The short film A Midnight Tempest directed by Kolkata-based reputed theatre director Abanti Chakraborty and co-produced by the Department of English and Modern Languages, Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) premiers at IUB on Tuesday (Sep 28). 

A press release was issued in this regard. 

Tanweer Hasan PhD, the IUB Vice Chancellor, will inaugurate the Bangladesh premiere as Chief Guest. The British Council, Kolkata released the film earlier on September 1. 

Dr Ahmed Ahsanuzzaman, an IUB professor of English, acted as the film’s academic and script consultant. Professor Ahsanuzzaman previously directed the adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and An Enemy of the People. Bangladesh Television produced his translation of Fernando Arrabal’s The Two Executioners and adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Exception and the Rule.

The four-minute A Midnight Tempest is inspired by Jan Kott’s fascinating take on Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ariel in The Tempest by Shakespeare in the Polish author’s illuminating critique Shakespeare Our Contemporary (1964). With Covid-19 in the backdrop, the Shakespearean “spirits” meet at a Kolkata pub in the film and problematizes the concept of freedom in contemporary reality. 

Gifted film and theatre actor Rwitobroto Mukherjee plays Puck and popular theatre and film actor Sean Banerjee plays the corporate servant Ariel in A Midnight Tempest.

BDST: 1322 HRS, SEP 26, 2021
SMS