Sadi Mohammad Shahnewaz

“Say Joy Bangla!” said the group of miscreants harassing Azmeri Haque Badhan and her family in Venice. What had once been the unmistakable slogan of Bangladesh’s great Liberation War was now being used to terrorise an actress and her family, including a crying child.

Three months ago, an email dropped into Masha Islam’s inbox that would shift the trajectory of her creative career: Deutsche Welle (DW), the German state-funded international broadcaster, wanted to collaborate.

Fresh off one of their most testing concerts, some men dressed in casual black showed up at The Daily Star’s premises. There was a noticeable absence of a plumpish frontman known for tearing apart venues with his killer riffs and entrancing entire stadiums with his voice.

I had to make my way inside the headquarters of Qinetic Network to meet a special artiste. He had the world in the palm of his hands when he performed his song “SIIR SIIR” at the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony in Canada, proudly showing off his maroon jacket—its sleeve intricately embroidered with the Royal Bengal Tiger and the Water Lily (Shapla).

The world moves in a flash at 130 beats per minute. For months, the preparation for Sanjoy Deb was exciting and nerve-racking at the same time. Behind the private jets and celebratory vlogs that he posted, was immaculate planning and a mountain of expectations. When the bass dropped, he was standing at the center of the footballing world.

In a stunning final move, the jury bypassed the media front-runners to award the 2026 Palme d’Or to Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu for “Fjord”.

Nepalese film "Elephants in the Fog" has won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, marking a landmark achievement for the country’s cinema on the global stage.

By the time the ‘happy hour’ sizzled down, I had talked to a dozen filmmakers from all over the world who were hoping to get their films onto the main stages of the upcoming Berlinale, TIFF, and Venice Film Festivals. Mithun, by that time, had unofficially confirmed that he had found a willing distributor. If that is true, Cannes served as the first proper documentation of this promising film.