I have been asked to write something on the occasion of the launch of "Film Alliance Bangladesh" (FAB), so here goes my two pence on cinema reform in Bangladesh.
One may ask, reform from what, and into what? I guess the obvious pointer goes toward the government's strict and often obscure censorship policy. When one completes a film in Bangladesh, the real battle begins, namely passing through the censor board. One has to satisfy all members of the board in order to receive a certificate. This censor certificate must become part of your DCP (digital cinema package) and shown in the beginning of the film, without this, no exhibitor will dare touch your film.
The story does not end here. If a film represents a certain segment of the professional population, ie the police, the doctors, the factory owners -- the censor board may invite additional members from the respective community to judge the film.
Now, one may ask, after all, how do we manage to release our films in Bangladesh? How did I release three features that I directed and numerous other films that I produced?
In fact, I was able to make it through the censor board with all my films -- despite the narratives being liberal feminist. My characters have acted rather boldly to chase their desires, ambitions, and loves; they have offended the masculine nationalist discourse, disrupted the male currency of desire, and openly challenged the corrupted bureaucrats and factory owners.
The films didn't make it to the theatres as they were created; some scenes and dialogues had to be chopped off, some words silenced, some shots blurred, some texts added. Still, I was grateful, that at least, the general audience in Bangladesh would be able to see my films, and at least my films were not completely silenced. When one lives in a country where the censorships laws are one of the toughest in the world, one really has no option.
For my first feature, the censor board had invited a guest viewer to join, an eminent scholar and member of the board of trustees of the Liberation War Museum. They gave their opinion to make five cuts. I complied. The film was released in seven theatres and the rest is history.
This time around, even after complying with five censor board cuts, the film was stripped down from the theatres by my distributor because he was facing pressure from the cultural elites. It was not the government, but the liberal cultural elites and progressive blog spheres that influenced the government's intelligence agency and distributor to take the film down -- simply because the film didn't match their dominant narrative of nationalism.
So, you see, it's not only the government, but the censorship devil lies deep within us, in the hearts of the very people who are ought to protect freedom of expression.
One has to keep in mind that cinema is, for us -- if I may borrow the term Partha Chatterjee uses to define nationalism in South Asia -- "a derivative discourse." Something we adapted from the colonizers and are still trying to make our own.
Camera as a machine, a tool, has been an instrumental apparatus of colonial rule to define, to catalog, to put in order the hierarchy of race -- based on which colonial oppression was justified.
No wonder we have anxiety with cameras and the power of the medium of cinema. It is closely associated with propaganda, a very effective tool to establish and preach a certain brand of truth.
When one exhibits a film in the theatre, the national anthem plays and the hoisted flag is shown on screen, during this time, the audience must stand up to show respect and pledge allegiance. Cinema in this way is very different from other forms of art in Bangladesh. It is directly linked to the state apparatus and is monitored clearly for the "truths" it transmits and its impact on society.
The reform I hope to see is an organic, slow process with a sustainable and long-lasting impact. Our exposure to world cinema needs to expand beyond Netflix, Bollywood, and K-drama.
I hope to see a world-class film festival that can bring critically acclaimed films and film-makers to the Bangladeshi audience, so our audience slowly come to realize the diversity of cinema as it stands today. Our government should be encouraged to go for a rating system instead of cutting up films and restricting them to be screened.
The fact that the government is giving grants for shorts, documentaries, and features is a hopeful phenomenan, but this has to become more open to younger directors in place of established and politically affiliated directors. I can vouch for the talent that is to be found under 30, let us invest in the youth instead of pretending to be young filmakers post-40!
For heaven's sake, another reform, I would love to see is audiences not talking, eating loudly, taking calls, and texting while films are played in theatres!
I started off in 2002, and it's been 20 years, yet I remain, most of the time, the only woman in a room or a forum. The film-making environment in Bangladesh is highly misogynistic and sexist. Due to the lack of film schools, most of the learning takes place informally through peer groups. The gender composition of these groups is almost 100% male.
Issues of social mobility, respectability, and access to disposable income make it harder for women to infiltrate into these groups. Most women end up in the art or costume department, and if they are lucky, an AD position. Mostly, women are encouraged to look good and become actors.
Going back in history, one of the first films of Bangladesh, The Last Kiss, employed a female actor from a brothel since no respectable woman would act in cinema. Years down the road, even though a handful of women theatre actors have gained social respect, the scene remains sadly pessimistic when it comes to women actors in cinema. These actors are primarily rated by their sex appeal and beauty according to the "male gaze."
I hear, apparently, Dhaka is going to be the newest and hottest hub for Bengali OTT content. Well, it certainly is a beautiful and hopeful idea. Every day I meet so many young men and women interested in storytelling.
We can indeed become the capital of Bangla content, but before that can happen, our government needs to make way for a more liberal approach when it comes to film exhibition. Our cultural elites and liberal lefts need to realize that they, too, need much reform, and that is of expanding their minds.
Finally, we need to diversify the screen. In the leading OTT platform, only 4% of the orignal content is from women. Women have not been commissioned any original content, as they are still not believed to be efficient enough for the job.
Almost all of our contents are made by heterosexual-Sunni-Muslim-Bengali-middleclass males from almost the same cultural background. There is no diversity in terms of ethnic origin, gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
If we want to break the censor board barrier, then we also need to be ready to break open the door and let diversity and equality seep in a little bit.
Rubaiyat Hossain is an internationally acclaimed director and producer.
