of topics can be think of to discuss about related to science and technology. Let’s do a quick, fun exercise about possible topics: (Again, this is just for fun)
- ‘The Face of Bangla e-books’,
- ‘Internet and Bangla Language: Today’,
- ‘Possibility of a Bangla Bing/Google’
- ‘One and Unified Bangla Typewriter’,
- ‘Publishing Top-notch Online Bangla Newspaper’,
- ‘Bangla Language: Year 2100′,
- ‘Self-publishing Technology and Bangla Book Publishing’,
- ‘Moimonshingho Gitika and the Psychology of Bengali’,
- ‘The Science of Charchapod‘,
- ‘Neurology of Language: Bangladesh Perspective‘. (ok, time’s up)
Out of the all the programs, I enjoyed youth forum the most. Ok, I would not say it extraordinarily fancy and fantastic but it was very dynamic, hopeful, energetic and in English. This 2-day youth program was “designed, coordinated, conducted and presented by second generation Bengalis“. Young Bangladeshi-Americans presented and discussed various topics about entrepreneurship, politics, importance of volunteering, first generation immigrant experience, history of Bangladesh, making film in USA, community connection through photography, response to domestic violence, etc. Even with poor audio system, and hard to show their slides (due to bright light in the room), the youth presenters tried their best to make it interesting, informative and engaging. The discussion was entirely in English, which was natural and a right thing to do. While adults were debating whether new generation Bangladeshi-Americans should learn Bangla to be a Bengali, in the next room, the young’s were busy presenting their ideas in English in full swing. Unfortunately, not enough first generation audiences were there to listen to them! A meaningful dialog/conversation between the first and the second generation immigrants about how to represent Bengali could have been arranged! What the new generation of Bangladeshi-Americans think of the Bengali culture remained unknown!

Other observations where things can be done differently:

Photo exhibition of Bangladesh Liberation War 1971 on the 2nd floor was an excellent inclusion. This should have been given more highlights. I almost missed it! Photo exhibition of Pavel Rahman was also interesting and maybe bit nostalgic for adult-enough Bangladeshis. It could have been displayed in a corner by creating a little more appropriate atmosphere.

Organizers can utilize internet to provide more information. Few simple spelling mistakes on the home page could be avoided where ‘New York’ became ‘Ney York’, ‘Bengali’ became ‘Benglai‘, etc. (Now, I am concerned about my mistakes!)

The event is over now. If someone need information about this festival (writings/pictures/videos) in coming years, how will they get them? Archiving the program of the event is an important work that can be done.

Next time, maybe a big prominent display at the venue entrance with clear directions of the room, programs, time etc. can be displayed; audio system can be improved, etc.

Lastly, looking beyond the limit is like loving the limitless – this occasion was a good practice of that. Thanks again, for organizing such a wonderful event.

A Woman’s War: Bangladesh

November 17, 2014April 7, 2014 by bidici

Elizabeth D. Herman is a New York based freelance photographer and researcher. Since 2010, she has been working on a photography and oral history project called, ‘A Woman’s War‘ – which documents the lives of women engaged in recent conflicts worldwide, as well as their struggle for justice, rights, and their identity as female fighters. As part of the project, she has travelled five countries and documented stories of 116 women in Egypt, Vietnam, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Bangladesh. The project is a valuable contribution from historical point of view as well as women’s study.

Elizabeth worked in Bangladesh as a Fulbright Fellow to research on how politics influence the writing of national histories in textbooks. While there, she also kept working on ‘A Woman’s War’. She explored the experiences of Bangladeshi female combatants both during and after war of 1971.

Women’s role and suffering in the Liberation War of Bangladesh is still largely unknown. The women who were raped during the war of 1971 was given the title ‘Birangona’ (heroine) by the then government. Some benefits were given to them, but they were meager and mostly indirect – like, money and land rewards were offered to men who married the women. But in a country where rape is a serious stigma and consider women’s fault, the title ‘Birangona’ turned into a title of shame! Even though thousands of women were raped, tortured, handicapped, and suffered mental and physical abuse by the Pakistani Army, they failed to tell their stories because of social embarrassment. On the other hand, many women actively participated in the war. Some worked as spies, some risked their lives to help and train ‘mukti-joddhas’ (freedom fighters). They want to tell the stories of their struggle honorably. Elizabeth Herman provided some of them that opportunity. Here are six Bangladeshi women’s story:

I have lived with these wounds in both of my legs for my whole life. I got them while fighting with Sector 9 in the Liberation War. But the government does not pay me the Freedom Fighter stipend they pay the men. I get no help from the government. Now, my family has nothing.

Kabon Bibi, Dhaka

I do not know why some are called mukti juddha but we are called birangona…I used to care for and serve food to other freedom fighters when they would come to our house. Why are we not freedom fighters, too?

Hasina Begum, Sirajganj

I sang for the soldiers. Before they would take the field for battle, me and the others girls would gather together and sing to them songs of freedom. Then they would go and fight for our liberation.

Dalia Nausheen, Dhaka

During the war, I used to hide weapons underneath my sari and bring them to the Freedom Fighters. I would sometimes have to bury them in the middle of the night to hide them from the West Pakistani army.

Begum Gulferdous, Comilla

Both of my sons and my husband went off to fight during the war. One of my sons never came back. But I am proud. I am proud to be a war mother and a war wife.

Ameya Khatun, Bogra

As a woman Freedom Fighter I feel proud, all women cannot do what I did; I was not just a housewife or passing my time in India as a refugee. I was fighting for my country.

Rounak Mohal Dilruba Begum, Bogra

Elizabeth D. Herman is currently working in the US on American female veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her work has been exhibited in a number of group shows at Tufts, as well as at a solo show at Shadhona Studios in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR’s All Things Considered, GlobalPost, The Daily Beast/Newsweek, The Independent (Bangladesh), Warscapes, and FotoVisura.

Pictures copyrighted by Elizabeth D. Herman

Bangladesh: Nine Photographers

July 4, 2015March 27, 2014 by bidici

It was a very cold and windy night when Eyes on Bangladesh started their opening reception of photo exhibition of Bangladeshi Photographers yesterday in New York City. But that all felt nice and warm once I was in front of those photographs! Sometime people’s life, day-to-day events, ordinary places, mundane time do not make sense unless someone sees through the lenses and set them in frames. Taken mostly by young photographers of Bangladesh, these photographs tell the story they feel important, should be told and talked about. The Photographers took these pictures from an activist point of view. They covered issues like social justice, human rights, women empowerment, environmental concern, effects of globalization, slum dwelling, etc. This exhibition is a window of opportunity to see what young Bangladeshis are mostly concern about.

The photographers are all of Bangladeshi origin, mostly young, nine total, seven men and two women, some are already awarded for their talent and work. They are:

Jannatul Mawa’s ‘Close Distance‘ is a series of nine pictures about housemaids and their respective housewives. Housemaids in Bangladesh live very closely with their master’s family under the same roof but have distant parallel relationship. They are dependent on each other but not equal. I liked the simple portrait kind of placement of the subjects. It is interesting to see their body languages, facial expressions, position of their hands and legs, some with bare foot, some are not. Can a picture tell the story of their relationship? Apart from the economic reality, I was mostly interested in seeing who seems to be the happiest of nine!! The pictures have power of drawing you into a mind game.

In Love Story, Shamsul Alam Helal has presented 12 studio pictures of his subjects. They are wild, funny, and colorful. These photos are about dream. Dreams of ‘we the people of Bangladesh’. Dreams seen through the lenses and printed on paper. Dreams can be daring, delightful, smokey, ephemeral, out of reach, hilarious, even unscrupulous but they are dear to the people who want to scape from reality. Who likes reality wholeheartedly! Do you?

Sarker Protick’s series ‘Of Rivers and Lost Lands‘ is a collection of eight pictures – reminder of a grey apocalypse in progress! With destroyed houses, drowned trees, disappearing villages people are becoming refugees in their own land. They have nowhere to go but live there. Lives are slowly disappearing into the white fogs of point of no return. In Protick’s word: ‘Places I have photographed do not exist anymore. River erosion still continues with dire consequences for this land and community.’

Munem Wasif’s Belonging is a series of photographs of old part of Dhaka city. He tried to capture the chaotic beauty of everyday life of residents there. He wanted to find harmony, connection, and symbolic meaning of what seems like a hi-volume, high pitch, broken electronic sound recorder of life as usual! All his 20 photographs are in black and white.

Saikat Mojumder’s 12 color photographs of slum life is depiction of struggle of arrival of a new life. Life, in abstract sense, do not care whether you are happy or not – it just wants you to bear the sensation of being the container of it.

Taslima Akhter’s photographs are about a disastrous building collapse near Dhaka. More than thousand people died. She took some heart-rending photos of the event. Pure madness to keep a higher living standard in one part of the world is taking life away from other parts of the world.

Rasel Chowdhury photographed the rapidly changing landscapes of Bangladesh and its environmental impact. Green – the color Bangladesh proudly love has been replaced by grayish ruthless presence of bricks, buildings, tires, and pollution. Dusty, dry and grey tone of the photographs fit with the mood of what he wanted convey.

Six photographs of Rashid Talukder was on display. He is probably most known to many Bangladeshis and aboard. His pictures were about 1971 and perfectly in line with the mood of March 26, the Independence Day of Bangladesh. Some of the photographs I saw before but they never failed to haunt me. 1971 was an absurdly painful, madly destructive time for a nation at birth.

Shumon Ahmed is a visual artist and he works with photo, video, text, sound and compilation of these forms. His installation was also an interesting piece!

Why do it?
The organizers – Eyes on Bangladesh – take all the pain and pleasure to make this exhibition to start a new kind of conversation with other Bangladeshis (and I assume, non-Bangladeshis too). Their questions – Is a potential dialog possible with the parents on wide-ranging issues? Who are the role models in Bangladesh community? Why divide more? Do they have to find and walk the path alone? It seems like they wanted to turn to a more dynamic, more creative, more challenging, more unifying, more critical path than their first generation ‘ancestors’. They want to understand the root of their ethnicity, be a proud and productive member of a community that are still very small, very new, very vibrant, full of possibilities in the United States. Hope this is an excellent effort towards building a bright future for generations to come.

Are there any connections among these photographers? Well, I think a connection can be made. These pictures speak about a system of injustice and inhuman reality where the victims are less powerful, very helpless, truly neglected. A sense of imprisonment is there. Rashid Talukder’s photographs spoke about a massive injustice towards a nation. Likewise, others voiced their concern about captivated freedom of housemaids, about ruthless urban development regardless of environment, about ever powerful jaws of abject poverty, about callous side of globalization, about inescapable climate change, about unattainable basic requirements.

On the other hand, there are powerful messages in these photographs. By being in front of curious cameras – these injustices are getting documented, meeting audiences, begging for options, shaking our consciences. One day these injustices may hear songs of freedom!

No wonder, cameras are mightier than pens!

And this last paragraph is a well-wished and good faith observation. I missed the photographer’s work related bio. There was no descriptions about their work in the distributed flyer. Photographer’s bio on the wall was too small to read and was placed lower than the natural eye level. Placement of many pictures were too high to get into. Pictures are a piece of frozen time. Unless we can see them good, they cannot ‘speak’ to us effectively as intended. Position, placement, height, light, size, print quality all counts in an exhibition. Hope this will improve in other events. For now, many thanks to organizers.

The event runs from March 26 to March 30, 2014.

suno-norge – Baul Songs of Bangladesh

September 26, 2015February 17, 2014 by bidici

In the districts of Lalmonirhat and Kurigram, in north west Bangladesh, girls and boys learn to sing and play the songs and music of their ancestors. This area is a river landscape, where singing is the most powerful artistic expression. The songs concern love and separation, in both a religious and a secular sense.

This folk music project is run by a local organisation – Arshi Nagar. Suno-Norge supports the project financially, and distributes information about the project in Norway. Suno-Norge supports fifteen song and music schools for between 18 and 40 children, as well as a sound studio and the management of a boarding school for 6 children in Lalmonirhat. Each song and music school has two teachers, often one Hindu and one Muslim. The teachers are modestly remunerated.

Arshi Nagar organises music festivals, provides musicians with instruments, and repairs old ones. The project contributes to the education of girls. Through its efforts it is able to plant fruit trees, grow vegetables, and distribute food in times of flooding.

In 1998, the author and photographer Wera Sæther visited Bangladesh for the first time. On a sand island in the river Brahmaputra she was captured by the songs (like murshidi, marfati, dehototto, bhaoaya, bhatiali and baul). Together with local musicians she got involved in an effort to preserve and develop the vocal traditions of the very poorest in this part of the country. Suno-Norge operates as an association of friends who support the work of Arshi Nagar financially and help to share the rich cultural heritage of these singers and musicians.

Here is one cool song:

In 2010, Arshi Nagar started the production of CDs. More information about this project can be found at suno-norge. (This is a Norwegian website)

If you want to be a member, friend and want to support the work, you may contact via e-mail: medlemskap@suno-norge.org