Shah Newaz Khan Cju's one-shot short film, "Not A Fiction", has been selected as an official submission for the 18th Hamilton International Film Festival, Canada, which is a Canadian Screen Awards Qualifying Festival.

The Canadian Screen Award is the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars and Emmys combined. "Not a Fiction" will also join the Canadian Film Market, which is a major part of the Hamilton Film Festival. If this film has made another two selections at the Canadian Screen Awards Qualifying Festivals, then it'll officially compete at the Canadian Screen Award.

Film critic and journalist Sadia Khalid Reeti & Laily Begum are working as co-producers of this film with Shah Newaz Khan Cju.

Young Bangladeshi director and producer Shah Newaz Khan Cju's fictional debut, "Not A Fiction", is selected under the 'International Shorts' category at the HIFF, which is scheduled to take place from October 21–29, in Ontario, Canada.

The world premiere of the film will take place in Ontario and the festival authority has arranged a special Q&A session for the cast and crew of this film to interact with fans. 

"Not a Fiction" is the only selection from the South Asian part of this globe, and it'll compete with seven other films from Spain, Greece, New Zealand, Jordan, Botswana, the Cayman Islands, and the UK at the 18th Hamilton Film Festival for the Best International Short Award.

The film is a 4-minute long short film that was made on a very tight budget of less than $100. This film was shot at Jahangirnagar University with the help of Cju's friends in 2020. 

Udoyon Rajib, Naymul Alam Mishu, Rudroneel Ahmed, Oishik Sami Ahmed, Zawad Soudho, and Mithun worked on this film as actors. 

Photo: Collected

The director stated that none of the cast took their remuneration fee for working on this film, and it was their birthday gift for the director as it was his birthday on that day. In those days, Cju was working with Redoan Rony's production house, Popcorn Entertainment, as an assistant director and creative writer.

After shooting this film, the director had to put the rush footage on his hard drive because he didn't have the money to finish its post-production and was also a victim of the Covid-19 phase. 

But after waiting for one and a half years, he joined as an assistant director at Chabial, a renowned Bangladeshi production house owned by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, and then he started the post-production part of this film with the support of Rashaduzzaman Shohag (a renowned editor and colorist), Ripon Nath (a National Award-winning sound designer), and Nazmul Hasan Topu (a renowned CGI artist); all of them worked for free and developed this one-shot film as per world standards.

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As the post-production process was completed, renowned film critic Sadia Khalid Reeti joined as co-producer of this film, and then they moved forward with the film for festival distribution.