The Bengali community of New Zealand has it's share of great talents resulting into good quality events round the year - be it through cultural evenings, puja's, music shows or Bengali plays. Needless to say, there are multiple Bengali associations who in their own unique way celebrate the culture. New Zealand is regarded as god's own country and it has been an unexplored territory for Bengali films. 

After graduating from New Zealand Film Academy, I continued mu aspirations to do my own directorial ventures in the Bengali language and spread them to the global Bengali audience. The first story I had in mind was just before our final assignment in the Academy and it developed into a story called 'Upohaar'. A touching love story where the three main characters have a hollowness yet purity in their love. Due to various factors and mainly my fixation on the casting, the movie got postponed for almost a year and I wanted to come up with a new story in the meantime. I had returned from Kolkata to Auckland mid March 2016 and on 31st March there was the horrific flyover collapse in Kolkata and the images shook me. Yes the people in the pictures were unknown but somehow their cries could be heard from here. At the end of the day, they were father/son/brother to someone in this world & the lives were gone - just like that on one fine day. The story of AHONA was based on that incident. It is a story of how that incident can disturb someone seven seas away and can affect a major decision in their lives and also raise some pertaining questions towards the society we live in. Yes, AHONA was not a commercial subject and not everyone would have been comfortable in what we were portraying on screen and the rise of THAT disagreement would mean the success of the concept. 

UPOHAAR finally happened and both the films got internationally acclaimed.

Not only AHONA created history by being the first ever Bengali film produced in NZ but on 30th June 2018, both AHONA and UPOHAAR created history by having their premiere in Auckland - first time for a Bengali film(s) to be having their premiere and to be screened publicly to the audience through a ticketed event. 

Some pictures from the premiere can be viewed HERE

More information on the films and new projects at the Motif Films facebook page  

We also received a very good audience response from the audience as well