ACF Asian Cinema Fund

Post-Production Fund

2012 Post-Production Fund

LIST Television
Category Asian Project
Project Television
Director Mostofa Sarwar FAROOKI
Country Bangladesh
Director's Profile “Mostofa Sarwar FAROOKI is a key exemplar of Bangladeshi new wave cinema movement,” Variety’s Jay Weissberg wrote. He is also the pioneer of an avant-garde filmmakers’ movement called "chabial". This group of young aspiring filmmakers used local cable television networks as a platform to master their hands in story-telling and to create an audience for the stories they tell.
His third feature Third Person Singular received an extensive international recognition. It premiered in Busan International Film Festival in 2009 and the European premiere was in Rotterdam. Then it went on to Abu Dhabi, Milan, Fribourg and 15 other international film festivals. The film got him five awards, including best director in Dhaka International Film Festival 2010. Furthermore, the film was selected to be Bangladesh’s entry to 83rd Oscar.
Synopsis
As a leader of the local community, Amin Chairman bans every kind of image in his water-locked village in rural Bangladesh. He even goes on to claim that imagination is also sinful since it gives one the license to infiltrate into any prohibited territory. But change is a desperate wind that is difficult to resist by shutting the window. The tension between this traditional window and modern wind grows to such an extent that it starts to leave a ripple effect on the lives of a group of typically colorful, eccentric, and emotional people living in that village. But at the very end of the film, Television, which he hated so much, comes to the rescue and helps Amin Chairman reach a transcendental state where he and his God are unified. A new twist to the story makes him embrace IMAGE and IMAGINATION.
Director's Note
We had no television set in our houses growing up, because it was considered to be un-Islamic. Time has changed now. Television is now a household item. But the old perception still remains in some areas. We encountered such character during the shooting of the film as if our character ‘Chairman’ suddenly jumped off the script and confronted us.
The disapproving of image is not all that makes of this film, there is more. This film is a celebration of human imagination, a celebration of dialectical existence between the real world and the imaginary world in which imaginary world sometimes takes over the real world. All in all this a simple story of human relationship and their differences in a changing world.
Festivals
2012 Busan International Film Festival - Closing Film
2012 Dubai International Film Festival - Competition, Special Mention
2012 Cinemanila International Film Festival - Competition
2012 Asia Pacific Film Festival Award - nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography
Still Cut
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