Mighty Afrin: In the Time of Floods

I have been the assistant Director of Angelos Rallis for five consecutive years. Angelos treats the subject of climate crisis from an ethnographic and anthropologic point of view, i must say better than any other person Bangladeshi or foreigner, up to today. Throughout the shooting we stayed in the flooded areas so we can experience the dramatic situation from within. Angelos has been very caring for all the characters but also locals who needed help. On several occasions, he didn't hesitate, to transfer people to hospitals, pay for the treatments, provide food and relief to several people non related to the film, etc. He filmed himself from within the mud water as people live. Himself he got sick several times due to the difficult conditions, rats ate his shoes, a giant anaconda almost attacked us. We slept in small boats, on the floor and Angelos shared our food. All the crew were locals. It was an honor to work with him.

And I must say Angelos Rallis is the best director in my life and a best human being also because he gave me the opportunity to explore my ability, skills and passion on film by giving change for my progress and trusting me by giving responsiblity.

Imagine, from a production assistant to production manager as well as the 1st assistant to the director and then executive producer for Bangladesh past. It's an amazing journey for me I have learned a lot from that one project. I found a friend, a mentor, a boss and a brother in my Director, Angelos Rallis

Not only that, that orphan girl Afrin did it from her own as it is her regular life activity. Angelos Rallis adopted that mother less orphan girl and providing all kinds of support for her better education life and livelihood support since 2018. Now that illiterate char ( island) girl Afrin has got his personal email to communicate, she is going to school, she resenting Bangladesh in the world street football championship Qutar 2022, she also can use laptop and speaking in English.

All those life changing achievement of that girl happened because of Angelos. I believe he is the best director and being a Bangladeshi village boy I must say this is the real scenario of thousands Bangladeshi orphan, homeless or internal migrant children.

Although Afrin's story is primarily a coming-of-age story, looking a little deeper one notices that the young girl is a symbol for millions of children and young people who live in this corner of the planet and in a field of dramatic inequalities with serious problems. Survival, sheer destitution and poverty on the streets of Dhaka but also on the banks of the Brahmaputra, which by silting up vast areas of land leads to displacement and a very intense wave of climate migration millions of people in the nearby unorganised urban centres. However, despite the objective dramatic difficulties, Angelos Rallis approaches Afrin with special affection and without melodramatise, giving through its history (a harsh bio-war story) the alternation of ugliness and beauty, the comic and the dramatic element - just as it happens in life in general. It is on this that Rallis presents a visually delightful film, with stunning photography (and it is admirable as most of what has been done in this documentary in terms of cinematography is entirely through his own hands), which highlights the majesty of nature (but also the destruction of climate change) in contrast to the concrete, noisy city of garbage and poverty (where his heroine finds refuge). Mighty Afrin is a truly admirable feat that comfortably beats out multi-million Hollywood productions.

Afrin's journey is an allegory of millions of climate refugees and people facing climate injustice. The strength and fascination of Mighty Afrin is not only the individual character Afrin, it is the impression that she always stands for something more epic than herself in an uncanny way. Afrin is the representation of a generation put forward in desperate times. Her fight against the flood stands for millions of young people in the same situation. When she embarks on the risky trip across the country, she is also one of the many internally displaced children and climate refugees. In the context of the "tokais", the homeless children communities that are handling waste in Dhaka, it is as though together we are stronger. The film organically culminates in a mystical situation where Afrin's dreams merge with reality.

The film has been shot over five years mostly by myself as I am doing also the camera and sound work. In some of the most dangerous scenes in Dhaka, I worked with a small local crew to control the shooting, come closer to the characters souls and in order to maintain the safety of the children in a busy environment and throughout Covid times.

The film is a cooperative project that aims also to create a better future for Afrin. On the social footprint of the film, we hope the film will have an impact as an international wake-up call to the climate crisis but also to the visibility of a community in the Brahmaputra river basin of who seem to be in obscurity.

Even after attending the projection and asking questions to the director, it seems that some people (few though) didn't understand the intention of neither the film nor the director. The director has lived and spent the time under the same conditions with the protagonist and the other characters. He shot himself during 5 years, didn't have a crew nor slept on hotels or went for "lunch break" while the girl was suffering... The director's intention is written at the beginning of the film and at the end it explains what happens to the protagonist. The protagonist was never left to danger, was ethically shot and because aesthetically doesn't follow the typical doc, it doesn't mean that it's not a documentary. It showcases the life of millions of kids that go through the same conditions that the protagonist. Regarding the stereotypes of Bangladesh, it's what's it shown and worse. But maybe the person that speaks about stereotypes has been there? I have been. Actually the director intents to show the beauty of the countryside even under the hard conditions of the floods and also the hard conditions of Dhaka. The music is a personal aesthetic choice. I don't think this is something that makes a film worse. I would suggest to the obviously angry people that wrote so bad reviews, to go to the interviews of the director, to find out more about his background and his previous work and also when the director offers to continue the conversation after the Q&A it's better to have the decency to go to speak with him instead of being rude and disrespectful for his work.

Producer of the film.