Bangladeshi producers’ film ‘Eka’ selected for Cannes mentoring program La Fabrique

‘Eka (Solo)’, a gritty socio-political feature film, has secured a position at the La Fabrique Cinéma de l'Institut français 2021, an esteemed program tailored for young filmmakers across emerging countries to network with distributors and agents across the world, as part of the Festival de Cannes. 

The director of this film Suman Sen is from India. This will be a feature film debut. Arifur Rahman and Bijon of Goopy Bagha Productions from Bangladesh and renowned producer Dominique Welinski of DW Productions from France are the producers of the film, lending it a truly international character. Solo has been selected alongside 9 other projects from around the world, made by first and second-time feature filmmakers. 

Solo has already been part of NFDC Film Bazaar’s co-production market in 2019 and was also selected by Torino Film Lab Next (TFL) in 2020. 

Writer-director Sen offers us an immersive narrative of today’s world from the perspective of a vulnerable and fragile common man. The film, set in Kolkata, lays bare the decaying social, economic and cultural conditions of our society. 

“I believe that the reason our society is failing today comes from the burden of our past. I see the world through my father’s eyes. Their generation failed us entirely, in every sense. We have become intellectually bankrupt, emotionally isolated and politically paralyzed because of their indifference to society, to our nation. The film reflects and documents the kind of time I am living in for the last couple of years. A time of hatred, intolerance, violence” says Sen, who is also the founder of Fickle Formula, a content studio based in Mumbai. 

“I’m so glad to be a part of this journey, it was a long journey together and we are currently in the process of auditioning and finalizing the cast and crew and are in conversation with some of the finest actors and crews from all across the World. The shooting will likely commence in mid-2022 in Kolkata, if everything is fine I'm going to present 'Eka' to La Fabrique Cannes physically” says Arifur Rahman, Producer of Goopy Bagha Productions.

“Since the first time I met him, I believed that Suman Sen brings a refreshing and new voice to Indian independent cinema. I have already had the pleasure of experiencing his sensibility and strong political anchoring in a previous short film ‘The Silent Echo’ and so I am more than proud to be part of this new adventure as well,” says Dominique Welinski, founder of DW.