Desk Report: ‘Sand City’, Bangladeshi filmmaker Mahde Hasan’s debut feature film, secured a 8,000-Euro development grant from France’s Centre National du Cinéma in this year’s edition of the Locarno Festival’s Open Doors project, reports Asian Age. The film ‘Sand City’ depicts an unstable element, revealing the life in the ruthless metropolis of Dhaka.
It portraits three individuals, a Buddhist monk, a materialist young man, and an ethnic minority woman. They are not directly related. Only one thing is common in their life and that is sand.
The award earns Hasan a two-month residency offered by the Winterthur International Short Film Festival in partnership with Villa Sträuli. Began on August 1, the festival will end on August 11 at Locarno in Switzerland. The award has been announced on August 6. Besides, the world premiere of Aung Rakhine’s short film ‘The Last Post Office’ was held on August 7 at the same festival.
Apart from Mahde Hasan other Bangladeshi participants of this year’s festival are Aung Rakhine and Abdullah Mohammad Saad. Aung Rakhine, director of Bangladesh’s first indigenous film ‘My Bicycle’ has taken parts with his another short film “The Last Post Office.”
The film is about the dying heritage of postal service in the country. Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s full length film “Live From Dhaka” has taken part in the festival. Apart from them Mahdi Hasan has taken part with another production- a short film titled “A Death of Reader.”