Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

A Report
on
Bangladesh Cinema

2|P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8
 Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

Abstract
The writer intends to draw a brief sketch of Bangladesh film industry regarding the matters of
production, distribution, and exhibition. Case study and secondary source information is used
as part of research methodology and resource.

Introduction
Bangladesh cinema industry activities are situated in the capital city Dhaka. This industry
generally produced Bengali language films of different styles such as melodrama, social drama,
political action film, formula film as well as independent films. Bangladesh Film Development
Corporation (BFDC) has played a center point of supporting and supplying raw materials in
filmmaking. In 1898 people of this land first experienced moving images on the screen by the
arrangement of a company named Bradford Bioscope Company; though it was limited to elite
class audience. This region started producing movies with a short film The Good Girl (aka
Shukumari, 1928) in silent era (Hayat 1987). Within three years Bangladesh experienced The
Last Kiss (1931) first feature length film. Both films were patronized by the royal family the
Nawab Family (Hayat 1987). They formed a production company eventually in the 1930s titled
as Dhaka East Bengal Cinematograph Society to produce films regularly.
Nevertheless, the practice of making films started in Bangladesh (the then East Bengal) in 1900,
Bangladesh was part of undivided India at that time. Hiralal Sen (1866–1917) was the pioneer in
filmmaking in Bangladesh. He was the first person who launched a film company named The
Royal Bioscope Company to show films in public sphere (Raju 2014). He later became film
distributor as well. His first production titled Sitaram was a recorded version of a theater play.
In his twelve years career he made more than twenty films including feature length fiction and
documentary (Asgar 1993).
In 1947 British colonial ruler attached Bangladesh with Pakistan as East Pakistan based on
Muslim majorities during the partition (Chatterji 1994). At that time approximately eighty
cinema halls were running through Bangladesh but numbers of local films were not many
(Chakrabarti & Chakrabarti 2013). People watched Indian, Pakistani Urdu and American films.
Dhaka became the new center of modern art, literature and thoughts in the subcontinent after
partition. It took ten years to start making their films. From 1970s to 1990s was the most
successful and memorable era of Bangladesh cinema. In current time popularity of local cinema
and number of cinema halls are gradually going lower.

3|P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8
 Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

Poster of The Face and the Mask (aka Mukh o Mukhosh, 1956) by Abdul Jabbar Khan
2000 on wards local alternative/independent filmmakers started getting accolades from
international festivals, TV channels stepped forward to invest films that were made outside the
BFDC; although cinemagoers’ number did not increase to a handsome number.

History of Production
The Face and the Mask (aka Mukh o Mukhosh, 1956) was the first locally produced filmwith
sound, although post-production of it was done in Lahore, (West) Pakistan (Waheed 2005). At
that time post production facilities were not available here. This attempt opened up a path of
locally bred stories and filmmaking practice in Bangladesh. Iqbal Films was the producer of this
film (Waheed 2005). In 1957 East Pakistan Film Development Corporation (now Bangladesh
Film Development Corporation) was established in Dhaka by the central government with
studio and post production support (Bangladesh Film Development Corporation 2017). From
1959 it started to run full-fledged. From 1960 to 1971 Bangladesh experienced more than 100
locally produced films. All films were produced by local producers and made by local craftsmen.
Most of the films were in black and white, color films were also there but due to excessive
expense it was not the first choice of the producers. The story of these films ranged from
romanticism of rural life to life of river-bound land to fantasy to urban satire to social
examination of 1947 India-Pakistan partition to political justice and self right (Hoek 2014).

4|P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8
 Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

Poster of Taken from Life (aka Jibon Theke Neya, 1970) by Zahir Raihan
During this time film become a tool of protest against the autocratic, oppressive military regime
of West Pakistan (Raju 2014). Especially in 1970 the makers were too active with audio-visual
media to portray the oppression of the ruling class. Zahir Raihan made one of the most
significant films Taken from Life (aka Jibon Theke Neya, 1970) that made huge impact on public
to stand against state oppression. The then censor authority tried to lock down the movie but
they failed due to public demand (Rasmussen 2010).
Besides East Pakistan Film Development Corporation local investors came forward to establish
film studios around Dhaka city. Three studios were established in the 1960s – Bengal Studio,
Popular Studio and Bari Studio with post-production and shooting facilities (Hayat 1987). It
signifies how vibrant the filmmaking scenario was at that moment.
After being liberated from (West) Pakistan through a bloody war in 1971, filmmakers dreamt of
a new day. In mid-1970s the government took some positive steps towards the industry such as
establishing national film award and financial grants for creative film projects (Kabir 1979).
Liberation war became an inevitable topic for filmmakers in the post-independence period.
They offered original and thought provoking stories through the 1970s.

5|P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8
 Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

Poster of Be Human again (1973) by Khan Ataur Rahman

In the 1980s the audience experienced the rise of commercially and critically acclaimed films as
well as stardom, popular cultural fever and tendency of plagiarism of Bombay films. To counter
this phenomena a bunch of wild young men stepped into the filmmaking business to make and
promote alternative and independent cinema in Bangladesh. They brought back the naturalism
and realistic view on the screen and they tried hard to establish the alternative film distribution
circuit in Bangladesh (Raju 2014).
The 1990s were the age of falling from grace for Bangladesh film. For the sake of money
commercial filmmakers opted the way of copying Indian Hindi films which were full of fighting,
songs, dance, and unnecessary jokes. These films were neither B-grade films nor well made but
they were strangled in between those. Eventually the audience turned their back to the cinema
hall and the business loss went deep to deeper (Hoek 2014).
From the mid-2000s the number of TV drama producers, directors, and professionals started to
venture in film and the viewership started to rise again in urban localities. Films like Monpura
(2009) played a big role to bring back urban middle class viewers to cinema halls (Kabir 2009).
Along with this reality Bangladesh film went and got critical appreciation from international film
festivals such as Zahir Raihan's Stop Genocide (1971) awarded in Tashkent film festival in 1972.

6|P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8
 Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

Sheikh Niamat Ali and Moshiuddin Shaker's Surjo Dighal Bari (1979) was awarded in Mannheim
Film Festival. Tareque Masud’sThe Clay Bird (aka Matir Moyna, 2002) clinched FIPRESCI award
at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002. In recent times Kamar Ahmad Simon’s Are You Listening!
(aka Shunte Ki Pao!, 2012) got Grand Prix for Best Feature-Length Documentary in the 35th
Cinéma du Réel 2013, France; Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s No bed of roses (aka Doob, 2017) got
selected for Busan International Film festival 2017; Rubaiyat Hossain’s Under Construction
(2015) was appreciated in 69th Locarno International Film Festival 2016 and Abdullah
Mohammad Saad’s Live from Dhaka (2016) got selected in Bright Future category in
International Film Festival Rotterdam 2017.

System of Distribution and Exhibition

Bangladesh cinema has a complex type of film distribution and exhibition system. Distributors
and exhibitors in most of the cases take a large amount of the revenue. To avoid this situation
producers have now become distributors to distribute their films and keep the margin in their
account. In recent years Moonsoon Films, Jazz Multimedia, Tiger Films have become the
successors of this practice. With the changing scenario the projection system is also changing
from reel projection to digital projection. In this distribution and exhibition system exhibitors
play a definitive role, here exhibitor signifies the owner of cinema halls. The exhibitors collect
films from the producer-distributor end to run them in their theater. Producers and distributors
actually rent the copy of their film to the exhibitor and it happens in three different ways:
1. Minimum Guarantee (MG) means exhibitor must pay minimum guarantee money to
the distributor which is non-refundable. The amount varies from 1,834 USD to 3,669
USD for a well-doing film.

7|P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8
 Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

2. Percentage indicates as an alternative to MG money, the exhibitor will share the

profit and will collect the print of the film by repayable advance money (which is
flexible too). Cinema Hall owners of Dhaka and around use this process.
3. Fixed Rental implies that exhibitor will get the print of a film by giving a fixed
amount of money at a time and run the film at his own risk. Whether it manages
profit or loss the distributor will not be affected by that. So, if the exhibitor gains, he
will not have to share the profit with the distributor.

Interior of 72 years old Manoshi Cinema hall/ Photo courtesy: Kauser Haider
In between distributor and exhibitor one character plays a crucial role and that is booking
agent. Booking agent cuts profit from both the distributor and the exhibitor, they are third
party entities who work as a communicator between exhibitor and distributor. In most of the
cases the exhibitors who have a hall in a remote place from the city get trapped in the booking
agent trap. Booking agents are the unavoidable existence in film business in Bangladesh
(Mahmood 2013).
The exhibitors actually are never satisfied with the rental money that they need to pay to
obtain films. On the other hand producers and distributors always complain about the
manipulations of the booking agents and blame the exhibitors for patronizing them.
Nevertheless many film personalities believe that with the introduction of Digital Film
Projection and other innovative technologies this conflict will trim down gradually.

8|P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8
 Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

Conclusion
In Bangladesh (the then East Pakistan) local filmmakers made and produced Bengali language
films as well as Urdu language films and competed with Indian and American films in the
theater during 1957 to 1971. Day by day local films got more popularity than the other films
and the infrastructure, skilled technicians, producers, cinema theater numbers were getting
bigger. After 1971,some things were not changed as expected in the newly born state, such as
embargo on Indian and international films, or authoritarian censor board. In the monolithic
market the filmmakers started to make formula films or copied from Indian films, resulting to
the audience losing interest in mainstream or commercial cinema, cinema halls getting shut
down, and emergence of piracy and the absence of tight anti-piracy law. All of these things
made the situation even more adverse for filmmakers. Subsequently, by the presence of VHS
tape player, later CD/DVD player, satellite TV, and World Wide Web, the local audience got a
chance to choose from options rather than going to the cinema hall and being bound to watch
the same story with different faces and places. Alternative and independent filmmakers’
productions brought some changes but they did not make a big remark on the taste of mass
culture. Their cinema fed a portion of mass people known as urban but their cinemas remained
unreachable to the rural audience. It was not only their responsibility that those movies were
not reaching the rural areas but also the liability of the nexus of distributor-exhibitor-booking
agent. Gradually alternative and independent filmmakers’ productions began to get accolades
and appreciation from international festivals and media bazaars. By the number of population,
Bangladesh is an interesting and lucrative market for screen business, but what it needs is a
flexible, tangible, business-friendly film policy, along with strong infrastructure and skilled,
trained, professional people.

Reference List
Asgar, S. 1993. Hiralal Sen, Bangla Academy, Dhaka.
Bangladesh Film Development Corporation 2017, History of Establishment, viewed on 20
September 2017, <http://fdc.portal.gov.bd/site/page/e53a7e72-4d4d-4fbc-8bc5-
032ddb7c58d8>
Chakrabarti, K. & Chakrabarti, S. 2013. Historical Dictionary of the Bengalis, 1st edn, Scarecrow
Press, Maryland.
Chatterji, J. 2002. Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932-1947, 1st edn,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hayat, A. 1987. Bangladeshe rChalochitrer Etihash (A history of Bangladesh cinema), 1st edn,
Bangladesh film Development Corporation, Dhaka.

9|P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8
 Assessment task 2: Creative Producing / Media Arts Industry Report| 22 September 2017

Hoek, L. 2014. Cut-Pieces: Celluloid Obscenity and Popular Cinema in Bangladesh, 1st edn,
Columbia University Press, New York.
Kabir, A. 1979. Films in Bangladesh, 1st edn, Bangla Academy, Dhaka.
Kabir, J. 2009. ‘A Heartwarming Film’, The Daily Star, March 2009, viewed 20 September 2017,
<http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2009/03/04/film.htm>
Mahmood, S.M.K. 2013.‘Film Distribution in Bangladesh: Big-Screen Today and Tomorrow’,
Masters Thesis, Independent University, Bangladesh, Dhaka.
Raju, Z. H. 2014. Bangladesh Cinema and National Identity: In Search of the Modern?, 1st edn,
Taylor & Francis Ltd, London.
Rasmussen, D. 2101. Welcome to Dhallywood: Cinema of Bangladesh, 1st edn, BiblioBazaar,
South Carolina.
Waheed, K. 2005. Celebrating 50 years of our cinema: Remembering Mukh O Mukhosh and
Abdul Jabbar Khan, 12 August 2005, viewed on 19 September 2017,
<http://archive.thedailystar.net/2005/08/12/d50812140197.htm>

10 | P a g e I m r a n F i r d a u s / 1 2 4 5 5 3 8 8