“Life: Low Budget Short Film” shot entirely on a mobile phone has officially been nominated at the Oscar Qualifying Tokyo Film Festival, “Short Shorts”.
Bangladeshi director Hemanta Sadeeq's short-film was selected under the “Smartphone Film Competition'' category at the festival taking place June 6th to 26th, 2023, at Tokyo, Japan.
“Life: Low Budget Short Film” is the only Bangladeshi film to feature in the official line-up of the 25th edition of what is now known as one of the largest short film festivals in Asia. The qualifying festival was originally established in 1999 with the support of the Governor of Tokyo.
Director Hemanta Sadeeq states, “Life, under extreme poverty, is like a low budget short film. The process is never truly satisfying because of the volume of restrictions. “Life: Low Budget Short Film” tells the story of these societal inequalities. The film was shot in a very experimental way, on a mobile phone. So, we were actually quite hesitant about whether our message would translate on-screen. Which is exactly why this news about the festival not only makes us happy, but also encourages us to experiment more in the future.”
One of the producers of the film, Sohail Ahmed, states on the nomination, “To be honest, I was not very optimistic about the film. After I got the news, I went to the festival website and saw our film was one of only 16 films selected under the 'Smartphone Film Competition' category, out of hundreds internationally. The main cover of the section is using production stills from a movie, our movie - I can't begin to tell you how proud I am!”
“Life: Low Budget Short Film” features Asma Akhtar Liza, Ruhul Rahman Sohail, Adnan Chowdhury, among others. The screenplay of the film was written by Shaon Kyrie.
