Tripura hosts Bangladesh film festival

Agartala, Feb 21 (ANI): In a bid to boost relations between India and Bangladesh, Tripura recently hosted a Bangladesh film festival here.

The Nazrul Kala Sethra in Agartala hosted a five-day long film festival, titled 'Bangladesh War of Liberation in Celluloid' screening six films on the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.

"Matir Moyna" or the Clay Bird, which was screened during the festival, tells a story of a family torn apart by religion and war.

The film touches on sensitive themes of religious tolerance, cultural diversity and the complexity of Islam.

Other films screened during the fest included "Joyjatra" (victory mission), and "Khondo Golpo-1971" (1971 - a few shattered tales).

"It is a good medium of encouraging people to people contact. Government of India has lot of bilateral relation with many countries including Bangladesh and this is one of the cultural exchange programme to encourage people to people contact and has been very successful," said Rajiv Kumar Jain, Director, Directorate of Film Festivals, India.

The festival was a part of Dhaka's renewed attempt at cultural diplomacy and encouraging people to people contacts.

"This is a part of our pursuance of cultural diplomacy and people to people contact is an aspect of that. So through these films, we would like to project the historic war of Liberation of Bangladesh to the new generation of Bangladesh and the world," said Mahbub Hassan Saleh, Bangladesh's Deputy High Commissioner to India.

Earlier, the film festival was held in Delhi and Kolkata.

People who came to watch the films found them to be very informative.

"Watching different movie is really worthy and moreover, we came to know about Bangladesh from our forefathers who hailed from there, this actually makes us soft and a fellow feeling towards the people of Bangladesh," said Rajib Paul, a film-lover.Such festival brings people closer and are necessary to improve relations between the two nations," said Sushmita Goswami, another film-lover.

The films have not just proven to be a great medium of raising awareness about Bangladesh Liberation War but also brought the people of two nations closer. (ANI)