'Roid' wins best film in Barcelona, 'Delupi' takes a special mention

Two Bangladeshi films have won major honours at the Asian Film Festival Barcelona in Spain. 'Roid', directed by Mejbaur Rahman Sumon, won the Best Film award in the festival's main competition section. 'Delupi', the feature film by young director Mohammad Tawqir Islam, received a Special Mention in the festival's 'Other Narrative Section'.

The international festival began on October 22 and ended on November 2. The winners in the different sections were officially announced by the festival authorities on the closing day, with films from across Asia taking part in the event.

Directors Mejbaur Rahman Sumon and Mohammad Tawqir Islam expressed their delight at the prestigious honours on foreign soil and thanked the festival organisers.

Both films had earlier taken part in several international festivals and won awards. The honours in Spain have carried the presence of Bangladeshi cinema on the world stage one step further.

'Roid' blends folk tales and myth with the timeless realities of rural Bengal. The film had already been praised by critics for the atmosphere and depth of its story and its aesthetic filmmaking.

Alongside its festival run, 'Roid' also drew a wide response from general audiences and commercial success after its release in cinemas at home. Mostafizur Noor Imran and Nazifa Tushi played the two central roles in the film.

'Delupi', meanwhile, is set in Deluti Union in the coastal region of Khulna. Its screenplay weaves the real impact of a devastating flood there together with local political tensions.

Chiranjit Biswas, Aditi Roy, Rudra Roy and Zakir Hossain, among others, acted in the realistic story. Produced under the banner of Footprint Film Production, the film is based on real events in the Khulna region in 2024 — a humanitarian disaster caused by a breached river embankment and the local political tensions around it. One of its distinctive features is that local people of the area, rather than professional actors, played many of its roles.

Before Barcelona, 'Delupi' had been selected for the main competition of the London Bridge Film Festival in the United Kingdom. Director Tawqir confirmed the news on social media on the night of Tuesday, October 20, and the film was screened on the festival's main stage on the evening of October 24. No one from the cast and crew could travel to London from Bangladesh for practical reasons, and the director urged expatriate Bangladeshis to watch the film in cinemas there.

Just three days before the London news, Chiranjit Biswas had won the Best Actor award for 'Delupi' at the Tasveer Film Festival in North America. The film was also screened at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in the Netherlands, one of Europe's top festivals, and after its screening at Italy's Caravan Film Festival its story and visual language won praise from international critics.