Grameenphone’s latest TVC on International Mother Language Day has created a buzz among audience of different age brackets and professions. The TVC that clearly sweeps the audience with an emotional stir, projects a bunch of foreigners singing our signature song of the 1952 Language Movement Amar Bhaiyer Rokte Rangano Ekushey February, first in English, and then in Bangla.
The actual story becomes somewhat clear when text appears on screen, which, if translated in English would read: “Sierra Leone has honoured the Bangla language particularly, we believe and hope that every mother tongue existing across the globe would evolve with its respective grace.”
The idea of the campaign was born some two or three years ago when one employee of Grey Advertising Bangladesh Ltd stumbled across a piece of information over the internet that the government of Sierra Leone declared Bangla as one of the several official languages in the country, informed Ayesha Farzana, group account director of Grey.
On December 12, 2002, the President of Sierra Leone Alhaj Ahmed Tejan Kabbah announced this while inaugurating a 54km long road reconstructed by the engineers of Bangladeshi peacekeepers in the West African country. Bangla was then made an official language of Sierra Leone in order to honour the Bangladeshi peacekeeping force from the United Nations stationed there.
“We wanted to share this fascinating piece of information in connection to Bangla language with a larger audience,” said Ayesha.
Now, how was this done in a country that was once called the “country of Ebola outbreak?”
Onu Jaigirdar, honourary consul general of the Republic of Sierra Leone to Bangladesh and Prince Idriss Kamara, chairman of Bangladesh Sierra Leone Friendship Society, are the two individuals who played great roles to make the plan a success, according to Ayesha.
During a five-day stay in Sierra Leone, the employees of Half Stop Down, the house that has produced the campaign, gathered the experience of a lifetime.
“People in Sierra Leone are really proud of Bangladesh because of the performance of the Bangladeshi peacekeeping force. They were really helpful and friendly,” states Subrina Irine, assistant director at Half Stop Down.
A team of 10 stayed in Sierra Leone for five days and finished the shoot with a total of 55 citizens of Sierra Leone within two-and-a-half days.
“All of day one was all spent in searching for locations and artists. In the beginning, we were a bit scared as people were sharing stories of death by Ebola virus attacks. But as we introduced ourselves as Bangladeshis, they felt at ease and came closer,” Subrina told Showtime.
“Majority of people in Sierra Leone speak in “broken English,” which is considered the mother tongue. Instead of, “let’s go,” they would say, “lego,” continued Subrina.
“We visited the Bangladesh Friendship School there. Through Prince Idriss, we got hold of five singers who then gathered more people for the shoot. On our first night, we introduced them to the song. We recorded each word for them separately so that they could learn it better. The next morning they brought more people for the shoot, Amitabh Reza, the director also arrived the same day,” Subrina said.
People from different walks of life including students, football players and musicians took part in the TVC. According to Subrina and Ayesha, people of Sierra Leone could empathise with the Bangladeshi team when they were narrated the brief history of the 1952 Language Movement and 1971 War of Liberation, as their own country had been in a civil war from 1991 to 2002.
