Meherjaan -- a controversial film from Bangladesh -- will be playing at the New Jersey Film Festival on Sunday, September 23, 2012.

Meherjaan -- a controversial film from Bangladesh -- will be playing at the New Jersey Film Festival on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012.

When the Bangladeshi film Meherjaan was released in January of last year director Rubaiyat Hossain was making her film directing debut and joined a handful of female film directors from Bangladesh. Her feature film is about a Bangladeshi woman's love affair with a Pakistani Baloch soldier during Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence.

Unfortunately her stunningly beautiful film would be enshrouded in unjustified controversy. Following heated criticism in the media and on the internet, the film was withdrawn from cinemas by its distributors just a week after its release.

Quoted from a BBC story: “Critics allege that it has distorted history and ignored the horrors of the war. But the director disagrees...

 'In the context of 1971 we are used to looking at these binary images of Bangladeshi hero versus the dehumanized Pakistani brutal animal. I tried to break away from that and I think that's what created this huge uproar," says Ms. Hossain.'

The film follows Meher, who falls in love with a Pakistani soldier during the 1971 war. When her love is discovered, she is humiliated and silenced by her family and society.

Many years later one of her relatives, Sarah, visits Meher and tries to put together her past. The movie features some of the region's biggest stars - including India's Jaya Bachchan and Victor Banerjee - as well as other leading performers from Bangladesh and Pakistan, making it one of few attempts involving a cast from three South Asian countries."

More info on the screening is below:

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Career (Carrière) - Guido De Craene (Brussels, Belgium)
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Meherjaan - Rubaiyat Hossain (Dhaka, Bangladesh)
A deeply moving and expertly crafted feature film, Meherjaan begins during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, when a beautiful young woman named Meher falls in love with an enemy soldier.  After their love affair is discovered, she is shamed and silenced by her family and society. Now, 38 years after the war, Meher reunites with Sarah, a close relation, who was given away for adoption, and has come back to Bangladesh to piece together her past. Together, these two women must re-tell history through their own stories in order to cut through stigmas and walk into the light. Although Meherjaan generated controversy in Bangladesh for its critique of war and  the pitfalls of nationalism, it is a film that should be celebrated and widely seen for the resolution it offers to violence, through the transcendence of love. In Bengali, Urdu, and English, subtitled. 2011, 119 min. With an in-person appearance by director Rubaiyat Hossain!

Sunday-September 23, 2012
Voorhees Hall #105, Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, New Jersey
7PM
$10=General; $9=Students+Seniors; $8=Rutgers Film Co-op/NJMAC Friends

Go to www.njfilmfest.com or call (848) 932-8482 for more info!