11 was a gathering of South Asian writers, film makers and journalists where the mind was without fear and the head held high here last week.

And the fittest tribute to the event was the screening of Bangladeshi director Tanvir Mokammel's documentary Karnaphulir Kanna which has been banned by authorities in Bangladesh, against which he has moved the high court there.

The hour-long documentary, also screened at the Jamia Milia Islamia University here, drew good response from students of films at the university.

“I am happy with the response the film elicited at the seminar on censorship and freedom of expression as well as at Jamia Milia Islamia University,” Tanvir said.

Leading lawyer and rights activist Sara Hossain, was among the participants at the three-day seminar held at the Max Muller Bhawan.

Facing the wrath of the authorities or the censor board is nothing new for Tanvir whose feature film Nodir Nam Modhumati also needed high court's intervention to get past censor board objections to certain sequences and dialogues. His earlier documentary Smriti Ekattor made in 1991 has still not been cleared by the authorities.

The ban on Karnaphulir Kanna notwithstanding, the director is going to complete his next documentary titled 1971. Sixty percent of the shooting of the two-hour documentary is over and the remaining would be completed in next three to four months, he said.

“I felt the need to make this documentary keeping in view the way history is being sought to be distorted in my country,” he said adding he has to undertake a lot of research by delving into archival materials before completing the documentary. If Bangladesh Liberation War has more than once formed the background of Tanvir's work, it is again going to be so with his next feature film Rabeya whose script is ready.

The story of the proposed film is inspired by Sophocles' famous play Antigone and is set in 1971 rural Islamic background. Rabeya finds it hard to bury her brother, who is killed by collaborators of Pakistani army during the Liberation War, in the face of strong opposition by local clerics. But she is undeterred and herself is shot dead while burying her brother's body.

Tanvir says he has not firmed up the cast for the movie particularly in the title role of Rabeya. However, Aly Zaker in the role of an Islamic patriarch is certain to feature in the film whose shoot is likely to begin in November this year, he added.