Aam Kathaler Chhuti
Summer Holiday
96 minutes | 2022 | Bangladesh | Narrative | Bangla | Sub. English | All Ages
Schedule
XXI 5 | SUN 27 NOV | 19:00
XXI 5 | TUE 29 NOV | 20:00
World Premiere
Log Line
An isolated city boy finds freedom in the countryside, befriends a cursed boy, and discovers a new world, but his friend goes missing in this suspenseful summer adventure.
SYNOPSIS
Shuvo, an eight-year-old city boy, yearns for freedom as he watches life pass him by from his veranda. During a summer holiday, a visit to his grandmother’s village offers him the chance to explore a new world, where he befriends Moinna, a boy who is believed to be cursed by the bees, desperate for an escape from his overbearing mother. Moinna plans a picnic and set off on an adventure with Shuvo, but things take an unexpected turn when Moinna suddenly disappears.
Flim Profile
FILM TITLE: Summer Holiday
ORIGINAL TITLE: Aam kathaler chhuti
GENRE: Drama
ORIGIN COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION: Bangladesh
DIRECTOR: Mohammad Nuruzzaman
PRODUCER: Mohammad Nuruzzaman
LANGUAGE: Bangla (With English Subtitles)
RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2022
STORY: Shorif Uddin Shobuj
ADAPTATION & SCREENPLAY: Mohammad Nuruzzaman
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Mohammad Nuruzzaman, MAQ Sabbir
FILM EDITING: Mohammad Nuruzzaman
ART DIRECTION: Mohammad Nuruzzaman & Juboraj Shamim
SOUND DESIGN: Mohammad Nuruzzaman
MUSIC: Mohammad Nuruzzaman
PRODUCTION HOUSE: Cine Maker
CAST: Zubayer, Leon, Arif Hasan, Halima, Tanzil, Fatema
AGE RATING: 6+
BACKGROUND
Those who have gone through childhood and adolescence from the 1970s to the mid-1990s of the last century will find their lives of that age in the film “Summer Holiday”. Today’s urban children do not know the details of that youthful life, but its existence still survives at the least in the village. There’s an abundance of life, friendship, innate humor, empathy and thrill — which is Bangladesh’s own. An attempt has been made here to present a segment of that life with as faithfully as possible. Instead of professional actors, amateurs who fit the characters in the story in real life have been chosen. The story is told in a very straightforward and linear way to avoid unnecessary complications. An attempt has been made to portray the rural environment as a wonderful world of audio. So along with the dialogues and the visuals, the ambient sounds are also an essential part of the story here. Instead of background music, various natural sounds and some folk rhymes known as game balls have been used according to the situation. In terms of color grading, a nostalgic palette of white-black-gray has been chosen. While the simple and uneventful story “Summer Holiday” is designed for children, the film is primarily aimed at audiences of all ages.
THE PRODUCTION COMPANY
Instead of hoping that one fine morning an angel will come with all the aids to make the film we dream about, CineMaker looks for a practical way to make the film within its own capacity. CineMaker believes that no obstacle can be an excuse not to go down the path of one’s dream and every limitation opens new horizons of possibilities. JUNCTION (2010), JOURNEY (2014), A FAMILY (2014), NAMELESS (2016), short films and IMAGE OF A CITY (2021) have been made from this platform of five people who had gathered for the chase of cinema in 2010. The films have been screened at various domestic and international film festivals, including winning multiple awards. SUMMER HOLIDAY (2022) is the filmmaker’s first full-length film. He is also the co-producer of Prince Shamim’s THE INSTINCT (2022), which was recently awarded at the Moscow International Film Festival. The next film BEYOND THE MAST is on the release list, DEEP INSIDE THE SOUL and APART FROM HEAVEN OR HELL are in the works.
CineMaker wants to make its own way in every aspect from film production to its marketing and exhibition. In addition to film production, film school CINEPEETH was established in 2016 to produce and train film workers. In 2019 while all the cinema theaters started to be closed in a row in Bangladersh, a limited-seat modern cinema theatre, Cinescope, Narayanganj, has been set up jointly by Cinemaker and Narayanganj City Corporation for commercial screening of quality films of independent filmmakers who could not find a place in traditional cinema halls.
PRODUCTION NOTES
The filmmaker did not want to leave an impression of the time the story is being told or at what time it is being made in the film, so mobile phones, two-three storied concrete made buildings, pitched roads and even electric poles have been intentionally avoided in the village scenes. The director, cinematographer and chief assistant had to walk at least fifty kilometers to find out such locations. Even then, in no way could a location be matched according to the demand of the story, later in post-production, the location was created with the help of special effects. Although the underwater scenes of the films are usually shot in the swimming pools, the difficult process of shooting the scene in the river has been chosen to make the underwater sequence of this film believable. There were many other technical challenge in this film.
The entire soundtrack of the film has been made in the studio. Many of the well-wishers for 5.1 Dolby Digital Sound suggested at least going to India, but out of a sort of stubbornness that what is possible in Kolkata why that could not be done in Bangladesh, the decision was made to do it ourselves, and despite many limitations, the initiative succeeded. Special effects, color grading and animation have also been done in the country.
NOTES FROM THE DIRECTOR
In 2015, we were working on the script of Dana as our first full-length film, there are some complex scenes for which we were not yet technically or mentally prepared. So I thought of making a relatively simple full-length one to form the team and warm up. Since there are very few children’s films in our country, I could not even find films to show my daughter, I decided to start with children’s films.
The story was close at hand, my childhood friend Sharif Uddin Sabuj’s MOINNA BHAI BALLA RASHI. Most of the stories in the book are based on the real experiences of our childhood and adolescence. While writing the script, I was able to take a lot of freedom in terms of story expansion and dialogue. I made a technical team by holding a workshop with some newbees. Due to fixing the location in Harbaid area of Gazipur, I also selected the characters from my chief assistant Juboraj Shamim’s area Tongi.
To be honest to the story, I chose the summer vacation of schools for the shoot. I base camped a rented house in Harbaid. During the long days of May, there is about ten hours of light to operate the camera. The plan is to complete the shooting phase by working for fifteen consecutive days. For the first three days of rehearsals, all the calculations worked fine, the only problem was that I was not happy with the performance of the talent I had fixed as Shuvo. I didn’t think it was a big problem because we had the experience of how to deal with this kind of problem. It took another three or four days to find a new face. It’s all right now. As soon as the final shooting was started, it started to rain heavily, defying all weather forecasts. We had nothing to do but staying inside the camp and wait and eat khichuri and fried eggs every day. At one point, I was forced to pack up and come back. A few days later, as soon as the rain subsided, I went to the location and found that everything had changed, it could no longer be said to be the nature of summer. The next year, I prepared again and started shooting in the middle of May. After a few days of work, it rained again, that year it was an early monsoon. But this time I was able to complete 60 percent of the work. There was no way I would finish work the following summer because the kids were growing up fast, it was impossible to keep up with the continuity! I was forced to go to the end of the winter and finish the rest of the work, yet some inconsistencies could not be avoided. Post-production was no less difficult, but with the help of many people, everything came out.
I could have done any other project without finishing this film. But the few years I spent with this film made it impossible for me to resist the urge to touch my childhood. And if I had known that this three-month work would drag on for seven years, I could have been more careful from the screenplay stage!
CAST
Zubayer
The problem occured at the very beginning of filming when the talent who was selected for the character of Shuvo was brought in front of the camera. After a few days of trying, when he couldn’t get comfortable in front of the camera, the director stopped the shooting in desperation and auditioned around a hundred kids in schools around Tongi to find a new talent. Although the team liked one or two, their parents refused to let them act in the film. When they were returning to the camp disappointed, one day the director thought it was Shuvo when he saw Zubayer standing in a shop in Pagar area eating chips! On the basis of the previous acquaintance of the chief assistant Juboraj Shamim, a proposal was placed to Zubayer’s uncle Syed Atiq, but he agreed to act Zubayer in the film only after reading the screenplay. Zubair’s social status and life style were perfect for this character. He almost didn’t have to act; his natural expression was good enough. Again, in the scenes that needed to be acted upon, he was outstanding.
Leon
Leon is a very modest and simple boy. He was born and brought up in a village in Mymensingh. He was living with his parents who came to Tongi for job purpose. Leon is the eldest of his siblings. Initially he was admitted to madrasa for studies, but did not continue for long. Later, he enrolled in a working children’s night school. Another boy named Likhon was also finalised for the role of Moinna. Earlier, he had the experience of acting in another film, so his confidence in front of the camera was a little more than the rest. Eventually that over confidence turned into a disuster, his dialogue and expression started to be louder and unusual as the time passed on. So the team was forced to go in search of a new Moinna. Initially, after selecting two talents, they were handed notebooks and pens, and it was decided that the talent would be finalizsed by looking at the facial expressions at the time of writing their names. Leon passes this test and over time becomes Moinna, one of the vital characters in the film ‘Summer Holiday’.
Tanzil
Tanzil who plays the role of Mita is also a member of “Amader Pathagar”. Even though Tanzil’s two sisters struggled to get their education, their mother did not hesitate but encouraged them to continue their studies as well as cultural activities. And that’s why Tanjeel was never late in coming to the location even a minute.
Halima
Halima, played the role Rita, lives with her mother and elder sister in Pagar area of Tongi. She was initially selected for her excellent skill to climb trees and was also quite good at acting, memorizing dialogues instantly. Due to financial stress, Halima’s lower income-class family decided to leave Tongi and move to Kaliganj. The shooting of the last lot of the film will begin then. They kept the commitment even in that difficult situations when they were requested to stay in Tongi for one more week just to finish the shoot.
Fatema
Fatema is a garment worker by profession. She is from a village in Kishoreganj district and lives in Tongi. She was selected for the role of Moinna and Anaira’s mother after seeing her eloquent performance and dedication to work in Juboraj Shamim’s short film “Putul”. She has a strange quality to easily get inside the character and adapt herself to the character inherently. So her shots would have been easily OK and the shooting would have moved quickly. While playing the role of a mother in the film, no one really understood that when she really became the mother to all the children in the unit. Arif and Leon, the actors of Anaira and Moinna, first called her ‘Maa’ only during the shoot, but at one point they started calling her ‘Maa’ all the time.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUEATIONS
The original story was written by a childhood friend of mine and the characters are also very familiar. And motivation is my own childhood.
I was looking for a name that is very familiar to everyone, that makes anyone nostalgic as soon as it is heard. But I couldn’t find out a suitable one. After many changes, the name ‘Summer Holiday’ was finalized in the post-production.
The film depicts the integrated childhood of a particular time. Adults will see this film and take away their childhood memories and children will discover that there is another form of life beyond the world they know.
The audience will continue to recall the sweet memories of childhood and miss that youthful time.
On foot. We had to walk at least 50-60 km to find the right location for this film.
The cast and crew of this film had no prior experience. At the pre-production stage, a 7-day workshop was held with some boys interested in the film and some basic ideas were given about making the film. But none of those who attended the workshop were available during the shoot. Because, the atmosphere in our unit was completely the opposite of what people think of shooting as a matter of fun and amusement. Later, I finished shooting with a unit of just four or five. And the cast was selected based on their spontaneity.
Since film is not my profession, it was not possible for me to give even a full month for films. So the work goes on for a long time, on a broken schedule. Apart from this, technical complications have also suffered a lot.
Although not in terms of world cinema, there may be some innovation in this film relative to our country. There are no professional actors, minimal equipment and small production unit were deployed in this project. After all, the minimalist approach may be its novelty.
I don’t have the guts to claim to be a filmmaker. As a film enthusiast, I am still trying to find the language of film that can be the voice of myself and Bangladeshi film at the same time.
Courage and willingness to finish the job. The rest is just as compelling as it gets
Director's Profile
Muhammad Nuruzzaman
Bangladeshi writer-producer-director Mohammad Nuruzzaman is an Architecture graduate. He is known for his minimalist, audio-centric and open-ended storytelling. He is an advocate for the auteur concept and enjoys working with non-professional actors, writing screenplays, managing production, editing and designing soundtracks. His debut full-length feature film, SUMMER HOLIDAY, showcases his unique vision and creativity. He is in post-production with his second feature BEYOND THE MAST, simultaneously shooting DEEP INSIDE THE SOUL. He also co-produced the award-winning feature film, THE INSTINCT (2022), which received several international awards, including the NETPAC and Silver Saint George Award at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2022.