Bangladeshi filmmaker Abu Shahed Emon's debut venture about orphan boy Jalal reminds one of the Aylan Kurdi tragedy.
If Kurdi's body was found on the Mediterranean coast in Turkey, Jalal's life journey began as well as ended on the bank of a river at a remote village in Bangladesh.
Incidentally, Emon's film "Jalaler Golpo" released on September 4, two days after shocking images of Kurdi's lifeless body swamped the international media. The film portrays the story of the rootless Jalal, who struggles to become a man with dignity in society.
"I was shocked. I could never imagine that this would happen just two days before the release of my film," Emon said after seeing the photographs of Kurdi.
"Jalaler Golpo" (Jalal's Story) is among the 14 movies which are being screened at the ongoing 20th Kerala International Film Festival under the International Competition Films section.
The film is also scheduled to be screened at the 13th Chennai International Film Festival where 183 films from 50 countries are expected to feature from December 10 to 17. But given the fact that Chennai is battered by unprecedented rains and flood, it is not immediately clear if the Festival will go ahead.
Emon would be travelling to Kerala for the screening of his film scheduled for Tuesday.
"Jalaler Golpo" will be up against challenge from films from India, Iran, Brazil, Turkey, Israel, the Philippines and a few joint productions of Nepal, Argentina, France, Germany, Switzerland and Cuba.
The film was screened in the South Asia Focus section of the International Film Festival of India in Goa last year. Emon derived the story idea for his film from a "deeply disturbing" media report of 2011 about an incident of vigilantism whereby an unnamed boy was lynched on suspicion that he was a robber.
