DURING the National Film Award-2013 ceremony in the city on Saturday the Prime Minister has asked the filmmakers to focus on the country’s history, heritage and culture as well as on the social issues saying movies must be creative, decent, educative and certainly based on Liberation War, according to local news reports. However her advice has come at a time when the country’s film industry has plunged to its bottom in competition with mass circulated, strong armed and highly sensational Indian films reaching the country through commercial channels as well as through satellite imagery system. The Prime Minister is right when she said movies are an important media for social change and they must be focused on national culture and heritage. But the question arises when we are failing to protect our film industry both in absence of a viable financial market and for lack of equipment for quality production and hit stories and such other visions; there is no simple way of making the breakthrough. We must say that the government would adopt the right policy framework to protect the industry at home and promote it abroad, like the Indians are doing beyond the border.
The Prime Minister praised many moviemakers and recent success of many Bangladeshi movies at home and abroad. There is no doubt Bangladesh has many talented artists and filmmakers but it is quite unfortunate that a large number of films that come out every year do not have much substance. While it is true that movies are there to entertain audiences and bring profits, they must be socially meaningful and also responsible to bring change. While it is true that the Bangladesh film industry has come a long way, in many cases people can see that some modern films have mangled up our culture with Indian and Western influences to the point where appreciation from audiences is lost. Filmmakers must work on promoting our rich Bangladesh culture so that the quality of their work is not compromised by outside cultural aggression. Even now there is vast scope for improvement to conduct research and create original works; which are not heavily copied from the Indian film industry (either Bombay or Kolkata). Films should be family-friendly more often than not and must not have songs forcibly added which contain vulgar lyrics that tarnish nation’s image.
We must say that the government must work on supporting the film industry so that it can produce quality work devoid of external influence as well as supervise them so that they do not get distracted with only making profits.
