Context

The title সিনেমা থেইকা পালায়া names an attempted loosening of the identity “filmmaker,” with its obligations, expectations and long-deferred feature dream. Cinema continued to shape how I worked, taught, watched and wrote. The logs follow that attachment as I began seeking knowledge across disciplines.

This timeline records some circumstances behind the writing.

2016. In April, my employment as head of the film department at Pathshala ended, following a conflict over the department’s direction, authority, and priorities. I read the rupture as a clash of values as much as of employment. Students protested. Weeks later I began Biralpakhi Cine Club, and learned my first feature, Cinema, City & Cats, was selected for the Locarno Open Doors Hub. The club’s first gathering, in Mohakhali on 16 April 2016, was on a third floor with no lift. One person wrote that the third floor stopped him. Our resources were limited, but I had not made accessibility a requirement. I regret it.

2016–2019. Biralpakhi ran seventeen public mojmas, study circles, and workshops — self-funded — until I closed it in 2019.

2017. Script residencies in Italy and the Netherlands under Gyula Gazdag. The feature stalled; I postponed it.

2018. I played Ajit in A Land Imagined (dir. Yeo Siew Hua), which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno.

2019–2020. Ghost work on commissioned projects under Biralpakhi Studio; closed during Covid. In late 2020 I moved to Cox’s Bazar and stayed largely silent in the film world since. My inquiry continued across disciplines.