‘Saturday Afternoon’ will now be seen by wider audience

Prominent director Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s much-talked-about film “Saturday Afternoon” is going to be released in the US and Canada on March 10.

The Global distribution rights of the film have been acquired by Singapore-based Company Continental Entertainment Pte. Ltd. (CEPL) and is being released via Reliance Entertainment (RE). The intensely shot one-take film was completed in 2018 and will be screened for audiences in North America before its official release in its home country, Bangladesh. 

The film revolves around an unprecedented terrorist attack that takes place in a peaceful café in the center of Dhaka, on a nice Saturday afternoon. The terrorists used religion to divide and kill people, while the surviving hostages, all of them Muslims, try to defend their own humanistic values. The film unravels the clashes and contradictions of religion, ideology, and civilisation through a terror drama.

Despite winning several international awards, Farooki faced multiple hurdles to release the movie at home. Commenting on the film finally being released, director, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, said, “I am proud that the film is finally going to be seen by a wider audience. The people of the country need to see this picture. I wanted it would be released in Bangladesh first. But anyway, people from all over the world will see it, starting from North America, I’m proud of that. North American audiences are invited to come and enjoy the film in theaters.”

“Saturday Afternoon” earned a lot of appreciation internationally, in some of the biggest festivals across the world, and stars Nusrat Imrose Tisha, Zahid Hasan, Mamunur Rashid, and Parambrata Chatterjee, among others. 

The film has also received critical acclaim and praise from several film festivals, including the Russian Federation of Film Critics Jury Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival in April 2019, as well as the Kommersant Jury Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2019.

On January 24, the film finally received verbal clearance from the Bangladesh Film Censor Board, after being stuck in limbo for four long years. However, the film has yet to receive the official clearance letter, which will let Farooki go about planning the theatrical release of the movie.