Bangabandhu Film City to elevate cinema industry

The government is planning to construct a modern film city on the outskirts of the capital in order to strengthen the country’s cinema industry and elevate it to international standards.

To this end, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Film City will be built on 105 acres of land in Gazipur at a cost of Tk 380 crore by the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC), a senior official of the planning commission told The Business Post.

A place for the outdoor shooting has been a long-standing demand of filmmakers and accordingly the cultural ministry began work on the ‘Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Film City (Phase II)’ project.

“We have held an evaluation committee meeting on the project. We have cleared it and sent it to the executive committee of the national economic council (ECNEC) for approval,” said the planning commission official.

“The film city will have all the modern facilities. The project is important for various purposes including building the facilities required to produce high-quality films,” the official added.

“If the various infrastructures proposed in the project are built, it will be possible to visualize films in new and interesting ways,” he also said.

The main components of the project include the construction of shooting spots with modern facilities, shooting floors, studios with the latest equipment, theatres, cable car, a hanging bridge, a movie museum, and cottages for tourists.

Instead of shooting high-quality films abroad, filmmakers would be able to shoot both outdoors and indoors in Bangabandhu Film City, according to the proposal.

Filmmakers from around the world will be interested in shooting in the proposed Film City, the proposal added.

It will also become a popular tourist site. As such, the film city will boost government revenue while also providing jobs for a huge number of people, the proposal also added.

BFDC was founded in 1957, and many infrastructures have been built on its own site of roughly 7.5 acres (Tejgaon, Dhaka) over the years, primarily for indoor shooting.