Stop Genocide | |
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Directed by | Zahir Raihan |
Produced by |
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Narrated by | Alamgir Kabir |
Edited by | Debabrata Sen Gupta |
Release date |
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Running time | 20 minutes |
Country | Bangladesh |
Stop Genocide is a 1971 documentary film by Bangladeshi filmmaker Zahir Raihan. [1] It is a 20-minute film that documents the killings and atrocities carried out by the Pakistan Army on the people of the then East Pakistan. It also depicts the plight of the refugees and the activities of the Government in exile.
Raihan made his debut in making of documentary films with Stop Genocide. [2]
Raihan started planning for this documentary around April–May in 1971 and soon started making it. Film director Alamgir Kabir helped him. Filmed in June, it was produced in less than a month.
The similarity of this documentary with some of those by Cuban filmmaker Santiago Álvarez indicates Álvarez's influence over Zahir Raihan. Raihan adopted a new technique of film-making of using found video clips and photographs while he was working for this documentary. The film was created using whatever was found in newsreel clips and footage. [3] Raihan made this documentary with an aim to move world opinion against the brutal acts committed by the Pakistan Army. [4] Raihan was a Refugee staying in Kolkata when he made this film.
The documentary starts by quoting Lenin from The Right of Nations to Self-Determination . A sketch of Lenin appears at the beginning and then a series of long and mid shots delineate a peaceful country life. But soon gunshots and turbulence replaces the tranquility. The next few shots portray the plunder, fire, wreckage, and killings committed by the Pakistan Army. The preamble of the United Nations Charter is mentioned several times. A series of still photos create some of the sequences that show the bombing of the US Air force in Vietnam and its aftermath. The Dateline shows Saigon of 20 July. Bomber B-52 and a burnt Vietnamese child are seen. The focus switches from Saigon to Bongaon, India. Processions of refugees make a few sequences. A picture of struggling, distressing life of homeless, helpless, frightened refugees follows. Some of the refugees are seen looking for shelter in refugee camps while not an inch of any camp can accommodate them. Next appears a series of long shots taken from pictures of raped women, destroyed buildings and heaps of dead bodies. Alternating appearances of Hitler, pictures of Nazis, the massacre by Nazis, piles of dead bodies nearby German prison camps, refugee camps in India, heaps of dead bodies in the streets of Bangladesh, fire, and wreckage in towns and villages make the next few scenes. Numerous corpses are seen in rivers, streets, paddy fields, under the trees and on green, long grass. Shot after shot illustrate the sufferings of refugees. An old woman talks to an inquirer. The camera focuses on a group of armed guerrilla returning from an operation. Soon they disappear in the woods. Camps of freedom fighters and the camp commandant appear. The commandant gives an interview. He talks about the war, the reason behind the war, the moral strength and confidence they own. The documentary ends with the word STOP occupying full frame.
The black-and-white documentary used 35 mm film. The narrative was in English and it was an opportunity to convey the message of the suffering of oppressed people of the newly born country of Bangladesh to the rest of the world. [3]
The documentary was produced by Bangladesh Chalachitra Shilpi-O-Kushali Swahayak Samity.
Commentary written and spoken by Alamgir Kabir.
The Department of Films and Publications of Mujibnagar Government did not consider the director's attempt to make a documentary on the ongoing Liberation War important at first. Later they agreed to finance the documentary. [4]
With the help of a few cultural activists, Raihan managed to collect funds for the film from a national organization comprising Indian film directors.
The film was released in 1971.
The Mujibnagar Cabinet, along with some other exiled politicians, witnessed the first screening of Stop Genocide at a secret place in India. The acting Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmad appreciated the documentary. Moreover, moved by the film, the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi directed her film division to buy the film and distribute it internationally. [3] [4]
Stop Genocide won an award in Tashkent film festival in 1972. [5] It also won the SIDLOC award at the Delhi Film Festival in 1975. [6]
Mohammad Zahirullah, known as Zahir Raihan, was a Bangladeshi novelist, writer and filmmaker. He is most notable for his documentary Stop Genocide (1971), made during the Bangladesh Liberation War. He was posthumously awarded Ekushey Padak in 1977 and Independence Day Award in 1992 by the Government of Bangladesh.
Farida Akhtar Poppy, known by her stage name Babita, is a Bangladeshi film actress. She is a popular actress in Bangladeshi films of the 1970s. She is best known for her performance in Satyajit Ray's Distant Thunder, a novel adaptation about the Bengal famine of 1943, which won the Golden Bear prize at the 23rd Berlin International Film Festival in 1973. She was active in the 1970s through 1990s as an actress in Bangladeshi films. Babita acted in more than 350 films. After winning the National Film Award in 1975, she won three consecutive best actress prizes. She won Best Actor in 1986, Best Producer in 1997 and Best Supporting Actress Award twice in 2002 and 2012. In addition, she was awarded the lifetime achievement award of the National Film Award in the year 2016.
The genocide in Bangladesh began on 25 March 1971 with the launch of Operation Searchlight, as the Pakistan government dominated by West Pakistan began a military crackdown on East Pakistan to suppress Bengali calls for self-determination. During the nine-month-long Bangladesh Liberation War, members of the Pakistan Armed Forces and supporting pro-Pakistani Islamist militias from Jamaat-e-Islami killed between 300,000 and 3,000,000 people and raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women, in a systematic campaign of genocidal rape. The Government of Bangladesh states 3,000,000 people were killed during the genocide, making it the largest genocide since the Holocaust during World War II.
The cinema of Bangladesh, better known as Dhallywood, is the Bengali-language film industry based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It has often been a significant film industry since the early 1970s. The dominant style of Bangladeshi cinema is melodramatic cinema, which developed from 1947 to 1990 and characterizes most films to this day. Cinema was introduced in Bangladesh in 1898 by the Bradford Bioscope Company, credited to have arranged the first film release in Bangladesh. Between 1913 and 1914, the first production company, Picture House, was opened. A 1928 short silent film titled Sukumari was the first Bengali-produced film in the region. The first full-length film, The Last Kiss, was released in 1931.
Alamgir Kabir was a Bangladeshi film director and cultural activist. Three of his feature films are featured in the "Top 10 Bangladeshi Films" list by British Film Institute.
Jibon Theke Neya is a 1970 Bengali-language Pakistani film directed by Zahir Raihan. The film is a political satire based on the Bengali Language Movement under the rule of Pakistan metaphorically, where an autocratic woman in one family symbolizes the political dictatorship of Ayub Khan in East Pakistan, and stars Shuchanda, Razzak, Rosy Samad and Shawkat Akbar.
There has been numerous works of art that depicted the Bangladesh Liberation War during and since the War both at Bangladesh and abroad. The concert for Bangladesh organized by members of the Beatles was a major happening in 1971 for protest music. The songs recorded for and broadcast on Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra are still considered to be the best of Bangladeshi protest songs.
There is debate about the starting point of independent filmmaking in Bangladesh.
Sangam is a Pakistani Urdu film released in 1964, directed by Zahir Raihan, starring Rosy, Haroon, Sumita, and Khalil. It is the first full-length colour movie made in Pakistan.
Kohinoor Akhter is a Bangladeshi film actress and director. She started her career in the mid 1960s and acted in about 100 movies. She won Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Director for the film Hajar Bachhor Dhore (2005) and Bangladesh National Film Award for Lifetime Achievement (2019).
Khalil Ullah Khan was a Bangladeshi film and television actor. He earned Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Gunda in 1976.
Anupam Hayat is a Bangladeshi author and film critic. The author of the first textbook on film in Bangladesh titled Cholochitra Bidya, published by Bangladesh Film Study Centre in 2004, Hayat is also credited with another textbook on cinema as an art titled Chalachitra Kala, published by University Grants Commission in 2007.
Surjo Konna is a 1975 Bangladeshi film starring Jayshree Kabir, Bulbul Ahmed and Sumita Devi. Indian veteran singer Sandhya Mukherjee sang the timeless hit song "Ami Je Andhare Bondini" for the film.
Liberation of Mirpur refers to the Liberation of Mirpur Thana in Dhaka on 31 January 1972 by Bangladesh Armed Forces after the end of Bangladesh Liberation war.
The 1970s was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1970, and ended on December 31, 1979. It was a very significant decade in the history of Bangladesh, because this is the decade in which Bangladesh emerged as a sovereign state. The decade began with a devastating cyclone that ravaged the southern part of the country. The next year the country went into Liberation war and achieved independence from Pakistan. The government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman administered the newly formed country between 1972–1975, but their rule soon came to an end through a series of coups and counter coups in the later part of the decade. Economically the country struggled because of the war (1971) and famine (1974) throughout the decade and was highly dependent on foreign aids. Culturally, in this decade Bangladesh started to establish its own identity as an independent nation.
Department of Films and Publications is a Bangladesh government department, under the Ministry of Information, responsible for regulating the film and publication industries. S M Golam Kibria is the Director General of the department. It is located in Circuit house road, Dhaka, Bangladesh.