Longest film ever made screened at BIFFes

‘Amra Ekta Cinema Banabo’ has a run time of over 21 hours and took nine years and 176 days to complete

Md Ashraful Alam, better known as Ashraf Shishir, isn’t a new name to film festivals. The Bangladeshi independent film director, screenwriter and human rights activists has had his films screened at 65 international film festivals in 22 countries and earned 24 international awards. His film ‘Amra Ekta Cinema Banabo’ was screened at BIFFes on Monday.

Despite these achievements and awards, he tells Metrolife that his biggest achievement has been playing his movie at the remotest villages. “There’s something humbling about the experience. Those are the kind of people I want my movies to be shown to,” he adds.

‘Amra Ekta Cinema Banabo’ (The Innocence) is a black and white fictional-feature film with a run time of over 21 hours. It’s the longest non-experimental film ever made.

It took Ashraf a total of nine years, 176 days with more than 4,000 artistes and crew members. “I wouldn’t say it’s a crowd-funded film but it definitely looks like it. I’ve had the help of a lot of people to make this film.” The fictional-feature was shot in Ishwardi Upazila in Bangladesh and adjacent villages surrounding the Padma river and the Hardinge Bridge. It’s based on love, dreams, politics, revolution and aftermath of Bangalore Liberation War.

Ashraf says, “The story sees a young fellow accidentally killing an ant and wants to repent when he gets to know that a vagabond knows about it. The vagabond believes that everyone on earth is acting in a film, god is the director and millions of
cameras are following us every day. Long story short, it leads to the young fellow killing a person.”

When asked why he chose to make the film a black and white one, Ashraf says, “According to Sigmund Freud’s theory, our dreams are black and white. But I think our lives are black and white whereas our dreams are colourful. That’s what I wanted to represent in my film.”

Ashraf is currently working on his new film titled ‘570’, “which is about the liberation of our hero in our country.”