SAND & WATER

Sand and Water is a journey to a place that is nicknamed 'The Deadly Paradise' by those who live on the Bangladeshi mainland. The filmmaker tells the story of this fragile world and its' inhabitants who willingly endure a daily battle with the whims of nature.

The Jamuna is one of the three main rivers in Bangladesh and in the middle of this gigantic river is the homeland of the people of Gabshara Union - a small district consisting of a group of tiny islands in northern Bangladesh. The inhabitants of these islands are called Char in Bengali and their inhabitants Chauras. During the monsoon Jamuna floods nearly the entire district with its strong current eroding the small islands that it created just a couple of years ago, making them rise somewhere else on the riverbed. Then what seemed an ocean during the monsoon turns into a desert-like landscape in the winter. Now the Chauras struggle not against but for the water. The film shows how the people live in these extreme natural conditions and how they attempt to cope with the 'moods' of Jamuna, which has provided them with their livelihood, the fertile islands, for the last two centuries.

Shaheen Dill-Riza was actively involved in setting up the Bangladesh Short Film Forum in the late '80s. A Film Society activist since 1988 he worked in organising the International Short Film Festival Dhaka until 1991. He is now based in Germany where he studied at the University of Film and Television in Potsdam/Babelsberg. Sand and Water is his graduation film.

Country Bangladesh/Germany Running Time 84 mins Format Digital Director Shaheen Dill-Riaz Producer Hochschule fuer Film und Fernsehen 'Konrad Wolf' DoP Shaheen Dill-Riaz Featuring Hormuz Ali Sarkar, Haider ALi Sarkar, Chaina Begam, Mojibul Haque Dulu. Print Source Shaheen Dill-Riaz, Chodowieckistraße 6/I, 10405 Berlin, Germany T 49 30 44035081 E dill-riaz@web.de