Cannes has long been held as the biggest and most prestigious film festival in the world. However, we, the laymen of Bangladesh, woke up to this fact only when Tareque Masud’s “Matir Moyna” (The Clay Bird) competed in the Director’s Fortnight in 2002. The fact that Aishwarya Rai and Shah Rukh Khan attended the festival in the same year for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Out of Competition premiere of “Devdas” might have also had a little something to do with the zeal, especially judging by the public’s subsequent fixation on what Miss Rai wears to the Cannes red carpet each year.
Rai’s fashion choices may have not been a consistent crowd pleaser, but “Matir Moyna” surely didn’t disappoint. Not only was it our first parallel section selection at Cannes, it also won the Fipresci award there. Consequently, a new wave of independent filmmakers dedicated their lives to replicating that success. This quest would allude us for nearly two decades until Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s feature film “Rehana Maryam Noor” secured a spot in the official selection in 2021, followed shortly after in 2025 by Adnan Al Rajeev’s “Ali.” The film competed for the Palme d’Or and won the Short Film Special Distinction.
Like most of the films that travel well, we will possibly have to wait at least a year or two to finally be able to see the film. As for now, all we have is an elusive trailer, a short synopsis, some production stills and the words of the director and producer to give us a taste of what the allegorical “Ali” entails.
“Ali” takes place in the fictional coastal town of Poddopur where women are not allowed to sing. Teenager Ali and his mother, Salma, live there by the mountains. Ali holds a secret in his throat that Salma stitches to conceal. When news of a singing competition offering a chance to migrate to the other side of the mountain reaches them, Salma tries to convince Ali to participate as she hopes the godly people from that side will free Ali from the burden of his secret. Ali auditions for the competition, wowing the godly judges who came to pick “the one” from the other side of the mountain. Perhaps he’ll win. But on the day of the competition, he is found sitting on a boat. Ali discards the cloth hiding his secret wound. As the stitches come undone, an ethereal female voice escapes from his throat, revealing his true identity. Ali’s mother, tearful but resigned, no longer holds him back. For the first time, Ali finds both freedom and peace through his song.
Director Adnan said the story came to him last September while pondering upon “how we lose our voices and authenticity due to societal suppression.” He wasn’t influenced by any particular director or film he said, as he watches “various kinds of films, not just the so-called important ones.”
He gave an insight into the unique sound design of the film saying, “I didn’t use any background score in ‘Ali’. Music is usually used to enhance the mood and emotion, but why not try to convey that with ambient sound. It’s a metaphorical world in the film, so sound was used to create an eerie space.”
Adnan and producer Tanveer Hossain are no strangers to Cannes. Only a year back in 2024, their co-produced short film “Radikals” was selected in the parallel section, Critics’ Week. The producer of this short about a dying subculture of Philippines, Kristine De Leon, is also a producer of “Ali,” marking the second successful Bangladesh-Philippines co-production. Will there be a third collaboration next year completing a Cannes hat trick for this trio? Unfortunately, Adnan said that is not a possibility, as he is focusing on his feature film now.
But that can’t dampen our Cannes victory celebrations. Tanveer, eloquently pointed out what this win means for us. He said: “For Ali to be recognized in Cannes—it’s not just a win, it’s a turning point. It tells Bangladeshi cinema: your voice matters, your craft holds weight, and the world is listening. This is a great milestone, yes—but more than that, it’s a mirror. A reflection of what we’re capable of.”
“Ali showed that a film can be short in length, but never short on ambition. It raised the bar—for storytelling, for technical craft, for how we see ourselves in cinema,” Tanveer adds with conviction. “Our stories are no longer whispers; they’re starting to echo.”