The documentary film, Blockade, is about the inspiring story of how a group of people in Delaware Valley area (Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington DC), irrespective of their nationality or religion, stood up in 1971 against the brutal oppression of the Pakistani military in Bangladesh, the then East Pakistan. The military was carrying out genocide of epic proportions, which led to a liberation war, and eventually the birth of a new nation, Bangladesh. The film covers a series of events that started in June 1971 when the New York Times published a story that two Pakistani military ships were coming to the Eastern Seaboard of the US to load up arms supplied by the US government without the Congressional approval and despite official ban.
The film follows the story of the Philadelphia resident peace activists Richard K. Taylor, Phyllis Taylor, Sally Willowghby; uPenn Professors Dr. Klaus Krippendorff, Dr. Charles Khan and Bengali expatriates then living in Philadelphia area Dr. Sultana Alam, Dr. Monayem Chowdhury, Mozharul Hoque et al. Their non-violent activism eventually forced some of those ships to return empty. Amidst the denial of the US government, they come up with an idea to create public/media awareness by a symbolic blockade with canoes and dinghies in front of the oceangoing ships that were being used for supplying arms to Pakistan. The groups successfully organize non-violent protests and generate a huge national media interest on the matter. The activists then go on to influence other groups and make a substantial impact on public opinion here and overseas. Through interviews, archival TV footage and photographs, the film weaves in historical accounts of the genocide in Bangladesh, the misguided US foreign policy towards Pakistan at the time, and the common man’s protest against injustice.
Filmmaker Arif Yousuf lives in New Jersey and works in New York as an IT Executive. He has always been interested in Films and South Asian History. The Blockade documentary gave him the opportunity to combine two of his interests together and create a film. Encouraged by the success of his first film he is now planning several other documentary projects. Arif is also working on establishing a distribution company for documentary films from South Asia. He expects the company to support little known documentary projects and introduce them to worldwide markets via Internet.
Venue:
SouthAsiaNYU, Institute for Public Knowledge
20 Cooper Square, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003
Contact:
ipk.info@nyu.edu