Entertainment Desk
Zahid Hasan has confirmed to reporters that he, Nusrat Imrose Tisha, and Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, director of the film “Shonibar Bikel”, are all in Moscow, Russia, to participate in the 41st Moscow International Film Festival.
The stars left for Moscow on Monday morning. Zahid posted a photo of the three of them at Dhaka’s Shahjalal International Airport on his Facebook profile. Tisha posted photos of them in Moscow on her verified Facebook page.
Farooki had already informed the media that “Shonibar Bikel”, which translates to “Saturday Afternoon”, will be participating in the main competition of the festival.
Moscow International Film Festival began on April 18, and will conclude on Thursday. This year, the chair of the film juries is Korea’s master filmmaker, Kim Ki-duk.
“Shonibar Bikel” stars Bangladesh’s Zahid Hasan, Tisha, Mamunur Rashid, Iresh Zaker, Intekhab Dinar, Gousul Alam Shaon and Nader Chowdhury, India’s Parambrata Chatterjee, Palestine’s Eyad Hourani, and many others.
The film dramatizes the July 2016 tragedy at Holy Artisan restaurant, where Islamic militants murdered 22 of their hostages, including 18 foreigners.
The cinematography for the film has been done by Kazakhstan’s Aziz Zhambakiyev, who received the “Silver Bear” award for cinematography for the film, “Harmony Lesson”, at the Berlin Film Festival in 2013.
The technical aspects of the film were handled by an expert team from Russia, under Zhambakiyev’s leadership.
Regarding “Shonibar Bikel”, Farooki told reporters earlier: “The film-goers know that I change my making (style) in every film. This film will also show that. The story of ‘Shonibar Bikel’ is that of a political thriller. There is suspense in it, and the artistes of the film acted in a ‘suspenseful’ environment. All of us worked extremely hard for the film.”
Regarding the name of the film, Farooki said: “How one beautiful, sunny, amazing Saturday afternoon became tragic and terrifying is the crux of the story I was trying to narrate. However, our story does not remain terrifying till the end, but becomes one of hope. Even if our story is on the backdrop of a tragedy, it makes us hope and dream.”
Farooki also informed, in answer to a question, that it is a single-shot film. “Our film is organically single-shot. There is no digital creativity in it. We never wanted to highlight the single-shot aspect, as whether it is single-shot or multiple, is not really that important. The highlight should be the story of the film. Therefore, we did not discuss this matter much.
“Shonibar Bikel” was produced by Abdul Aziz, Farooki and Anna Katchko. The production companies are Jaaz Multimedia, Chabial and Tandem Production.
