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Tareque Masud

Bangladeshi director Tareque Masud died in a car accident in Ghior district of Bangladesh on Saturday.

Masud’s wife, American film producer Catherine Masud suffered from serious injuries. Journalist, cinematographer and currently Head of local television channel Atn Ashfaque Munier Mishuk was another victim of the car crash. The accident happened when the car they were traveling in collided head-on with a bus.

It is reported that the group was returning to Dhaka after visiting a potential location for Masud’s forthcoming film The Paper Flower.

One of the prominent filmmakers of Bangladesh, Masud was known for his documentary Song Of Freedom (Muktir Gaan) in 1995. His film The Clay Bird won a Fipresci prize in Directors Fortnight at Cannes in 2002.

The film that had screenings at various film festivals is the story of a young boy studying at a madrasa and was inspired by Masud’s own education.

To put it simply: Paul Robeson, a true Renaissance man (lawyer/singer/athlete/activist/etc.) was one of the greatest Americans of the 20th century. In this "$ 500,000" epic from 1936, he's an opera singer searching for his heritage in Africa. Song of Freedom  dir. J. Elder Wills (1936) It's shocking, really, that there hasn't been a biopic of the legendary Paul Robeson as of yet. (According to IMDb, Oren Moverman, the Oscar-nominated writer/director of The Messenger, has worked on a script about the relationship between Robeson and Albert Einstein for Danny Glover.) Much, much more than "the guy who sings "Ol' Man River" in Showboat," Robeson was a towering American figure and one of the few people who can accurately be called a Renaissance man. To sum it up: before he gained international fame as an opera singer and actor, he had excelled in...

Song of Freedom Dir. J. Elder Wills (1936) It's shocking, really, that there hasn't been a biopic of the legendary Paul Robeson as of yet. (According to IMDb, Oren Moverman, the Oscar-nominated writer/director of The Messenger, has worked on a script about the relationship between Robeson and Albert Einstein for Danny Glover.) Much, much more than "the guy who sings "Ol' Man River" in Showboat," Robeson was a towering American figure and one of the few people who can accurately be called a Renaissance man. To sum it up: before he gained international fame as an opera singer and actor, he had excelled in school and sports, both college valdevictorian and All American football player. (He also excelled at baseball, basketball, and track and field.) He got his law degree from Columbia and played professional football. Staggering accomplishments for anybody, and simply mindblowing when you realize that he did this...