'Statement After My Poet Husband's Death'
The National Gallery Auditorium at Shilpakala Academy was full to the brim with fervent audiences waiting for the second installment of the biannual Bangladesh Short and Documentary Film Festival 2018 to begin on Saturday afternoon. After a group dance performance and speeches by the special guests, director Tasmiah Afrin Mou's short fiction 'Statement After My Poet Husband's Death' opened the curtain on the nationwide film festival.
Mou's film is about the psychological journey of a middle class woman, Rubi (Dilruba Hossain Doyel), whose husband dies, but she feels no grief for him. Sitting beside his dead body, she remembers her life with this man, and discovers that her once beloved husband had been dead to her long before his physical demise.
The film has travelled to 15 international film festivals in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Nepal, India, Pakistan, USA, and Canada, and won five awards in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Other short films screened at the opening day were- Shajan Majhi and Oshim Sarker's 'Golpo Shongkhep,' Mahmud Hasan's 'Itibritto Kingba Bastobotar Purorarombo,' Rafat Zamil's 'Seized Pleasure,' Abid Mllick's 'A Little Red Car,' Jhumur Asma Jui's short documentary 'Putul Puran,' Sohel Rana Boyati's 'Jol O Pani,' and Zuairijah Mou's 'Bhoy- The Fear of Silence.'
The chief guest slated for the event opening ceremony, Minister of Cultural Affairs, Asaduzzaman Noor, couldn't make it to the event as he was not in Dhaka.
However, six of the seven special guests invited to the program were present and they all delivered elaborate speeches. Md. Badrul Anam Bhuiyan, film and cinematography department, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, delivered the opening speech, followed by Zahidur Rahim Anjan, president, Bangladesh Short Film Forum (BSFF).
