Films Boutique has boarded international sales on “The Difficult Bride,” Rubaiyat Hossain‘s supernatural feminist drama selected for the Horizons competition of the Venice Film Festival, where it will become the first Bangladeshi feature film to screen.
The cast includes three Bangladesh National Film Award winners – Azmeri Haque Badhon, Rikita Nondine Shimu and Sunerah Kamal – alongside Zaineen Chowdhury Karim in her lead acting debut and Dameer Khan in a guest appearance.
“The Difficult Bride” unfolds at Mayfair, a longtime Dhaka beauty parlor, and follows Zaineen Chowdhury Karim’s character as her wedding preparations draw her into an unsettling world shaped by beauty, faith, memory and fear. The screenplay draws on an urban legend Hossain heard as a child, about a bride who reportedly died at the salon under mysterious circumstances.
Principal photography was in Bangladesh, with post-production completed in Paris and Lisbon. The film is Hossain’s fourth feature and received post-production support from the inaugural Fondazione Prada Film Fund.
Hossain’s debut feature, “Meherjaan” (2011), picked up awards at the Northampton and Tiburon festivals. Her second feature, “Under Construction” (2015), screened at Locarno and Stockholm. Her third feature, “Made in Bangladesh” (2019), premiered in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema section, also screened at Locarno and BFI London, and brought her a first Asia Pacific Screen Award nomination.
Jean-Christophe Simon, CEO of Films Boutique, said: “We’re particularly proud to be trusted with Rubaiyat’s new film. Following the success of ‘Made in Bangladesh,’ she has created yet another genuinely unique cinematic work, that will allow for an uncompromising female character to reach audiences worldwide. Both from an esthetic and topical standpoint, her powerful and particularly entertaining movie will speak to many about the situations so many women are still confronted with, when it comes to the way patriarchal society looks at their body.”
“The Difficult Bride” is produced by France’s Les Films de l’Après-Midi, in co-production with Portugal’s Midas Filmes, Bangladesh’s Khona Talkies, Norway’s Barentsfilm and Germany’s Tandem Production. The film’s producers are François d’Artemare, Pedro Borges, Rubaiyat Hossain, Aadnan Imtiaz Ahmed, Ingrid Lill Høtgun and Anna Katchko. Md Shariful Islam and Kevin Chaty serve as executive producers. The film also received backing from Eurimages, France’s CNC, Portugal’s ICA, Norway’s Sorfønd and Germany’s World Cinema Fund.
The film was shot by cinematographer Leonor Teles, who claimed the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear for a short film in 2016 at a younger age than any prior winner. British composer Jim Williams, whose credits include Julia Ducournau’s “Raw” and “Titane,” wrote the score.
Hossain said: “A film is born from the long years of work, sacrifice, patience, creativity and love of many people. I am deeply grateful to our entire team, our actors, crew members, co-producers and collaborators.”
In 2010, Ishtiaque Zico’s short film “720 Degrees,” produced by Khona Talkies, became the first Bangladeshi short to screen in Horizons. The selection of “The Difficult Bride” comes as women’s rights in Bangladesh face pressure from extremist religious groups.