The Dhaka International Mobile Film Festival has held a six-day CDST Filmmaking Workshop with Munda Community in Shyamnagar, Satkhira which started on Sunday 23rd January 2022. This mobile filmmaking workshop solely focused on climate change and its aftermath in Munda’s life. Total 10 participants from the Munda Community joined the workshop.
Global warming is real and rapid climate change is the effect of it. Participants have tried their best to cover different problem areas and how those create a long-term effect in the Munda community. In those diverge topics they talk about the tiger widow, child marriage, culture and language, job crisis and alternative solutions and sufferings of displacements. Through their stories, they display the sufferings and sacrifices the Munda community bears, the threat of child marriage overshadows the happiness of the conjugal lives and the importance of keeping their heritage intact.
The intensive mobile filmmaking workshop, the first of its kind in Shyamnagar, provided the opportunity for participants from the Munda community to understand and appreciate the process of telling their stories with a smartphone. Besides that, through this workshop, they have gathered the basic knowledge of filmmaking, which will help them find their voice on a broader scale. At the closing event, each participant has showcased their films in front of the audience. And those films vividly display their everyday lives- struggles for survival fighting against nature.
The Closing Ceremony of the ‘CDST Filmmaking Workshop with Munda Community, Shyamnagar2022 is held on Friday, 28th January 2022, at 3:30 pm. ULAB’ MSJ Department Head Dr Jude William Genilo sent a Thank You speech to the participants, and so did the project researcher Angelos Theocharis from Durham University. The program started with a brief introduction to the research project and was followed by screening participants’ projects. At the event UP Chairman of Burighoalini, Bhobotosh Kumar Mondol, founder of Initiative for Coastal Development, Asikuzzaman Asik, founder of PROGOTI Ashek-e- Elahi were grace the event.
The “Community Digital Storytelling and Delta Futures in India, Bangladesh and Vietnam” project is funded by the UKRI GCRF Living Deltas Hub and the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR) at Durham University. The workshop were conducted in collaboration with the Dhaka International Mobile Film Festival (DIMFF), the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), and the Initiative for Coastal Development (ICD). From DIMFF, advisor Dr Abdul Kabil Khan and executive advisor Syeda Sadia Mehjabin were the facilitators and Senior Lecturer Muhammad Aminuzzaman from ULABwas the coordinator of the workshop. From PROGOTI, Ashek-e- Elahi acted as the coordinator from the local side.