by Dov Kornits
“I am a big fan of the famous quote by J.R.R. Tolkien – ‘Not all those who wander are lost’,” says Kamar Ahmad Simon when we ask about his education. “Born and brought up in an orthodox Muslim family of old Dhaka, I experienced a disturbing childhood with an abusive father. [The] Boatyard in my backyard became my favourite escape, growing close to the stray dogs – my refuge was the old alleys of the post-colonial capital under construction. Playing around the masons and the carpenters became my favourite pastime. I started making paper houses of wasted wedding cards, I grew a crush for the ‘frozen music’ – Architecture. I passed one of the most competitive exams in the country and enrolled to study architecture. But by the year I graduated, I had already discovered the medium of ‘living music’ – Cinema. Since then, I have tried to self-train myself by watching cinemas from around the world. Apart from that, I am an alumni of European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE), IDFAcademy Summer School (Netherlands), Berlinale Talents (Germany) and Asian Film Academy Busan (South Korea).”
Since its invention, one of cinema’s biggest attractions is the ability to transport audiences to exotic places, and for most Western audiences it doesn’t get more eye-opening than the Bangladesh presented in Kamar Ahmad Simon’s Day After…
“It’s a hybrid fiction shot in a century old paddle steamer boat with groomed non-actors playing alongside the establishment’s real staff and the regular passenger,” the filmmaker tells us about the setting of his film, The Rocket riverboat. “I have created many situations, sequences and improvised dialogues. My intention was to explore the cinematic language by merging the lines between fiction and non-fiction to test the limit of ‘suspension of disbelief’ for the audience.”
Setting the film on The Rocket also allowed Simon to explore the class divide in Bangladesh. “This was my way to deal with the self-censored time and space I am living in, I wanted to capture my very personal feeling/experience through the film.”
To that end… “The first politician who appears on the boat is a genuine one, whom I shot and edited in a way so that it appears that he is on his way back to the constituency after getting the much-craved nomination of the ruling party for the upcoming election. For the second politician, I assigned a non-actor and scripted sequences to reflect on the changing political practices in the country.”
A Bangladeshi Nashville if you will, with the cross-section of characters including a young Youtube influencer and student journalists, both equipped with cameras; in stark contrast to the poorer occupants of the boat or the ship’s captain who screams obscenities at approaching boats that do not keep a safe distance.
“In my view, like with every invention, the internet has created huge opportunities as well as threats by becoming the latest tool for a new kind of colonization called globalization. For a filmmaker like me, the internet made it possible to reach an audience like you thousands of kilometres away, making the distribution potential stronger. So it will be upon us, how we decide and take action to shape best use of it for the future yet to come.”
Bangladesh’s future in cinema looked bright back in the 1960s, described by Simon as a ‘golden age’, when there were 1200 single screen cinemas across the country until the 1980s. “But the trash copy versions of Hong Kong Kung Fu films and the South Indian melodrama gradually scaled the industry down to 100 screens by 2010. A new generation of independent filmmakers started to come up from 2012 and made some visibility in the international festival circuit. But since Covid, OTT [streaming] has become the biggest channel for people to watch movies in Bangladesh. And since OTT, there has been a surge of commercial thrillers ruling the game. I don’t know how to forecast from hereafter, but I can sense a new kind of storyteller eagerly budding on the aisle.”
In the immediate future, Kamar Ahmad Simon is on his way to our shores for the Sydney Film Festival.
“This is my first time to be in the Sydney Film Festival, and the first screening is scheduled on 14th June Tuesday 3.00pm at the heritage-listed theatre State Theatre. I am a bit sceptical, will there be an audience to see the film in such a grand venue on a weekday at such an odd timing! But I am hopeful about the next screening on 18th June Saturday 1.00pm at the Event Cinemas George Street. Fingers crossed!”
Let’s prove him wrong, Day After… deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible.
Day After… is screening on June 14 and June 18 at the Sydney Film Festival
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