Home ›› Entertainment

Three Bangladeshi films selected for Cannes' Marché du Film

Staff Correspondent
19 Jun 2021 21:34:12 | Update: 19 Jun 2021 21:34:12
Three Bangladeshi films selected for Cannes' Marché du Film

Three films from Bangladesh--Tahrima Khan Tonni’s debut feature documentary ‘Munni’, Mokhalesur Rahman Talukdar Lenin’s non-fiction feature ‘Thirteen Destinations of a Traveller’ and Nuhash Humayun’s feature film ‘Moving Bangladesh’--have been selected at Cannes Docs South Asia Center (market place).

Marché du Film is one of the world’s greatest film markets, which is the business counterpart to the Cannes Film Festival.

Of three films, two feature documentaries are selected under the 'Showcase South Asia' category of the Universal Film initiative at Festival de Cannes.

Tahrima’s ‘Munni’ tells the story of a girl who is the founder of an all-girls sports academy and become the strength of the future footballers. She gives the girls courage, hope and aspiration to not only win a match but to save themselves from child marriage. Abu Shahed Emon from Batayan Productions produced the project.

‘Munni’ is the first feature documentary by Tahrima which was previously screened in Dhaka Doc Lab 2020 and was also selected by IEFTA’s showcasing award at DOK Leipzig. The documentary also secured the pitching award at DocEdge New Zealand.

On the other hand, feature documentary ‘Thirteen Destinations of a Traveller’ is the joint venture of Bangladesh and India, which is one of only five documentaries invited to the film market from South Asia.

“It is the story of two parallel journeys; one in which thousands of Sufi pilgrims march together over days and miles to proclaim unrequited love for humanity, enduring physical pain and in the other a disabled, marginal Muslim man in present India tries to transform his life fighting against physical economic and social challenges in search of love, compassion and elusive happiness,’’ reads the official synopsis.

The film is produced by Soumya Mukhopadhyay from India and Mokhalesur Rahman Talukdar Lenin from Bangladesh. The project is directed by Partha Das.

Marché du Film also works with Film Bazaar of few film festivals. From these film bazaars, some projects have been selected for the co-production day of Marsh du Film this time. Seven projects have been selected from the NFDC film market in India. One of these films is Nuhash Humayun's 'Moving Bangladesh'.

Produced by Arifur Rahman and Bijon, ‘Moving Bangladesh’ was selected for NFDC Film Bazaar's coproduction market in 2020. The finest projects from that programme have been invited to Marché du Film as part of a collaboration between Film Bazaar and Cannes.

Based on true events, ‘Moving Bangladesh’ depicts the story of some young entrepreneurs in Dhaka developing an app that could change the face of transport, forever.

These three Bangladeshi films selected in the Marche du Film are in production right now. Marché du Film will take place from July 6 to 15 during the 74th Cannes Film Festival 2021 in Cannes, France.

×