Rehana Maryam Noor created history as the first Bangladeshi film to be selected for the Un Certain Regard section of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival
The month of July blessed us with much positive news pouring into our newsfeed, The one which garnered our attention was the shower of praises laid upon the feature film, Rehana Maryam Noor on its premiere at the 74th Cannes Festival’s ‘Un Certain Regard section this year. Brilliantly directed by our very own filmmaker Abdullah Mohammad Saad, it stars the talented Azmeri Haque Badhon giving a powerful performance that left the audience mesmerised at the festival.
The second directorial endeavour of Abdullah Saad follows the narrative of an eponymous private college assistant professor who unintentionally becomes a spectator to an unexpected incident while leaving work one day. Astonished with what she had witnessed, Noor starts protesting against it and the system. The story unfolds to show the many layers of a flawed patriarchal society where women cannot be vocal out the wrongdoings in their vicinity.
At the end of the screening, the team was greeted with rapturous applause from the crowd while Badhon became teary-eyed, a sight that is going to live rent-free in our memories. The film may not have won a prize, but it earned positive reviews from the various critics and movie buffs, making its mark in the global movie map.
Thus, when a clip of the standing ovation went viral, every Bangladeshi felt proud of the team behind Rehana Maryam Noor for successfully being able to represent the nation at the prestigious festival. Since then the international media has reviewed the movie in a positive light, with the likes of Anurag Kashyap and the jury itself, expressing their sincere appreciations of the movie.
The acclaimed Indian director, who visited the French Riviera and attended the screening, said, “Rehana Mariyam Noor is one of the most powerful films to have come out from our part of the Indian subcontinent.” Giving it 4/5 ratings in his Letterboxed review, he also said, “It feels so good watching the film. It completely shook me when I saw it. The way it was shot, the writing, the lighting design, the performance. It was quite extraordinary.”
This could serve as a gamechanger for the Bangladeshi movie industry, which has yet to gain recognition globally, with very few movies getting the desired limelight. Late Tareq Masud’s “Matir Moyna” was the last movie to get a screening at the Cannes Festival, back in 2002, but it was screened at the Director’s Fortnight segment of the 55th Cannes. After a long gap this movie seems to have broken an unlikely curse that has persisted in our entertainment industry. With Saad’s captivating directing, Bangladesh may have just attracted a new mass of audience and has proven the thriller genre is something our subcontinent filmmakers can master with an encapsulating plotline.
The true essence of the movie is the protagonist, played by Azmeri Haque Badhon, who nailed the character, as reviews suggest. Deborah Young from The Hollywood Reporter wrote in her review, “The second feature from writer-director Abdullah Mohammad Saad (Live from Dhaka) is not only a chilling portrait of the psyche of an unbalanced woman, played with extraordinary intensity by newcomer Azmeri Haque Badhon. It is equally a bow of admiration to a woman who sticks to her guns and refuses to look the other way, like everyone else, in a messy case of sexual assault.” She further described the second half of the movie as “a breathless trip into female repression, anxiety and violence.”
Women-centric films have become a daily mantra in our neighbouring country for a few years now, but to receive a dose of that from our local film industry has ignited a ray of hope.
Rehana Maryam Noor boasts an ensemble cast of Azmeri Haque Badhon, Afia Hahn Jaima, Afia Tabassum Borno, Kazi Sami Hossain, Yasir Al Haq, Saberi Alam, Abrodit Chowdhury and others. The film is set to release in cinemas in early 2022, followed by digital, home video, and non-theatrical releases as Grasshopper Film and Gratitude Films have jointly acquired US distribution rights from sales agent Film Boutiques.