Asian Cinema Fund

ACF Asian Cinema Fund

Post-Production Fund

2014 Post-Production Fund

LIST Jalal’s Story

Category	Asian Project
Project	Jalal’s Story
Director	Abu Shahed EMON
Country	Bangladesh
Director's Profile	Graduated in Psychology from the University of Dhaka, he developed interest in filmmaking due to his active involvement in the film society movement. After studying filmmaking in the US and Australia, he currently studies at the Korean National University of Arts in South Korea. He is an alumnus of Asian Film Academy 2010 and his feature project the <Tale of a Policeman>, has received a Script Development Fund from Asian Cinema Fund(ACF) and participated in the Asian Project Market(APM) in 2011. His short film <The Container>(2012) was also selected to Busan International Film Festival in the Asian Short Film Competition.

Synopsis: The main protagonist of this story is a boy named Jalal who doesn’t know who his parents are and where he comes from. We find him exploring family and love through three different phases of life by the changing riverside landscape.
Within the twists and turns in his journey Jalal meets ‘Miraj’ who gives Jalal his name for the first time, but exploits him to make money from the superstitious villagers by associating some local myth with Jalal’s floating arrival through the river in a bowl as well. But the village politics turns the infant into a bad omen and Jalal is thrown back to the river again and is found by ‘Karim’, a childless landlord, in a different village. Karim’s deliberate attempt of having his own child causes Jalal to be floated away once again to a new destination where he spends another chapter of his life with another Hindu family. But his destiny brings him back to the road again where he founds another family with ‘Sajib’, who messes up Jalal’s life with his antisocial activities that eventually makes Jalal leave that place but metaphorically giving him a family of his own.
Each phases, Jalal undergoes the volatile experience of life but the river takes him to a new destination every time. The river remains the best comfort to him like a mother who he believes would take him to the sea finally. Jalal waits to go there one day with his new family. But as all rivers don’t meet the sea, Jalal’s journey never meets an end.

Director's Note: Jalal has no clue about his parents as he arrives as a newborn in a riverside village all alone floating in a big bowl. He floats through the riverside landscape from family to family hoping to reach to the sea to meet his father. But as all rivers don’t meet the sea, Jalal’s journey never meets an end.

LIST