Handmade in Bangladesh

Hacked: The Bangladesh Bank Heist

This film investigates one of the world’s biggest and most audacious cyberheists, where hackers managed to compromise two of the most respected names in international banking, the SWIFT messaging system and the New York Federal Reserve, taking $81 million in the process. Follow the trail of the stolen money from Dhaka, to Manila and New York, and discover who the hackers were and how they did it.

Bangladesh: The Prostitutes of Daulatdia

The Concert for Bangladesh

A film about the first benefit rock concert when major musicians performed to raise relief funds for the poor of Bangladesh. The Concert for Bangladesh was a pair of benefit concerts organised by former Beatles guitarist George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, to raise international awareness of, and fund relief for refugees from East Pakistan, following the Bangladesh Liberation War-related genocide.

The children trapped in Bangladesh's brothel village

Daulatdia is an entire village in Bangladesh dedicated to prostitution. Every day, 1,600 trafficked, enslaved and abandoned women and girls sell themselves for £2 a time. In the midst of the trade live 300 children, many born in the village. Some will be groomed to be the future of the business like their mothers and grandmothers. With education programmes and support provided by Save The Children, a few may find their way out.

Bangla Surf Girls

Three working-class teenage girls in a port city in Bangladesh escape daily hardships and stifling family lives by riding waves on their surfboards and grabbing hold of the fleeting and thrilling sense of freedom that brings.

Whores' Glory

In Bangkok, Thailand, women punch a clock and wait for clients in a brightly lit glass box; in the red-light district of Faridpur, Bangladesh, a madam haggles over the price of a teenage girl; and in the border town of Reynosa, Mexico, crack-addicted women pray to a deity named Lady Death.

Howl of a Gypsy Sunflower

A dark and visceral journey. A language that tears apart the morbid nature of the dead-old primal human eyes. No warning was given. No mercy was shown.

Surviving Cyclones

Using film footage shot by the Genevese film director, Fernand Reymond, in Bangladesh in 1972, this documentary film describes the cyclone prevention programme drawn up by the governmental authorities and the League of Red Cross Societies. It particularly depicts the cyclone warning system set up to protect the population. (League Film Library Catalogue Supplement No. 2, p. 39)

Was Tun

Faced with a documentary film that included an interview with a young girl forced into prostitution, Michael Kranz asked himself the apparently banal question of “what can be done?” He travelled to Bangladesh and began to search for the girl. A film that is both self-critical and critical of society about the desire to at least do something and not to simply and passively give in to the injustices in this world.

Chars in Bangladesh

"Here was our home," says farmer Rahim Shorkar, and points to the water. “There were streets, schools and concrete buildings. We had everything." The river brings rich sediments that make the land fertile, but the Jamuna's generosity comes at a cost. Islands - known as chars - pop up at the river's whim. But they disappear just as quickly, and the people of the Jamuna must jump from island to island.

Hamza Choudhury: Leicester's Bangladeshi Boy

Follow Hamza Choudhury in this feature-length documentary as he returns to Bangladesh for international duty, balancing the demands of elite football with a journey that carries deep personal meaning.

Topsy-Turvy

As Cyclone Remal approached, we arrived in Debpur village of Dhankhali Upazila, Bangladesh. What struck us immediately was the stark contrast between the official warnings of impending devastation and the villagers' apparent lack of preparedness. Over the following days, amidst the unfolding chaos, we documented the lives of individuals as they grappled with the imminent threat of destruction. The film captures the overbearing anxiety that grips entire communities in the face of an approaching cyclone. Through intimate encounters, and candid interviews, we witness firsthand the resilience and fear of those directly in Remal's path. Their voices echo the overwhelming power of nature and the human spirit in adversity.

'Independence 2.0'

This desktop documentary portrays the student movement in July and August 2024, the fall of the Sheikh Hasina regime, and its aftermath.

Bengal Memory

A Bangladeshi American undertakes a journey to learn about the liberation war in his native country, traveling there for the first time in nearly two decades, and uncovering the controversial role the U.S. played in a forgotten genocide that occurred there over 50 years ago. From 1971 to the present day, this is a story of Bangladesh’s independence, a family’s journey immigrating to America, and the cognitive dissonance of a person belonging to both homelands. Driven by interviews with his father and other family members, along with experts and witnesses, archival videos, declassified recordings, and animations, BENGAL MEMORY is a unique and untold oral history through a personal lens.

Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears

Two Bangladeshi girls born and raised in London have weddings arranged for them against their will by their family. Shahanara, the rebel of the family, banished from the family in her teens for being "too Western", has to swap her pink hot pants for a sari as she goes off to the airport to meet her new Bangladeshi husband. Her sister Hushnara is the opposite of Shahanara; a devout Muslim who agrees to marry so she doesn't upset her parents.

Dhaka Vibra – Aventuras Futebolísticas em Bangladesh

Out of Fashion

A documentary following an Estonian fashion designer Reet Aus on a global tour to explore the origin process and the environmental footprints of today's fast paced fashion industry. On the road the mission takes an unexpected turn towards trying to introduce her "upcycling" inspired product line to some of the major fashion retailers to increase awareness of the massive resource waste built into the current product lifecycle.

Sex, Slavery, and Drugs in Bangladesh

"Bangladesh is one of the few Muslim nations where prostitution is legal, and the country’s largest brothel is called Daulatdia, where more than 1,500 women and girls sell sex to thousands of men every day. "Daulatdia is infamous for drug abuse and underage prostitution, and many of its sex workers are victims of sexual slavery who were trafficked into the area and sold to a pimp or a madam. They are forced to work off the fee that was paid for them, a debt that takes years to clear because they receive as little as a dollar for sex. "VICE News correspondent Tania Rashid visited the notorious Bangladeshi brothel — where human trafficking, underage prostitution, and drugs are commonplace — and met the traffickers and the trafficked, as well as the clientele."

Bad Weather

Off the coast of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal is a tiny 'brothel island' populated by women forced to sell their bodies to men who arrive by the boatload. Each of the women came to inhabit the 100m long and 10m wide piece of land for different reasons, whether through a sister, the need for money, or in search of love and affection, but for all of them it is a life tougher than they could have imagined. Deepening their troubles is the island's existence at the frontline of climate change, and with the increase of cyclones, floods and soil erosion the prospect of losing their homes, and the island itself, is closer than ever. Beautifully shot and subverting expectation, Bad Weather is a documentary that carves out a message of hope in extreme adversity.

A Kind of Childhood

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.