Kagojer Phool: For art’s sake

Hasina to help complete Bangladesh director’s unfinished film.

DHAKA:

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will extend her cooperation in completing Kagojer Phool – the unfinished movie of film-maker Tareque Masud who was killed in a road accident recently.

Masud, 54, and media personality Ashfaque Munier Mishuk, died on August 13 in an accident. The two were on their way to meet a senior official for permission to shoot for Masud’s latest project after visiting a shooting spot.

The prime minister made the promise when Masud’s wife Catherine and Mishuk’s wife Kazi Monjuly called on her in the capital, Daily Star reported.

Hasina termed their deaths an “irreparable loss to the nation”.

“Muktir Gaan was a bright ray of light in the dark,” Hasina said, referring to another popular movie by Masud.

Catherine Masud urged the prime minister to provide support for the development of decent movies in the country. Hasina assured her she would extend her support for making such films. Hasina also requested Catherine to stay in Bangladesh and complete the unfinished work of her late husband.

The New York Times says Masud’s best-known film was The Clay Bird, which won an International Critics award at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival for its “authentic, moving and delicate portrayal of a country struggling for its democratic rights”.

Tareque Masud was born on December 6, 1956, in Nurpur village in Bangladesh. His first film, Adam Surat was a 55-minute documentary about the Bangladeshi painter Sheikh Mohammed Sultan that he began in 1982.

He married Catherine Shapere from Chicago, and together they founded Audiovision - a film production company in Dhaka, and produced and directed many documentaries and animated films together.

Masud was a founding member of Short Film Forum, the primary forum for alternative film-makers in Bangladesh.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 27^th, 2011.