Curtain falls on Dhaka International Youth Film Festival 2020

Dhaka International Youth Film Festival 2020, organized by Step for Cinema, concluded on July 31. The three-day festival was held online, featuring a number of film screenings, seminars and discussion sessions.

Renowned Indian film-maker Buddhadeb Dasgupta, singer SI Tutul, film-maker Shahnewaz Kakoli and others spoke at the closing ceremony. Film critic-scholar and journalist Sadia Khalid Reeti hosted the event.

Dasgupta said: “Dhaka is my favourite city. I must say that I am in awe of the youths of this city who are taking these remarkable initiatives."

Bangladeshi film director Syed Salahuddin Zaki was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the festival.

He said: “Our youths should find productive ways to effectively use their time on internet rather than getting addicted to it. The festival is an ideal example of how to do just that.”

Young directors from Bangladesh, India and Iran were in charge of evaluating the submissions and selecting films for screening.

Iranian film titled The American Bull bagged the Best Film award at the closing ceremony. Indian film-maker Debanjan Majhi won the Best Director award, and Bangladeshi film titled Jonopod clinched the Best Bengali Movie award. Greek film Plastic Flowers was awarded the Best Experimental Film. 

Two discussion sessions titled Cinema in New Normal Time and Film Journalism in New Normal Time took place on the first and second day of the festival, conducted respectively by filmmaker Shameem Akhtar and entertainment journalist Rezanur Rahman.

The festival kicked off on July 29 with a virtual inauguration ceremony hosted by Bangladeshi film activist-critic Sadia Khalid Reeti, in which popular film-makers Amitabh Reza Chowdhury and Mostofa Sarwar Farooki participated. 

The first edition of the festival received a total number of 656 films from 45 countries.