Launching of a long awaited film centre

Speakers at a press conference

Presided over by filmmaker Morshedul Islam, President of BFFS, the conference featured prominent filmmakers Syed Bazle Hossain, Tanvir Mokammel, Manzare Hasin Murad, Chashi Nazrul Islam and Badal Rahman. Dr Zahirul Islam Kochi, General Secretary of BFFS, conducted the conference and gave details about the Alamgir Kabir Film Centre.

"The centre will become the focal point of the city's film connoisseurs," said a hopeful Kochi. "This centre comprises of a 50-seated air conditioned auditorium with good acoustics, a rich library filled with books and magazines on films, a DVD and VCD archive of world classics as well as good Bangladeshi films and an attractive cafeteria," he added. Apart from regularly screening the classic movies of home and abroad, this centre will organise seminars, symposiums, workshops and film appreciation courses. Plans are also afoot to launch diploma courses on filmmaking and small screen productions.

"A long cherished dream of the culture buffs was to have an art centre like Nandan of Kolkata. Although on a smaller scale, Alamgir Kabir Film Centre is a step in the right direction," said Manzare Hasin Murad.

"Our film movement is stagnant. The film aficionados will welcome this new centre, with its medley of activities," said Tanvir Mokammel.

Mainstream filmmaker, Chashi Nazrul Islam said, "In the name of making films, most of the mainstream filmmakers produce B -grade movies today. So it is imperative to ignite the film movement against such odds."

Another mainstream filmmaker, Badal Rahman got nostalgic while reminiscing on the golden age of our filmdom. He expressed the hope that by creating awareness among the aspiring filmmakers, this centre can take concrete steps for the betterment of our film industry.

Syed Bazle Hossain too articulated a concern. As he said, "It's a pity that the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy doesn't have a film division, although film has been treated the most powerful medium in the world."

Morshedul Islam in his speech pointed out, "BFFS is a civil society organisation. We can only create mass opinion against the current phenomenon of vulgarism in the film industry. It is very difficult to implement such a project privately, but we take it as a challenge. For instance, we may not be able to create an archive for 35mm films, but we can make a good collection of DVDs and VCDs of the classic movies. As Bangladesh is set to celebrate 50 years of cinema next year, we plan to launch 50 great Bangladeshi movies of different genres on DVDs for this occasion."