Syeda Rubaiyat Hossain is an internationally acclaimed and established contemporary Bangladeshi female filmmaker, writer, producer, and researcher. She made her debut as a filmmaker in 2011 by directing the feminist film Meherjan in 1971 in the context of the Liberation War.Rubaiyat Hossain is a contemporary female filmmaker.
The film caused a great deal of controversy in Bangladesh, and just a week after its release, the distributor pulled out of the cinema hall under pressure. However, it has received international acclaim and awards at various film festivals. Her second film, “Under Construction,” is a self-examination of a middle-class woman in the context of contemporary Dhaka city.
The film was released on January 21, 2016, in Bangladesh after its premiere at the Seattle Film Festival in 2015. Her “Made in Bangladesh” premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2019 and was released in December of the same year in more than 60 cinemas in France, Portugal, and Denmark. The film was released in early 2020 in Canada, the United States, and other parts of the world.
Rubaiyat Hossain is the daughter of prominent Bangladeshi politicians Syed Abul Hossain and Khwaja Nargis Hossain. She recently topped the subcontinent’s list of the 10 most important contemporary women producers. The list also includes Pakistan’s Mehreen Jabbar, Indian producers Sonali Bose, Sumon Kittur, Orvaji Irani, Meghna Gulzar, Manju Borah, Shatrupa Sanyal, Jaya Akhtar, and Bobby Sharma Barua.
Rubaiyat Hossain was originally a researcher. Inspired by Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak, Rubaiyat Hossain became interested in film and completed a diploma in film directing at the New York Film Academy in 2002. She holds a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies from the renowned Smith College and a master’s degree in South Asian research from the University of Pennsylvania and a degree in film from the Tish School of the Arts at New York University. Her interests include Sufism, Bengali nationalism, Bengali modernity, and female sexuality. She has worked on women’s rights at the Law and Arbitration Center, the women’s wing.
She is also teaching part-time in the Department of Economics and Social Sciences at BRAC University. In private life, Rubaiyat Hossain is married. She has been married to film director and producer Ashiq Mostafa since June 2006. In 2002, she made a short film called Fulkumar. She then gained experience by making some short films. Her short films are Priyo Ami (8 minutes), Balikaar Gollachut (52 seconds), Simanta (1 minute 12 seconds). She made all these pictures in 2005.
She started making full-length films by making Meherjan films. She is also associated with literature. Rubaiyat Hossain has won several awards in her personal life
* Emily Gime Prize – Presented by the Gime Museum in Paris
* Jury Award and Critics Award, Vessel Asian Film Festival,
* France Best Emerging Director Medal, New York Asian American International Film Festival * Orson Wells Medal, Tiburon International Film Festival,
* USA Critics Award, Jaipur International Film Festival,
* National Film Awards 2018 – Best Dialogue
* Jury Awards and Audience Awards, Amiens International Film Festival,
* France Primio Interfadi, Turin (Torino) Film Festival
* Audience Awards, African Diaspora International Film Festival.
Rubaiyat Hossain and her husband Ashiq Mostafa founded Khana Talkies (formerly known as Ira Motion Pictures), a Bangladesh-based film production company in 2006, which has been instrumental in producing a number of nationally and internationally acclaimed films as well as promoting Bangladeshi young filmmakers in the international arena.
10 January 2021
