THE CLAY BIRD

Year: 2002
UK: ICA Projects
Cast: Nurul Islam Bablu, Russell Farazi, Jayanto Chattopadhyay, Rokeya Prachy
Director: Tareque Masud
Country: Bangladesh
Language: Bengali (English subtitles)
UK: 98 mins
UK Certificate: PG contains mild emotional intensity and language
UK Release Date: 4 July 2003 (Limited Release)

Synopsis

Tareque Masud's marvellous, Cannes award-winning story tells of family life during the upheavals of East Pakistan in the 1960s. Anu is a village boy sent to religious school by his fundamentalist father. There Anu befriends his irrepressible classmate Rokon and encounters Ibrahim, a teacher unbound by rigid ideology. When Anu returns home for the holidays he finds his village vibrant with festivity, but all is not well as the widening gap between his parents develops into a tacit conflict that reflects the country's growing political unrest.