Film

Bangla Film Festival 2025

Bengalis of New York (BONY) will organize the 2025 Bangla Film Festival on Saturday, July 19, from 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm. at Angelika Film Center in New York. The festival will showcase films of different lengths and subjects. These films explore deep personal and societal struggles such as family tensions during Ramadan, combating racism, undocumented immigrants finding love, a photographer preserving fleeting moments, a supernatural curse stemming from hate, mental health stigma, a Marine’s PTSD, and body image insecurities reflecting themes of identity, trauma, and resilience across diverse cultural landscapes. Through supernatural elements, intimate relationships, and social commentary, these films delve into the human condition, uncovering buried truths, unspoken fears, and the power of healing in the face of adversity.

Bangla Film Festival 2025 will include a red carpet reception for the directors and actors, filmmaker Q&As, and a display and sale of Bangladeshi cultural merchandise.

Films

As Ramadan draws close, a young woman returns home, stirring up buried tensions and unspoken truths that refuse to stay in the past.

Will Jackie, Taz, and Dulla be able to save the day and end racism in these trying circumstances?

An undocumented Bangladeshi immigrant in Philadelphia starts to fall for a roommate she’s never met, forming a connection that will test the limits of her romantic imagination.

A seasoned photographer whose life in Kolkata revolved around capturing moments frozen in time. The year was 1995, when photography was still a ritual for the middle class, a ceremony that demanded precision and patience.

A religious hate crime unleashes a deadly curse. A fortune teller peeks into his future. A magic village. A morbid marriage. Dui Shaw delves into the darker aspects of contemporary Bangladeshi film, infusing it with a supernatural element.

Joyeeta (Victorious) aims to foster open dialogue on access to culturally appropriate mental health services, reduce stigma and innermost thoughts on mental well-being, and showcase the community’s deep healing power.

A decorated US Muslim Marine, Aamir, returns home from combat only to find himself battling with his inner demons from a life-changing event while deployed. As he settles back into civilian life, he starts questioning his identity and faces the most brutal battle of all – the struggle within.

Annika struggles with body image on New Year’s Eve in Brooklyn.

Tickets

General admission: $39.49 > $44.99
Student admission: $22.99 > $33.99
Group admission: $135.96 > $157.96

Buy tickets here

Venue

Village East by Angelika
181-189 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

[Event details may be subject to change.]

Bangla Movie at Raindance Film Festival: Saba

The Raindance Film Festival in London, UK, will premiere Saba, directed by Maksud Hossain. The film depicts Saba, a 25-year-old woman who is the sole caregiver to her paralyzed mother, Shirin. Balancing caregiving and work, Saba feels the weight of responsibility grow unbearable. Amidst her exhaustion, she meets Ankur, who offers a brief escape. As her mother’s death approaches, Saba faces a life-altering transformation.

The film has two screenings at the same venue:

  • Screening at Vue Piccadilly, Wednesday, June 25, 6:45 pm
  • Screening at Vue Piccadilly, Thursday, June 26, 12:30 pm

Buy Ticket(s)
[Discount Code: RDFF25 for 15% off. This offer is valid for one purchase per customer.]

Venue:

Vue Piccadilly, Screen 2
19, Lower, Regent St., London SW1Y 4LR

Details:

Year: 2024
Runtime: 95 minutes
Language: Bangla
Country: Bangladesh
Premiere: UK Premiere

Director: Maksud Hossain
Screenwriter: Maksud Hossain
Producer: Uri Singer, Tamim Abdul Majind, Arifur Rahman, Barkat Hossain Polash, Mehazabien Chowdhury, Trilora Khan
Executive Producer: Uri Singer
Cast: Mehazabien Chowdhury, Rokeya Prachy, Mostafa Monwar
Cinematographer: Barkat Hossain Polash
Editor: Maksud Hossain

Bangla Movie at Raindance Film Festival: Dui Shaw

Two Bangla movies will be shown at the Raindance Film Festival, London, UK: one of them is Dui Shaw. Nuhash Humayun directs the movie. The film about a religious hate crime unleashes a deadly curse. A fortune teller peeks into his own future. A magic village. A morbid marriage. Dui Shaw delves into the darker aspects of contemporary Bangladeshi film, infusing it with a supernatural element. This is a sequel to Pett Kata Shaw, winner of Best International Feature at the 2023 Raindance Film Festival.

The other movie, Saba, will be screened on June 25 and 26.

Buy Ticket(s)
[Discount Code: RDFF25 for 15% off. This offer is valid for one purchase per customer.]

Venue:

Vue Piccadilly, Screen 2
19, Lower, Regent St., London SW1Y 4LR

Details:

Year: 2025
Runtime: 150 minutes
Language: Bangla
Country: Bangladesh
Premiere: UK Premiere
Content Warning: Horror, gore, and themes of violence

Director: Nuhash Humayun
Screenwriter: Nuhash Humayun, Gultekin Khan
Producer: Redoan Rony
Executive Producer: Samaresh Mukherji
Cast: Mosharrof Karim, Afzal Hossain, Joya Ahsan, Q Nawshaba Ahmed
Cinematographer: Xoaher Musavvir
Editor: Fuad Shourov
Music: Avishek Bhattacharjee

A House Named Shahana – A Bangladeshi movie

A House Named Shahana, a Bangladeshi movie directed by British Bangladeshi director Leesa Gazi, will be featured at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles on June 29, 2024, at 9:00 pm (PDT) at the Landmark Theatres Sunset in Los Angeles, CA.

The film A House Named Shahana (Barir Naam Shahana) is about Dipa, a divorced woman living in a small town in 1990s Bangladesh. The film explores how she overcomes a failed marriage, social taboos, and the burden of family honor through her courage, sense of humor, and fighting spirit.

A House Named Shahana (Barir Naam Shahana)
2023, 137 min, Bangla

Venue:

Landmark Theatres Sunset #1
8000 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046

About the Director:

Leesa Gazi has dedicated her career to telling stories from women’s perspectives. She is a writer, theater practitioner, and award-winning filmmaker who co-founded the Komola Collective. Gazi directed the multi-award-winning documentary Rising Silence, about the survivors of sexual violence of the Bangladesh Liberation War, and has created several counter-violent extremism shorts for a United Kingdom think tank. In 2023, Amazon Crossing published the English translation of her critically acclaimed Bengali novel Rourob (Good Girls). Gazi’s first feature, A House Named Shahana, won awards at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival and BFI London Independent Film Festival 2023. She is also a founding member of the Global Survivors’ Network, SEMA.

Tickets: [Use promo code ShahanaIFFLA2024 to get 20% off the ticket price]

Buy Tickets Here

Documentary Screening: Bay of Blood

Documentary Screening: Bay of Blood
Director: Khrishendu Bose

Bay of Blood is a powerful documentary film regarding Bangladesh’s Liberation War: a forgotten genocide & how the US supported Pakistani regime responsible for mass killings in 1971. The film focuses largely on the genocide and investigates why and how it was executed. An estimated 3 million people were killed, 10 million people were displaced to India and 400,000 women and girls were raped by the Pakistani soldiers in months following in effort to quell the struggle for independence of East Pakistan as Bangladesh. The themes of the film resonate today.

6:00 pm: Gate opens, meet and greet
6:30 pm: Documentary screening
8:00 pm: QA with Filmmaker

Sponsors:

South Asian Law Students Association, CUNY
Asian American/Asian Research Institute
Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM)
Sakhi for South Asian Women

The event is free and open to public.
RSVP and photo ID required. Get free tickets at EventBrite

Director: Krishnendu Bose is an Indian Bangali filmmaker and is the founder and director for Earthcare Productions

Sneha Fundraising and Documentary

The Annual Sneha Fundraising and Documentary event will be held in Connecticut on April 8th.

Tickets: General admission: $50 |  Student admission: $25

About Sneha:

Sneha – an organization of sisterhood of South Asian women in Connecticut. Sneha works primarily with Bangladeshi, Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Afghani and Nepalese women. The organization supports and provides referrals to women of South Asian origin in Connecticut, especially survivors of domestic violence, and to encourage dialogue about such cultural topics as immigration, inter-generational communication, and financial independence.

About the documentary: 

Directed by Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, Geeta Gandbhir, A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers follow a group of Bangladeshi women police officers on a UN peacekeeping mission to Haiti. The film portrays the emotional toll of a risky and grueling year abroad as UN peacekeepers. Muslim women are often kept at a distance in the Western media. This film offers a rare and up-close look as they make the best of a difficult situation.

Q & A session with the film’s field producer and editor Nandita Ahmed, Silent Auction, and Dinner will follow.

Venue:

Mark Twain House
351 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, CT 06105

Contacts:

Priya, 860-537-0795
Uma, 860-651-0801
Samina, 203-404-7347
Rubina, 860-593-2531

Blockade – a non violent resistant

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

Documentary Films on Bangladesh - Part 9 cover

Documentary Films on Bangladesh – Part 9

Non-fiction, special interest, or documentary films on Bangladesh by non-Bangladeshi filmmakers covered issues like microfinance, climate change, poverty, population, prostitution, child labor, ready-made garments, women, intermarriage, shipbreaking, travel, etc. Still, hundreds of real stories on various subjects are waiting to be told. Some independent Bangladeshi filmmakers started making documentary films very slowly, although the numbers are painfully low and limited.

Most documentaries on Bangladesh-related issues were made for foreign television, international organizations, and general audiences and were shown outside of Bangladesh. Nine films are included in this list of documentary films about Bangladesh. As mentioned earlier, the list of documentaries is all created by non-Bangladeshi documentary makers. Some are feature-length, some are short, some are old, some new, some available, some not, some won the award, some just there. This list is an effort to keep a record of them. Previous lists can be found here – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8.

The Chronicles of Nadiya

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Director: Martha Delap
2016 • 59 Min/each • UK

Two-part series in which The Great British Bake Off 2015 winner Nadiya Hussain explores the recipes that have shaped her love of cooking.

Part 1: Nadiya Hussain visits her family village near Sylhet in northeast Bangladesh. She shares her favorite recipes using local produce and techniques, including baked fish with green mango chutney and halva called thoosha shinni. As she cooks, she reveals the roots of Bangladeshi cuisine. When invited to a relative’s wedding, Nadiya bakes a three-tiered pumpkin celebration cake for the bride. She may have thought twice about this decision if she had realized the only available oven would be in an industrial bakery. This trip is also a chance to reconnect with family Nadiya has not seen since her own arranged marriage over ten years ago, and it proves to be a moving trip down memory lane.

Part 2: After spending a week with her family in Sylhet, Nadiya cooks around Bangladesh and learns more about the country, its people, and its food. In the capital city Dhaka, the Great British Bake Off winner spends time with a charity that delivers school meals to deprived children before learning about an ancient fishing method in a small Hindu village on the Padma river banks. As her journey continues, she meets and learns from food entrepreneurs and experiences a side of modern Bangladesh she never knew existed.

Links: IMDB | BBC

Thirty Million

Thirty Million cover

Directors: Daniel Price, Adrien Tylor
2016 • 34 Min • New Zealand

Thirty Million examines the threat posed to the people of Bangladesh by rising sea levels. The country is considered the most vulnerable in the world to climate change and is predicted to lose 17 percent of its land by the end of the century, displacing 30 million people.  The documentary was made to give the people of Bangladesh a voice and show people in the West how what happens there will affect people. According to filmmakers, the amount of people who could be affected is almost ten times the amount of people who have fled Syria during its crisis, and the Pentagon has tagged the issue as “a major threat to global security and peace.” The United Nations Development Program and the Global Environment Facility funded the film.

Links: IMDB  | Website | FB

To Our Credit

Cover of To Our Credit - a documentary on Bangladesh micro credit

Director: Robert Rooy
1998 • 54 Min/each • USA

A Two-Part Series for PBS on microcredit and microenterprise development. To Our Credit explores an exciting new strategy to combat poverty: microcredit,  known in America as microenterprise development. It is extending small loans and other support to low-income people to help them create their employment. Microcredit is a dramatic departure from traditional charity or welfare programs: money is loaned, not given; repayment is required; interest is charged. In a world where capital is king, the effect can be remarkable.

Part One: Bootstrap Banking and the World profiles microcredit with stories from Bangladesh, South Africa, Bolivia, and India. Within the past decade, 15 million people have received microloans. Part Two: Bootstrap Banking in America profiles microenterprise development in New England, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Chicago. 300 U.S. organizations now provide loans and training to microbusinesses.

Links: Website | PBS

Small Change, Big Business

Small Change, Big Business (2005), cover

Director: Mark Aardenburg
2005 • 55 Min • Netherlands

Microcredit – small loans administered with no collateral requirement – might represent the most powerful weapon in the fight against global poverty. But is microcredit a sustainable solution? This program follows up on the 1995 documentary ‘The Women’s Bank of Bangladesh,’ which examined Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, a pioneering micro-credit provider focused mainly on struggling women. Small Change, Big Business revisits loan recipients a decade later, studying the long-term effects of microcredit in their households and their Islamic community. The documentary also interviews Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus, who sheds further light on its methods and goals. Portions are in Bangla with English subtitles.

Links: Website

King For A Day

King for a Day documentary cover

Director: Alex Gabbay
2001 • 34 Min • USA

King for a Day is the diary of a cynical Bangladeshi journalist as he follows the arrangements for the arrival of President Bill Clinton in March 2000, the growing tension, the demonstrations, and the disappointments while he tries to find out what the ordinary person feels about President Clinton’s visit.

King for a Day is a satire on globalization and its implications for the citizens of developing nations. When the president of the world’s wealthiest nation decides to spend 12 hours in the capital of one of the world’s poorest nations, the build-up to the visit is perhaps far more important than the day itself.

Links: Website | Website

Okul Nodi

Okul Nodi, Endless River 2012 cover

Director: Tuni Chatterji
2012 • 52 Min • USA

Okul Nodi (Endless River) is a contemplative documentary film about Bhatiyali or Bhatiali, Bangladesh’s river music. Bhatiyali is the soulful music sung by the boatmen of Bangladesh, as tradition has it. The lyrics’ poignancy often rests on dual meanings wherein boats become bodies, lovers are also lost gods, and river banks stand for cycles of life and death. The melody, with its tonal variations, carries the listener into the natural world by creating the sensation of drifting along the water. The documentary tries to find the history of this musical form and its relationship to the landscape. The documentary explores the opinion of a passionate group of experts, the effects of modernization on folk traditions, and open dialogue about what it means to be Bengali. Mirroring the complicated yet fleeting relationship between the songs and the landscape and calling attention to the intrinsic qualities of the cinematic form itself, Okul Nodi explores a disjunction between expectation and experience.”

Links: Vimeo | More info

Die Frauen der Kisani Sabha

cover of documentary 'die-frauen-der-kisani-sabha'

Director: Ulrike Schaz
2001 • 60 Min • Germany

Die Frauen der Kisani Sabha (The Women of Kisani Sabha) is a documentary about Bangladesh’s landless women. Landless women in Southern Bangladesh have organized themselves in a grassroots organization called the Kisani Sabha. They have occupied over twenty chars of alluvial islands in the Tetulia river. They live together with their families. Their enemies, a coalition of influential land brokers and large landowners, regularly send their musclemen to terrorize and expel the people from the chars. The eyes of the Kisani Sabha women light up as they narrate how they have used brooms, sticks, sharpened arrows, and bullets made from burned mud, forcing the enemies to take to their heels. The women fight in the front – men have to stand behind. We met women who spoke openly and with courage, voicing incisive and intelligent criticisms of a government that ignored their concerns. In moving images, they told the story of their life on the chars – under a wide-open sky in the river.

The longer version of this doc is 82 mins.

Link: More info

Scrapped

Scrapped documentary cover

Director: Pavel Baydikov
2015 • 26 Min • Russia

Chittagong is Bangladesh’s second-largest city and the heart of the country’s lucrative ship-breaking industry. Russia Today investigates appalling working conditions and human rights violations in the ship-breaking yards. With no health and safety provisions or proper training, employees are constantly at risk of severe injury and even death.

Fatalities occur frequently, and victims’ families are unlikely to receive compensation of any kind. The maritime scrapyards are closely guarded, and access is denied to media and researchers. Because the local and national governments are heavily involved in the business, they have little chance of improving their conditions.

Links: More info

I Munda del Sunderbon

I Munda del Sunderbon 2012 cover

Director: Guido Copes
2012 • 38 Min • Italy

A documentary on the Munda people living south of Bangladesh, bordering the Sundarbans’ forest. At the edge of the Sunderban forest in Bangladesh, inhabited by the royal Bengal tiger, a tribal group imported from India about 200 years ago to clear the forest and cultivable land. Over the years, the lands that were allocated to them in exchange for hard work ended up in the hands of the Hindu and Muslim neighbors, so the Munda survive in very precarious conditions, including the threat of the tiger that sometimes assails their villages. Bangalees view them as uncivilized. Shrimp farms have taken rice in the last twenty years, severely damaging the local ecosystem. Since 2003, their living conditions have improved thanks to an Italian missionary, Father Luigi Paggi, who, with the help of the only graduate of the tribe, launched a few schools, built five new villages after the cyclone Aila in 2009, and gave education to several girls saving them from early marriage, which often end with the death of the first child and the mother. These girls are educated and willing to fight for a better future, along with several tribe youths proudly rediscovering their culture, which is a sign of hope for the Sundarban Munda and beyond.

Links: IMDB | Video Italian | Video Bangla

Bangladeshi movie at Washington DC South Asian Film Festival (DCSAFF)

Bangladeshi movie at Washington DC South Asian Film Festival (DCSAFF) – one of the most celebrated screen events on the Washington, D.C. cultural calendar. The festival takes place annually in the heart of America’s capitol, showcasing the best in alternative cinema from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Bangladeshi movie অজ্ঞাতনামা (Oggatonama/The Unnamed), directed by Tauquir Ahmed, will be shown at the event.

The coffin of an expatriate worker with manipulated identity intense the identity crisis when another person’s corpse is found inside.

Ticket:

All Access Festival Pass (Single Person) $100.00 (* $50)
All Access Festival Pass (Two Persons) $175.00 (* $125)
Opening Night (One Person) $50.00 (* $25)
Opening Night(Two Persons) $80.00 (* $45)

* Discounted tickets available until August 25, 2016

Buy Tickets

Venue:

Robert E. Parilla Performing Arts Center
51 Mannakee St, Rockville, MD 20850

Contact:

301-337-9589
info@dcsaff.com