This book analyses how independent filmmakers from Bangladesh have represented national identity in their films. The focus of this book is on independent and art house filmmakers and how cinema plays a vital role in constructing national and cultural identity. The authors examine post-2000 films which predominantly deal with issues of national identity and demonstrate how they tackle questions of national identity. Bangladesh is seemingly a homogenous country consisting 98% of Bengali and 90% of Muslim. This majority group has two dominant identities - Bengaliness (the ethno-linguistic identity) and Muslimness (the religious identity). Bengaliness is perceived as secular-modern whereas Muslimness is perceived as traditional and conservative. However, Bangladeshi independent and art house filmmakers portray the nationhood of the country with an enthusiasm and liveliness that exceeds these two categories. In addition to these categories, the authors add two more dimensions to the approach to discuss identity: Popular Religion and Transformation. The study argues that these identity categories are represented in the films, and that they both reproduce and challenge dominant discourses of nationalism. Providing a new addition to the discourse of contemporary national identity, the book will be of interest to researchers studying international film and media studies, independent cinema studies, Asian cinema, and South Asian culture, politics, and identity politics.

The environmental humanities-founded on the indivisible human-environment nexus-focus on socioeconomic inequalities, injustices, and various cultural differences to explain environmental degradation and crises and to propose solutions. The Bangladesh Environmental Humanities Reader: Environmental Justice, Developmental Victimhood, and Resistance presents unique analyses of Bangladesh's environment-development relationships. The book looks at developmental victimhood, environmental injustices, and resistance of the marginalized in Bangladesh. It reflects how the popular GDP-based economic development model motivates governments of Bangladesh to undertake infrastructural and "development" projects, the growth of which threatens environment and livelihood of the poorer sections while benefiting the affluent profiteers. The book also critically engages with environmentalism represented through the literary works in Bangla through tales of pollution, depletion, and human-nature symbiosis, showing ways to achieve social justice to resist victimhood through art. Moreover, agricultural technologies shaped by cultivators-scientists' collaborations are often helpful for biodiversity conservation, notwithstanding those that ruin ecology and livelihood. Against the backdrop of climate change challenges, this book shows how politics and technology meet in many cross-cutting pathways.

This book tried to investigate the potentials, trends and challenges of digital film in Bangladesh. The study has studied four digital films as cases to understand the digital film situation in Bangladesh. However, the theoretical notions by Walter Benjamin (1936) and Samira Makhmalbaf (2000) were instructive in guiding this study. According to their approach, new technological art medium always liberate and democratize art forms. Enthusiasts indicate that new filmmakers will embrace digital film as the preferred format and create a new cinema tradition in Bangladesh. Responding to that euphoria of technological liberty, this study has examined the potentials of digital cinema in Bangladesh, the trends of existing digital filmmaking practices and problems of digital cinema in Bangladesh. After in-depth analysis and discussion, this study suggests how to progress digital filmmaking practices in Bangladesh.