Tanvir Mokammel


Tanvir Mokammel is a Bangladeshi filmmaker and writer. He is the recipient of Ekushey Padak in 2017. He won Bangladesh National Film Awards total ten times for the films Nodir Naam Modhumoti, Chitra Nodir Pare and Lalsalu. He is the current director of Bangladesh Film Institute in Dhaka.

Early life and education

Tanvir Mokammel grew up in Khulna. His father worked as a magistrate in Narail and his mother was a teacher in a local college. He completed his master's in English literature at the University of Dhaka.

Career

Since he was a university student, Mokammel worked as a left-wing journalist for landless peasants in rural areas. As a filmmaker he has made six full-length features and fifteen documentaries and short films, some of which have received national and international awards.
His feature films are "Nodir Naam Modhumoti" ', "Chitra Nodir Pare" ', "Lalsalu" ', "Lalon", "Rabeya" ', and "Jibondhuli" '. Tanvir Mokammel's prominent documentaries are "The Garment Girls of Bangladesh", "The Unknown Bard", "Teardrops of Karnaphuli", "Riders to the Sunderbans", "A Tale of the Jamuna River", "The Promised Land", "Tajuddin Ahmad :An Unsung Hero", "The Japanese Wife", "Swapnabhumi" and mega-documentary "1971". His movies "Nadir Naam Modhumati" ' and "Chitra Nodir Pare" ranked second and third respectively in the list of 10 best Bangladeshi films, in the audience and critics' polls conducted by the British Film Institute.
Mokammel has written poems, short stories, and newspaper articles on cinema and cultural issues. Tanvir Mokammel's important books are "A Brief History of World Cinema", "The Art of Cinema", "Charlie Chaplin: Conquests by a Tramp", "Syed Waliullah, Sisyphus and Quest of Tradition in Novel", "Grundtvig and Folk Education", and a translation of Maxim Gorky's play "The Lower Depths".
Mokammel established a film institute called Bangladesh Film Centre.

Filmography

Awards and honors

Publications

  1. Film Aesthetics and Twelve Directors ' in Bengali, a book dealing with the film aesthetics of Griffith, Eisenstein, Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Cocteau, Dziga Vertov, Stroheim, John Ford, Renoir, Godard, Rene Clair and Satyajit Ray, Sahitya Prakashoni, 1985.
  2. Film ', a brief history of the world cinema, in Bengali, published by Bangla Academy, 1987.
  3. Marxism and Literature ', a collection of essays, mostly literary criticism and on different authors of Bengali literature, also essays on Gramsci and on the problem of alienation.
  4. Syed Waliullah, Sisyphus and Quest for Tradition in Novel, a book of literary criticism on the novels and short stories written by Syed Waliullah, perhaps the most prominent writer among the Muslim community of Bengal, published by Muktodhara, 1988.
  5. Nitchutalar Manush, translation of Maxim Gorky's play The Lower Depths, into Bengali, published by Viswasahitya Kendro, 1997.
  6. Charlie Chaplin: Triumph of the Tramp ', in Bengali, on the life and craft of Charlie Chaplin as an actor and film-maker, Sahitya Prakasoni, 1996.
  7. Grundtvig and Gonoshikhsa, a book on the theories of alternative education for the downtrodden and disadvantaged people of the rural areas, 1997.
  8. Art of Cinema , in Bengali, a collection of essays on different aspects of the aesthetics of cinema, published by Agami Prokashoni, 1998.