DOT Desk: The Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC) stall was left abandoned for 8 days at the Cannes The Marché du Film is one of the largest film markets in the world, reports Dhaka Tribune.
Ministry of Information sources reveal that although the BFDC delegation had not yet received their visa, an Emirates flight had been booked for May 23 at 9:40 PM Bangladesh time.
Originally more than 20 people were a part of the Bangladesh delegation prior to the visa application process. It was said that the Ministry of Information’s continued delay in narrowing down and approving the list, was already too late.
The visa for the 6-person team was supposed to be received May 23, around 3pm Bangladesh time.
However, the 9-day Cannes Film Market (Marche du Film) was to close at 5pm on the same day. As a result, there was doubt about whether the BFDC delegation could have reached their stall even if they received the visa. There is speculation about whether the French Embassy refrained from issuing the visas at the last minute due to such considerations.
This is the first year that a BFDC stall was allocated from Bangladesh. It had been lying empty for 8 days of the festival. During his annual attendance at the Cannes festival, Ahmed Mujtaba Jamal, director of Dhaka International Film Festival stated: “They (BFDC authorities) could have been a good thing for Bangladesh at the right time. But the opposite became true. It is never a good thing to leave a stall this way.
The representatives of every participating country have seen how our stall is doing. However, I hope that in the future, learning from this experience, the individuals concerned will do everything right.”
The stall did briefly gain life for three days at Aranya Anwar’s “Ma” movie screening. The entire team returned to Dhaka after the world premiere of the film at the Palais de Festival building on May 20. Afterwards, the stall stayed empty until the festival ended.