Abu Sayeed's Dressing Table

After a hiatus of six years, Bangladesh's critically-acclaimed director Abu Sayeed is all set to stage a comeback to feature films. His new film, "Dressing Table" narrates the tale of a lower middle class woman's journey of self-discovery in multiple roles.

The film is set in Dhaka. Newly weds Shila and Rahul are unable to afford  much furnishings for their home.

One day Rahul brings home a dressing table.  Albeit an old one, Shila is still happy with it. Next day, while cleaning the dressing table, she stumbles on an old diary in a drawer. At first, Shila hesitates to read the diary as it belongs to someone else but one night she gives in to her curiosity.

After finding the first two or three pages interesting, she ends up reading the entire diary by the end of the night. Then Shila walks back to the dressing table, looks at the mirror and discovers herself. The diary happens to be that of her mother and Shila starts a new chapter in her life.

Based on a story by Sayeed himself, the 85-minute film, shot in July last year in and around Dhaka, consists of a cast drawn from television and group theatres circuits. There are Tarin Rahman, A K Azad, Taskin Sumi, Arman Parvez Murad, Nadia Nodi, Tania Rahman and Iffat Trisha.

 “Dressing Table”, which was submitted to the Bangladesh Censor Board today, is expected to be commercially released by the end of September this year, Sayeed told The Daily Star.

For the first time, Sayeed has donned multiple roles for his latest work: as script-writer, cinematographer, music director and editor. 

The last time we had seen a feature film by Sayeed was “Opekkha” in 2010 and thereafter he kept himself busy with TV serials or teleplays. 

Starting his career with two national award-winning short films “Aborton” in 1988 and “Dhushor Jatra” in 1992, Sayeed crafted his first feature film “Kittonkhola” in the year 2000 before going on to direct five other feature films including “Shankhanad (2004)”, “Nirontor” (2006), “Banshi” (2007) and “Rupantor” (2008). 

While “Kittonkhola” won national awards for best film, direction, script and dialogue; National Film Festival 2000, “Nirontor” bagged Special Jury Award Silver Peacock at the International Film Festival of India 2006, best film award at the International Film Festival of Kerala 2006. The best film award went to “Rupantor” at the International Film Festival on Tribal Art and Culture 2009 in India.