Bangladesh: Last News

A 10-year-old girl from Oldham is walking 50 kilometres for charity in honour of her late grandad.

Film Independent today announced the names of the 30 filmmakers, from 11 nations, selected to participate in its 2022 Global Media Makers LA Residency, taking place in person this month.

Naman Ramachandran “Mujib: The Making of a Nation,” the biopic of late Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is currently in post-production and a teaser will be unveiled at the Cannes Market in May. Popularly known as Bangabandhu (friend of Bengal), Rahman was one of the founders of the Awami League party and led the movement for political autonomy for East Pakistan and the subsequent formation of independent Bangladesh in 1971.

Clive Myrie has spoken about how the Russia-Ukraine war is "on a different scale" to anything he's seen before in his 30 years of reporting. The conflict in the Eastern European country has prompted an outpouring of support and donations from celebrities and even royalty, with Kate Middleton making a rare political statement in support of Ukraine.

Clive Myrie has received wide praise for his commentary on Ukraine recently, after Russia launched a full-scale invasion on the country on 24 February. The BBC journalist, 57, has been reporting close to where the devastation has occurred in Kyiv, and even away from the cameras he has continued to keep people updated with what is happening in Ukraine on social media. Clive has now managed to safely leave the capital city, confirming his departure on 7 March.

Naman Ramachandran Madhuri Dixit, one of the brightest and most enduring Bollywood stars, is basking in the success of her streaming acting debut, Netflix’s “The Fame Game.”The series bowed Feb. 25 and is among the top 10 Netflix shows in Mauritius, Bahrain, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Sri Lanka and the U.A.E.In the series created by Sri Rao, and directed by Bejoy Nambiar and Karishma Kohli, Dixit plays top Bollywood star Anamika Anand, who at the height of her fame, disappears without a trace.

The Sundance Institute has set Marissa Chibás (72), Walé Oyéjidé, Esq. (Chiaroscuro), Glenn Kaino (Fox & Stork), Mamoudou N’Diaye (Freelancers), Gabby Rivera (Juliet Takes a Breath), Nuhash Hamuyun (Moving Bangladesh), Tania Taiwo (Pharmacopeia), Andre Muir and Jake Hutton (The Predicament), Tommy Pico and Tazbah Rose Chavez (Sometimes), A.K. Espada (This Is Our Home) and Ramzi I. Bashour (Tomahawk Springs) as the participants for its tenth annual, two-day Screenwriters Intensive, taking place virtually through tomorrow.

Naman Ramachandran BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC, has set a content deal with MX Player, India’s largest AVOD service, which also has a strong reach across Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Pakistan. The partnership kicks off with Simon Allen‘s “The Watch,” a series inspired by the characters in Terry Pratchett’s bestselling “Discworld” novels, which follows an unlikely group of misfits, The City Watch, who are forced to find the guts to save the world, surprising even themselves in the process; and “Line of Duty” creator Jed Mercurio‘s “Critical,” set in a major trauma center that only deals with the most serious cases, following an emergency medical team that battles through the vital first hour of care to save lives that hang in balance.

Naman Ramachandran Entrepreneur Karnesh Ssharma is launching Clean OTT, a streaming service focusing on female-oriented original content, in the first quarter of 2023.Female actors, directors and producers will be at the heart of the service, which aims to move away from the male gaze that plagues Indian content and to create a sustainable platform for female professionals to further their career in the entertainment industry, while also removing age barriers.The content will include originally curated and produced works by Clean and pre-selected projects that meet the Clean OTT messaging framework by other producers from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.Ssharma is also a co-founder of Clean Slate Filmz (Netflix’s “Bulbbul,” Amazon’s “Paatal Lok”). The Clean OTT library will feature work from directors, scriptwriters, actors, and producers associated with Clean Slate Filmz, as well as providing opportunities to emerging talent.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe Osaka Asian Film Festival has unveiled its biggest ever program – a total of 76 films – to unspool next month (March 10-20, 2022).Its competition section includes the acclaimed Korean debut film “Aloners,” which offers an exacting critique of the alienating effects upon life of modern capitalist economies; Hong Kong biopic “Anita”; the world premiere of “Angry Son,” which combines LGBT and mixed race themes in a heartwarming comedy; Kong Dashan’s new take on “Journey to the West,” as a ragtag group of people on a UFO hunt; “Mama’s Affair,” the second film by Kearen Pang, whose 2017 debut “29+1” won Osaka’s audience award, “No Land’s Man” from Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and festival circuit hit “Barbarian Invasion.” The spotlight section includes ten titles. Among them are “The Ground Beneath her Feet” from Bangladesh’s Mohammad Rabby Mridha; “A Room of Her own” from China’s Xie Yiran; and Carlo Francisco Manatad’s “Whether the Weather is Fine.”The largest component section is the twenty-title Indie Forum, a platform for Japanese indie films that allow the winner to claim the Japan Cuts Award.

The World Health Organization has released a new report on Omicron sub-variant BA.2 which shows the strain accounted for 21.5% of all new Omicron cases analyzed worldwide in the first week of February. Omicron, in turn, represented nearly all of the variants identified globally (98.3%) in the genomically-sequenced samples submitted to the GISAID data-sharing hub in the previous 30 days.

Naman Ramachandran Acclaimed Bangladeshi director Rubaiyat Hossain, known for her powerful women-centric films, has a new project participating in the Berlinale Co-Production Market and is launching a female filmmaker grant.Her Berlinale co-production market project, “The Difficult Bride,” follows Novera, a bride-to-be in present-day Dhaka who is in love with the groom and the idea of a fairytale wedding, but secretly struggles with her body, which does not seem to comply with the wedding rituals. She makes continuous trips to the beauty salon and uses home remedies to “cure” her body.

Naman Ramachandran Zhang Lu’s “Yanagawa” (China), Hong Sung-eun’s “Aloners” (South Korea) and Fujimoto Akio’s “Along the Sea” (Japan/Vietnam) were among the top award winners at France’s Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas. “Yanagawa,” which opened the 2021 Pingyao Film Festival, won the Golden Cyclo, the festival’s top honor awarded by the international jury.

Naman Ramachandran Go language-specific, go cheap and go hyper-local to reap success appears to be the motto of a range of streamers operating across South Asia.With countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan, South Asia is a vast region populated by 1.9 billion people speaking a welter of languages. It is no secret that people in the region prefer consuming content in their own tongues.

A diplomat born and raised in East Kilbride has told of his delight at being awarded an OBE after 40 years helping the world’s poorest people.

Naman Ramachandran France’s Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas kicks off Feb. 1 with a gala screening of Iranian auteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s 2001 Cannes winner “Kandahar” and will conclude on Feb.

Sean Penn has angered many after he doubled down on his claims that men have become “quite feminized” and this time, slammed men who wear skirts.

Amy Schneider is ready to spend all of the money she won on Jeopardy!

most successful trans and female contestant in Jeopardy! history.Schneider also amassed one of the highest earnings totals, holds the second-longest consecutive winning streak, and became the first trans Jeopardy! competitor to qualify for the annual Tournament of Champions.After dominating game after game since debuting during Transgender Awareness Week last year, Schneider’s streak was finally broken Wednesday by Rhone Talsma, a librarian from Chicago.A Final Jeopardy question on Bangladesh tripped up Schneider, who had led up to that point, while Talsma — who is also LGBTQ — answered correctly to clinch the win.Schneider said in a statement that it had been an “honor” to appear on Jeopardy!.“To know that I’m one of the most successful people at a game I’ve loved since I was a kid and to know that I’m a part of its history now, I just don’t know how to process it,” she said.Schneider had thought that Talsma “was going to be tough going into it.”“I loved hanging out with him, we had great conversation before the taping, but I could tell that he was here to play and that he was going to be good,” she said. “I still came very close to winning, but I did feel like maybe I was slipping a little bit.

Naman Ramachandran Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN) has acquired exclusive South Asia media rights for the 2022 Asian Games taking place later this year at Hangzhou, China. SPN will have the rights to broadcast the games across its sports channels in India and the subcontinent including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan and Maldives, and on streamer SonyLIV through Sept. 2023.

Naman Ramachandran Spanish company Soul Pictures has boarded international sales on Indian filmmaker Prasun Chatterjee’s debut feature “Two Friends” (“Dostojee”).Set in 1992-93, when Hindu-Muslim tensions escalated in India in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the Bombay bomb blasts and percolated down to a remote village on the India-Bangladesh border, the film follows the friendship of two eight-year-old boys. Palash, the son of a Hindu Brahmin and Safikul, whose father is a Muslim weaver, are best friends, but fate intervenes.The film world premiered at the 2021 BFI London Film Festival, played at the Dhaka International Festival and will play at the Goteborg Film Festival from this Friday.