The third edition of the two-day Tareque Masud Festival will begin at 6pm today at the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy (BSA) in the capital.
Organised by the Tareque Masud Memorial Trust, the intention of the event is to commemorate the birthday of the late filmmaker, which is on December 6.
To begin with, a seminar on “Hollywood’s perception of the East” will be delivered by Biren Das Sharma, associate professor of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata, India. This will take place at the seminar hall of BSA tomorrow.
The seminar looks into the practice of Western film-makers stereotyping the East in their films, and how Asians, particularly the Indians, are projected as subservient to caucasians and their culture. Moreover, clips from different European films and reactions of Indian and Asian viewers would be screened following the lecture.
After the seminar, a screening of the top 10 films selected from the third Tareque Masud Film contest submissions will take place at the National Art Gallery. The theme of this year’s contest was “Justice is my right,” and was to be held in observation of Tareque Masud’s birthday as well. However, this year, it could not be arranged on time due to an unavoidable circumstances reported.
The winners are to receive crests, certificates and special prizes, along with the esteemed Tareque Masud Young Filmmakers Award. The runner-ups will receive special scholarships from the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute.
Tareque Masud, popularly known as the “Cinema Feriwalla,” was a leading Bangladeshi independent filmmaker, film producer, screenwriter and lyricist. Born in 1956, he grew up in Nurpur village of Faridpur and studied for eight years in an Islamic madrasah until the Liberation War interrupted his education.
The great humanitarian and patriot died in a road accident near Ghior upazila on August 13, 2011, while returning to Dhaka from Manikganj on the Dhaka-Aricha Highway from a shooting.
