Tareque Masud

Birth : 1956-12-06, Bangladesh

Death : 2011-08-13

History

Tareque Masud was an award-winning Bangladeshi independent film director. He was known for directing the films Muktir Gaan (1995) and Matir Moina (2002), for which he won a number of international awards, including the International Critics' Prize and FIPRESCI Prize for Directors' Fortnight at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. He died in a road accident on 13 August, 2011. Tareque Masud was born in Nurpur village, Bhanga Upazila, Faridpur District, Bangladesh. He studied at an Islamic madrasah as a child, but the outbreak of the Bangladesh Liberation War against Pakistan forces in 1971 put an end to his studies at the Islamic seminary. After the war, Masud pursued general education and went on to obtain a Masters degree in History at Dhaka University. His wife, Catherine Masud, is a Chicago-born film editor.

Profile

Movies

Return Journey

Self

A documentary film based on a journey of late filmmaker Tareque Masud

Words of Freedom

Director

After the documentary movie Muktir Gaan (1995), few teenagers visiting in some independence war 71' devastated villages in search of some real scary stories of the days of the war.

Runway

Screenplay

A young man who lives nearby an airport finds himself in trouble upon meeting a mysterious stranger.

Runway

Writer

A young man who lives nearby an airport finds himself in trouble upon meeting a mysterious stranger.

Runway

Director

A young man who lives nearby an airport finds himself in trouble upon meeting a mysterious stranger.

Noroshundor

Story

Set against the backdrop of the Pakistan Army crackdown during Bangladesh’s 1971 war, this political thriller follows a student activist who takes refuge from the Pakistan army in a local barbershop.

Noroshundor

Director

Homeland

Producer

A mother and her son return to their home in Sylhet, Bangladesh after 15 years abroad and try to retrace their roots. Beginning with the death of the father of the family, the film proceeds with the central characters seeking a link to their lives.

Homeland

Screenplay

Homeland

Director

The Clay Bird

Screenplay

A family must come to grips with its culture, its faith, and the brutal political changes entering its small-town world.

The Clay Bird

Director

A family must come to grips with its culture, its faith, and the brutal political changes entering its small-town world.

A Kind of Childhood

Director

This is a film which challenges our notions of child labor. It peeks into a world where the concept of childhood as we know it has no meaning, where children support their parents, and where work is just another part of growing up. This is Dhaka, Bangladesh. Following several children over a period of six years, A KIND OF CHILDHOOD is an attempt to focus on the realities of child labor, with real children, their struggles and dreams.

Song of Freedom

Director

This historic film, completed in 1995 by filmmaking duo Tareque Masud and Catherine Masud tells the true story of a troupe of singers traveling through the refugee camps and zones of war during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. The film blends documentary and fictional genres in a musical structure to tell the story of the birth of a nation and the ideals of secularism and tolerance on which it was founded. The filmmakers combined footage of the cultural troupe and their activities, shot by American filmmaker Lear Levin in 1971, with historic footage collected from archives around the world, to create “Muktir Gaan” (Song of Freedom).

Adam Surat

Director

Adam Surat is the first film directed by Tareque Masud. It is a documentary about Bangladeshi painter Sheikh Mohammed Sultan (aks SM Sultan). Masud started the film in 1982 and completed seven years later.