Young Bangladeshi filmmaker Kamar Ahmad Simon has won The Asian Pitch held in Singapore last week.
Kamar’s name was declared on the website along with two others: Da Jung Jang from Taiwan and Chaitali Mukherjee from India. The Asian Pitch’s mission is to uncover compelling human interest stories and to discover new and hidden talent in Asia. Out of 164 submitted proposals, 11 filmmakers were invited to present their ideas in Singapore and from there the three best projects were declared winners for 2013. An aspiring director Simon told the Dhaka Tribune: “The title of the film has not been finalised yet. However, like my previous film Shunte Ki Pao!, this one will also narrate stories of our ordinary people.” While talking about the style of the narration, Simon said: “I am trying to establish my own style of storytelling as you saw in Shunte Ki Pao! Which neither followed the fundamental style of documentary nor had any scripted story-like fiction. I believe reality is stranger than fiction if it can be portrayed with authenticity and creativity.”
Early this year Kamar’s first film Shunte Ki Pao! (Are You Listening!) won the Grand Prix in the main international competition as the best feature of the 35th Cinema du Reel held in Paris and the Jury Award in Film South Asia 2013.
Simon said, due to the current political unrest in the country, they had postponed their plan to screen the film countrywide, like eminent filmmaker late Tareque Masud and his team screened Runway. “But today or tomorrow we will definitely do it since we made the film for the people of Bangladesh.”
