Maksud Hossain opens up about the journey that led to his directorial debut, Saba.
There are films that entertain, and then there are films that ask you to lean in and truly observe. Maksud Hossain, the writer-director of the critically praised feature film, Saba, deals firmly in the latter. Having recently brought his work home to Bangladesh following a successful international circuit, Hossain offers a profound study in the quiet devastation of duty and the resilience of the human spirit.
Saba is no ordinary family drama. It’s a deeply felt portrait inspired by the real-life experience of his wife and co-writer, Trilora Khan. Maksud Hossain’s measured direction manages to steer clear of melodrama, instead focusing on the complex emotional truths that co-exist in Dhaka.
After two decades and award-winning shorts, why was Saba the definitive story for your feature film debut?
I have been making films for 25 years now. My childhood in Abu Dhabi was a constant education in film, watching everything from Hollywood to Bollywood, and month-long retrospectives on masters like Bergman and Satyajit Ray at the local cultural centre. I was already making short films, but when college came, I simply didn’t have the courage to major in film.
The turning point came with my documentary, Three Beauties. I made it to get into NYU’s MFA programme, and it actually went on to win the Student Academy Award. That finally convinced me, and my parents, that I had talent, and I could pursue this. In the end, I went to NYU only for a week, then dropped out and ended up in Los Angeles with my brother, studying with acting teachers like Judith Weston. By the time I was ready to make a feature, I realised I wanted to tell personal stories. I came back to Bangladesh because that’s where my roots are.
The genesis of Saba was deeply personal. My father-in-law passed away from COVID-19 in December, 2020. I saw my wife, Trilora, really struggling to take care of her mother, who has been a paraplegic since a road accident 25 years ago. Even with access to family and resources, it was a massive struggle. That’s when the idea hit me. What if I told the story of a 25-year-old young woman, Saba, who simply didn’t have the same resources, someone who lives in lower middle-class Bangladesh and has to take care of her paraplegic mother by herself? What would she do to make sure her mother lives at any cost?
From that kernel of an idea, Saba was born. Once I wrote that script it was very clear to me that this has to be my first feature.
As a director, how did you ensure you navigated this fine line between the characters’ resentment and love in every scene, allowing the audience to feel empathy for both characters despite their flaws?
Authenticity was hugely important to me. I wanted Saba to feel very real with its characters and story.
I was very conscious of avoiding the male gaze. This is fundamentally a story about a daughter and her mother, so I worked very closely with Trilora at the script level. I was constantly bouncing ideas off her, asking, “Would a woman do this?” Simple things, you know, like, men wouldn’t think twice about walking through a park in the middle of the night, but women would stop and consider at least three times.
Once I cast Mehazabien Chowdhury and Rokeya Prachy Apa, they became my creative partners. We had a very extensive six-month period of rehearsals. During that time, we would go through the script together. Mehazabien would say, “This choice would be stronger,” or if I had a doubt, I would ask her, and we’d also talk to other female crew members to get a 360-degree view that feels very three-dimensional.
Ultimately, though, if I had an instinct while writing or directing, I tried not to judge it. I went with the feeling of what the character should say or do, and only after that did we put intellect into it.
What was your process for balancing the film’s intimate scope with its broader social message?
I have been married since 2010, and I have seen the struggles of my mother-in-law. The social commentary comes directly from that personal experience.
In Bangladesh, there is simply nothing for basic paraplegics in wheelchairs. There’s no ramp, no wheelchair accessibility, even in places like Gulshan, not even in a lot of hospitals, which is very surprising.
My first memory of my mother-in-law leaving the house was seeing the struggle. The way we have to carry her manually is, I think, very inhuman. I hadn’t seen it personally before, so I wanted to show it in cinemas. It’s not necessarily to criticise Bangladesh, but just to show the struggle of such a person.
In the film, Saba’s mother, Shireen, doesn’t have the same access to resources as my mother-in-law, so Saba alone has to carry her. It’s a very heartbreaking process because Saba has to carry all the weight with her body. I wanted to capture that.
I also wanted to highlight the basic rights of human beings. Shireen wants to get out of the apartment, but they can only afford the bus, which is ridiculous in a country where public buses are a constant struggle even for an able-bodied person. If someone has to live in a wheelchair, it is not their fault, which means the responsibility falls to us as a society.
I didn’t set out to make a political film, but if my characters are directly affected by their surroundings or a lack of their basic needs, I want to show that. I felt this was something I hadn’t seen dealt with in Bangladesh, and I wanted to approach it from that realistic place.
What does the staircase truly represent in terms of Saba’s emotional and socio-economic limbo?
If the director reveals everything, there’s no mystery, there’s no magic, right? But I’ll share this. It was very intentional.
I am a huge fan of Federico Fellini. At Purdue, I took an Italian cinema course with Professor Benjamin Lawton, a very influential person in my life. He was showing us La Dolce Vita, and in that film, there are a lot of staircase shots. It’s almost a metaphor for life. Sometimes it’s rising, sometimes it’s going down. It’s at different levels. That was an inspiration, and visually, it was very strong for me.
In the first shot, Saba is going down to her mother with laundry in her hand. In the last shot, Saba is in the staircase again. If she wants to meet Ankur, she has to get up, and the laundry is now in Ankur’s hand. I wanted to communicate that journey visually, and the staircase allowed that motif to be repeated.
So, is the laundry like baggage? That’s up to the audience to interpret however they like.
What is Saba‘s most crucial contribution to Bangladeshi cinema right now, and where does your creative focus turn for your upcoming project?
We were very aware, even as we were making it, that you have to be very lucky to make a film like Saba. The stars have had to align.
From the perspective of craftsmanship, Saba is touching new ground. Our editing is very innovative and modern, and our sound design has never been like this in the history of Bangladesh, until now.
More importantly, the film has received 100% rave reviews from international trade magazines like Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and Screen Daily.
Saba contributes something very important to Bangladeshi cinema. We are one of the most well-travelled films in the history of Bangladeshi cinema. We were the first Bangladeshi film with a debut filmmaker to premiere at one of the Big Five Film Festivals, Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and go on to screen at renowned festivals like Busan, Red Sea, Gothenburg, Sydney, and Raindance.
As for my next project, I am working on my second feature film right now. I have been writing it for almost one and a half years now, since Saba was in post-production. It’s in an advanced draft, and I am hoping to shoot it next year. The working title is Babymoon. It’s about a couple having their first child. Like a honeymoon for expectant parents.