Entertainment Desk :
Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and Amitabh Reza Chowdhury, two celebrated filmmakers of the country have announced their new films. The next film of Mostofa Sarwar Farooki is going to be titled ‘Saturday Afternoon’ and Amitabh Reza Chowdhury’s next is going to be called ‘Rickshaw Girl’. They announced their films through the popular US magazine Variety.
Variety also reported that the production for ‘Saturday Afternoon’ will commence on December and production for ‘Rickshaw Girl’ will commence on March next year. ‘Saturday Afternoon’ will be the first in Farooki’s ‘Identity’ trilogy. The second will be ‘No Land’s Man’, which has received grants from India’s Film Bazaar and the Asia Pacific Screen Academy-Motion Picture Association film fund. The third will be on the Rohingya ethnic people, who are facing ethnic extinction in Myanmar.
Bangladeshi actress Nusrat Imroze Tisha is confirmed as one of the leads of ‘Saturday Afternoon’, while Palestinian actor Eyad Hourani is in advanced negotiations. Farooki describes his film ‘Saturday Afternoon’ to Variety as “a thriller where the lives of several people collide on one fateful day.”
The film is going to be released in two languages, Bengali and English. The film is being jointly produced by Abdul Aziz for Jaaz Multimedia, Bangladesh; Shyam Sundar Dey for Greentouch Entertainment, India and by Farooki for Chabial, Bangladesh. Anna Katchko of Tandem Production, based in Germany, is also on board as co-producer. On the other hand, the film ‘Rickshaw Girl’ is based on Mitali Perkins’ bestselling 2007 young adult novel.
‘Rickshaw Girl’ is a female empowerment story about a girl named Naima, a young Bangladeshi girl who tries to help her struggling family by disguising herself as a boy and operating her ailing father’s prized rickshaw for much-needed extra money. When she crashes the rickshaw, Naima uses her ingenuity and determination to find a way to repair the damage.
The book is adapted into a screenplay by Sharbari Z Ahmed, who is one of the writers on the successful television series ‘Quantico’ team. The film is going to be produced by Amitabh Reza Chowdhury and Eric J Adams of the United States of America. Both Mostofa Sarwar Farooki and Amitabh Reza Chowdhury are currently attending the significant 22nd Busan International Film Festival at South Korea.
