Meherjaan
Directed by Robaiyat Hossain
Bangladesh, 2011, 120 minutes, Bengali, Urdu, English, US Premiere
Cast- Jaya Bhaduri, Victor Banerjee, Omar Rahim, Humayun Faridi

During the war in 1971, Meher falls in love with a soldier from the enemy side. When her love is discovered, she is shamed and silenced by her family and society. Today 38 years after the war, Meher has a visitor she cannot turn down. Sarah—a ‘war-child,’ Meher’s cousin Neela’s daughter, who was given away for adoption has come back to piece together her past. Together, these two women must re-tell history through their stories in order to cut through the stigmas and walk into light.

Meherjaan is a film about loving the Other. Meherjaan gives away with the unitary masculine narrative in order to usher in emotional multiplicity of feminine emotion and sensibility. This film critiques certain pitfalls of nationalism that create conditions to justify war, killing and violence. Finally, Meherjaan attempts to offer an aesthetic solution to war and violence by taking refuge in love and spiritual submission

Rubaiyat Hossain is an interdisciplinary researcher. She has completed her B. A. in Women Studies from Smith College, USA, and M.A. in South Asian Studies from University of Pennsylvania, USA. Her primary fields of interest are Sufism, Bengali nationalism, formation of Bengali modernity and its correlation with female sexuality. Rubaiyat has worked for prominent women’s rights NGOs in Bangladesh such as Ain O Shalish Kendra and Naripokkho. She was the co-coordinator for the first international workshop on Sexuality and Rights organized by BRAC School of Public Health in 2007. She has worked as a part time lecturer in the department of Economics and Social Sciences at BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh since 2006.

Rubaiyat has been interested in film as a young girl from watching the films of Satyajit Ray and Rittwik Ghatak. Later she pursued her interest and completed a Diploma in Film Direction at New York Film Academy in 2002. Since then, she has made few short films that have screened at national and international film festivals. Rubaiyat intends to utilize the research skills she has acquired in the academia to continue making films about Bengali identity, culture, politics and history.