"Our audience is not demanding enough" -- this is how Satyajit Ray once addressed the then Indian audience. In that case, we as the Bangladeshi audience are yet to understand what demand is. If any of our governments was more focused on the education system of our country, then perhaps the filmmakers would not have dared to make contents like 'Dhakar Pola' , 'television' or other TV fictions which are made on improvisations by actors without the use of any written script. These are the top-rated contents nowadays as the mass audience like to get entertained through such stuff. Moreover, the regular Bangladeshi audience is rarely inclined to understand a thought-provoking content, which explains why surreal or abstract content makers are never popular here.
There is a hue and cry that our audiences are more interested in watching Indian contents or channels. This is true. In urban areas, people are watching international contents. But what types of contents? Has anyone ever done any research on that? In last 20 years has any of the Bangladeshi makers or production houses done any research on behavioural pattern or psychographic analysis regarding their target audience before making any film? It is not seen or heard that any marketer is hired to use base -- line information from any base -- line market survey to formulate marcom strategy or analyze any content for any production. At least this has never been a trend in our Bangladeshi film arena.
From observation, it is evident that teenagers are mostly fond of South Indian content where larger- than- life depictions play a dominant role in presenting the story. In general, around 80% of the Bangladeshi audience watch Hindi content where well-known Bollywood celebrities perform. Only a small segment of the Bangladeshi audience watches the thought-provoking experimental productions of India. A large number of the audience prefers Indian Bangla TV contents which are about conspiracies among relatives or domestic violence and other familial issues.
Additionally, the local audience has never been up for highly complex or surreal content. Since the early days of Bangladeshi movies, back in the 70s and the 80s, we not have as much access to information as we do these days due to the internet. Because of this gap in communication system, popular content makers used to reproduce Indian movies or copy Indian tones and our general audience had little clue about those. Notably, those remake contents were quite popular here in the country.
In Bangladesh we are never inclined to learn more in general, likewise, most of the media people do not want to learn the craft properly. Instead, their main driving force is to get rich and famous quickly. Therefore, remaking popular contents from another continent became mantra of success to most of creators, as even today we see copied contents being praised nationwide. Our national policy also plays a big role in it. Previously, we did not have any institutions where interested people could go for a full university degree in filmmaking. In recent times a few filmmaking institutions are being established, but most of the people who are teaching do not have proper academics on filmmaking. In return, the result is as expected -- our industry is not being able to produce content which can satisfy the major portion of educated international or national audiences.
Should we just wait for a miracle? It is a question secretly asked by most of the performers of the Bangladeshi television media. But why are the film performers not asking such questions? Maybe, there are a few who are, but not in big numbers, otherwise. We might have seen them fighting for contents but for policies. As a matter of fact, in the movies, most of the people do not have any academics on film or film studies. Besides, majority of the people do not have any proper university degrees, and even if they do, they were not from any renowned universities or top institutions. So, in a nutshell, bright students, scholars or proper graduates are not present in film arena. There are a few exceptions to this, but those handful of people are a minority in the industry.
Contrariwise, in the television arena, the scenario is little better as this media is mostly dominated by people who are from theatre, with at least some basic academics, and training on the basics of acting, directing and writing. Another reason for having a good number of educated people working in the television media is that for more than two decades renowned universities here in the country have been providing degrees on acting and direction focusing mainly on stage and tv performance. Hence, those who are graduating from these institutions get involved in the television media easily. Thus the people from the television media are bit more frustrated on contents than on their earnings. Furthermore, most of them believe that they possess better craftsmanship but in the absence of better directors and producers, they cannot properly showcase their talent in the international arena.
Primarily, producers are the key decision-makers in Bangladeshi film arena, especially in popular film contents. Producers and investors mean the same thing here, but in other parts of the world, producers play a very different role. Here production is mostly limited to investment and distribution activities but is far away from production design, marketing, PR or creative involvements, which are mostly executed by the directors and his/her team. Again the reason can be lack of institutional education in film production. Majority of our film producers have no film academics, and most of them have not graduated from any reputed universities. The same scenario is also present in direction, distribution and hall owners' associations.
To date, we have not been able to establish a proper institution where faculty members are proper film graduates. We have a few foreign film graduates in our country but they are somehow ignored in these newly formed institutions. If we want a more demanding audience which also includes the stakeholders of the industry, we need to focus on human resource development, and for that, in our education system we need to hire foreign experts or get onboard the local people who have graduated from foreign universities. Coupled with these, government should revive the policy of sending students to world's top-rated universities, not just any foreign universities, for film studies, with increased financial support.
Furthermore, to achieve the greater goal of better viewer ship, our primary education system should include subjects that intrigue the idea of cultural activities and aesthetics. We should have more reading sessions. Most of us are fond of reading easy content such as Humayun Ahmed, Samares or Shrishendu. Only a few of us are fond of Akhteruzzaman Elias, Tarasankar or Tagore.
Moreover, our schooling systems should include plays and performances. Similarly, our colleges should have a cinema segment where, apart from popular content, they would showcase films from legends like D. W. Griffith, Bergman, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Satyajit, and their likes. At the university level, we should have proper film institutions where they introduce all the aspects of filmmaking with proper faculties.
If we implement these now, we can reap the benefits in about a decade. Until then, we would have to hope for a miracle, which will change the whole spectrum of the industry; afterwards it will start producing quality content that can satisfy a better-educated and informed generation.
Omer AiazOny, Actor (TV, Film, stage), Faculty (Dhaka University). [email protected]
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