The virtual premiere of Shakespeare-inspired short film A Midnight Tempest directed by Kolkata-based reputed theatre director Abanti Chakraborty and co-produced by the Department of English and Modern Languages, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) was released by the IUB Vice-Chancellor Tanweer Hasan PhD yesterday as chief guest.
Dr Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman, an IUB professor of English, acted as the film’s academic and script consultant. Professor Ahsanuzzaman previously directed the adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and An Enemy of the People. Bangladesh Television produced his translation of Fernando Arrabal’s The Two Executioners and adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Exception and the Rule. The four-minute A Midnight Tempest is inspired by Jan Kott’s fascinating take on Puck in A Midsummer Night’s 474Dream and Ariel in The Tempest by Shakespeare in the Polish author’s illuminating critique Shakespeare Our Contemporary (1964). With Covid-19 in the backdrop, the Shakespearean“spirits” meet at a Kolkata pub in the film and problematize the concept of freedom in contemporary reality.
Gifted film and theatre actor Rwitobroto Mukherjee plays Puck and popular theatre and film
actor Sean Banerjee plays the corporate servant Ariel in A Midnight Tempest. Speaking on the occasion Tanweer Hasan emphasized how Shakespeare, who lived and worked more than four centuries ago, is timeless and universal, and congratulated all involved with the film. Others who spoke at the virtual premiere included Prof Niaz Zaman, advisor to the Dept. of English, Acting Dean of School of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences and Head of the Dept. of Media & Communication Professor Zakir Hossain Raju, Professor Razia Sultana Khan, Head of the Department of English Dr Naureen Rahnuma, Professor Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman, and the Director of the film Abanti Chakraborty, and celebrated actor Rwitobroto Mukherjee, who joined from Kolkata.
ক্যাম্পাস ডেস্ক ।। বিডি টাইম্স নিউজ
