A Letter to God wins award in Norway

A Letter to God, a short directed by Bangladeshi young filmmaker Hemanta Sadeeq, has won the Jury Mention Award at the Ringerike International Youth Film Festival in Norway. Fimmaker Hemanta expressed his happiness by saying, "I earned priceless experience from young filmmakers and I feel proud that my film won the Jury Mention Award."

The filmmaker represented Bangladesh by singing Lalon and Rabindranath Tagore's song and reciting Jibananda's poem on an international stage.A Letter to God was inspired from a story by Gregorio López y Fuentes and was written by Shawon Koiri. It tells the story of a girl who rows a boat to school. When she notices that her father is upset, she asks him why. The girl's father tells her he is crippled by financial issues and only God can help them.

The film was shot in Bandarban, with the casting done by Pry Marma and Aung Chow. The film has already participated in 11 international film festivals around the world. Furthermore, the young filmmaker had already flown off to Italy on November 11 to attend the Geo Film Festival and Expo Cinema 2017, where his short film was also selected. The festival will be held in Italy's Cittadella, in the province of Padua, from November 9 to March 3, 2018.

So far, Hemanta's short film has received an award in the Best Drama category at the Global Youth Film Festival 2017 in Los Angeles, and has also participated at various other international film festivals in Morocco, China, Bahamas, Mexico, Egypt and more. A Letter to God has also won an award in the Best Film category at the 10th Children Film Festival in Bangladesh.