Song of Freedom

Muktir Gaan

DIRECTORS: Tareque Masud, Catherine Masud COUNTRY: Bangladesh YEAR: 1995 LANGUAGE(S): Bengali SUBTITLES: English RUNNING TIME: 78 min

SECTION: Films from Bangladesh 2015

SYNOPSIS

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 SONG OF FREEDOM.

TAREQUE MASUD & CATHERINE MASUD
Tareque Masud graduated from Dhaka University with a degree in History. He was involved in the film society movement from his university days and started his first film THE INNER STRENGTH, a documentary on the Bangladeshi painter S.M. Sultan, in 1982. His 1995 feature length documentary on the ’71 Liberation War, SONG
OF FREEDOM brought record audiences and became a cult classic. In 2002, he completed his feature film THE CLAY BIRD, which was based on his childhood experience a madrassa. The film won the Critics’ Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, was the first Bangladeshi film to compete in the Oscars, and was released in many countries around the world. In addition to his filmmaking work, Tareque Masud was also a pioneer of the independent film movement in Bangladesh. He was a founding member of the Short Film Forum, the leading platform for independent filmmakers. In 1988, he organized the country’s first International Short and Documentary Film Festival, which is held on a biannual basis to this day. He was also known as the ’Cinema Feriwalla’ for the way in which he showed his films, touring remote towns and villages throughout the country with his mobile projection unit. His wife, American-born Catherine Masud, was his creative and life partner. They met at the time he was completing work on Adam
Surat and spent the next two decades making films together through their production house Audiovision. Together they wrote scripts, often co-directed, and toured the country and the world with their films. Catherine also edited all of their work. Masud died on August 13, 2011 in a tragic road accident while returning from work on location for his upcoming feature film THE PAPER FLOWER, on the 1947 partition of Bengal.

A graduate of Brown University, Catherine Masud also studied fine arts at the Art Institute of Chicago and film production in New York. Among many other films, she produced and co-wrote the acclaimed feature THE CLAY BIRD, directed by Tareque Masud, which won the International Critics’ Prize at Cannes. Thematically many of
their films address the relationship between religious and cultural identity in the context of South Asia. She edits all of her films and has taught numerous courses and workshops on various aspects of cinema at universities and training institutes. More recently she has served as an adviser to the Bangladesh National Film Archives and the National Film and Television Institute (under development), and is a founding member of the South Asian Children’s Cinema Forum, a regional body for the promotion of children’s cinema. Since the death of Tareque Masud, Catherine has established
the Tareque Masud Memorial Trust, which is dedicated to the task of archiving and memorializing Masud’s work through publications, educational projects, screening programs, and the completion of their unfinished oeuvre.

FILMOGRAPHY
The Inner Strength (1982), Song of Freedom (1995), Words of Freedom (1999), The Clay Bird (2002), The Barbershop (2009)

PRODUCER: Tareque Masud CAMERA: Lear Levin EDITOR: Catherine Masud

PRODUCTION: Audiovision