Tanvir Mokammel`s `Japanese Wife` to be closing film at Kolkata fest

New Delhi: Eminent Bangladeshi director Tanvir Mokammel`s work on the life of the first woman from Indian subcontinent to write a book in Bengali on Japan will be the closing film of the documentary section of Kolkata International Film Festival to be held from November 10-17. The festival will showcase Mokammel`s ‘The Japanese Wife’ and ‘A Tale of the Jamuna River’.

The hour-long ‘The Japanese Wife’ is based on Hariprova (Basu Mallik) Takeda`s life and travelogue in Japan who had married a Japanese entrepreneur and lived in that country for several years before breathing her last in West Bengal. Born in Dhaka, Hariprobha married a Japanese entrepreneur Wemon Takeda, and travelled to Tokyo in 1912 and worked as a news reader in Bengali for Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose`s INA during World War II. She wrote "Bongo Mohilar Japan Jatra", a memoir of her journey to Japan in 1912, considered the first book on that country by any woman from the subcontinent. The book was first published from Dhaka in 1915. "A Tale of the Jamuna River" saw Mokammel and his crew following the course of the river Jamuna on a boat towards downstream where the Padma river has confluence with it. The film deals with different aspects of the Jamuna river- its vastness, erosion, shoals, fish and the people living on its banks. Mokammel has also been invited to Kolkata Film Festival but will not be able to make it to the festival because of his preoccupation with the shooting of his liberation war based feature film ‘Jibon Dhuli’ (The Drummer) about a Hindu drummer subjected to atrocities by Pakistani occupation army. PTI