Alamgir Kabir Memorial Lecture

Mahbub Jamil, President of Bangladesh Federation of Film Societies, was in the chair while Sabbir Chaudhury, a film-activist, was the host of the programme. In the seminar Arun Khopkar, renowned filmmaker from India, presented the keynote essay on the topic.

Khopkar basically emphasised on the concept of globalisation and its effect. But the other part of the topic--Nationalism--was not clearly evaluated in the essay. To express his view on the essay the speaker said, 'It is a personally felt lecture but not a thesis paper. Sometimes I realise the contradiction between globalisation and nationalism but in a short essay like this I cannot express it properly. Moreover, in a multicultural country it is really difficult to find out the essence of Nationalism, as there are many nations living in that country.'

In the essay, he pointed out the facilities are now available to the cultural activists all over the world because of the advancement of the science and technology, particularly information technology, which is also a device of the globalisation. But Khopkar did not mention in his essay the bad impact of the cultural diffusion that an individual may face, if globalisation is handled with ill intention. He simply showed the positive sides of the global concept on cinema.