There are artists who record history, and there are artists who become part of it. Zahir Raihan belonged to the second kind. Born on 19 August 1935 in Majupur village of Feni, he became one of the major writers and filmmakers of twentieth-century Bengal. His life crossed the struggles that shaped Bangladesh: the Language Movement, the rise of Bengali political consciousness, resistance to authoritarian rule, and the Liberation War of 1971. Raihan did not separate artistic work from public responsibility. He wrote fiction, worked in journalism, studied photography, made films, ' ...
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“From among many kinds of work, an intellectual has to find such a work that he can do skilfully, beautifully. Once the battlefield of work has been determined, then the next task is to find the enemy’s power-base in that battlefield and determine the strategy for striking there.” — Solanas and Getino (1971: 47) April 1971. He was secretly helping the freedom fighters. But he was not satisfied. So he said to his elder brother Shahidullah Kaiser, “Borda, I will leave. I will not be able to do anything ' ...
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Roman Polanski’s cinema is full of characters who can see the world around them, but cannot always escape the frame through which they see it. I think I understand this because I remember a time when I could not escape the way I was seeing my own life. Ever since I began to understand auteurism, I have looked for recurring ideas and stylistic signatures across a director’s work, the things a filmmaker seems to return to again and again. That is how I came to Polanski and began asking what ' ...
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Romanian filmmaker Florin Șerban’s You Don’t Belong Here (Nu E Locul Tau Aici) has won the Golden Leopard at the 79th Locarno Film Festival. The jury praised the film’s writing, distinctive vision and cinematic language. Hong Sangsoo took Best Director for Nowhere to Lay My Eyes, while Monica Bellucci won a performance award for Ketticè. In the Filmmakers of the Present competition, Alessandra Sanguinetti’s The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer received the Golden Leopard as well as the Best First Feature award. Petra Volpe’s prison drama Frank & Louis won the UBS ' ...
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In neighborhood cable rooms across South Asia, a rented VCD often mattered as much to Titanic’s legacy as any multiplex screen. For many millennials across the region and much of the Global South, Titanic (1997) was not remembered primarily as a theatrical event. Multiplex distribution was still scarce, and many younger viewers encountered the film later through television and disc culture. As the early-2000s satellite boom took hold, Titanic became an inescapable presence on regional television, returning repeatedly through movie channels and holiday programming. Alongside these broadcasts, an informal network of ' ...
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Cut to Cinema is a monthly magazine published from Dhaka, dedicated to exploring the world of film. Each issue dives into the latest releases, highlights visionary filmmakers, and examines the evolving trends shaping both global and local cinema. We invite you—our passionate readers—to join us on this cinematic journey.
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