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2019 in a nutshell

The music industry picks up
2019 was objectively a great year for band music, both underground and mainstream. Fuad Live in Dhaka was a celebration of the pop music industry in Bangladesh-- a concert to remember. ICCB also saw two landmark celebrations as Miles and Artcell celebrated their 40th and 20th anniversaries, respectively. Renowned Rabindra Sangeet exponent Adity Mohsin’s solo concert at KIB was a marvel, celebrating 20 years of her journey as a professional musician.

Premiere of seven new plays
2019 was particularly significant for the field of theatre. Seven new plays were staged at Notuner Utshab 2019: Aye Natoker Ongone, organised by Nagorik Natya Sampradaya. It brought back notable names of theatre such as Asaduzzaman Noor and Aupee Karim, among many others. The plays had experimentation in the stories and their executions. Concluding the festival with Mostafiz Shahin’s Lottery, featuring visually impaired actors on stage, the young minds reassured that theatre is an inclusive medium.

A bittersweet year for films
Halls throughout Dhaka are closing down due to the lack of revenue from cinemagoers. There were very few bright spots for films throughout the year. Shakib Khan has been consistently delivering profitable films for the last 20 years, and this year was no different. Among his many hits in 2019, his production, Password, earned great success. Films like Mayaboti and Shaap Ludo, even though praised by the audience, were hit-or-miss at the box office. Mostafa Sarwar Farooki’s Saturday Afternoon, despite awaiting an official release in Bangladesh, has earned accolades in international film festivals around the world.

Achievements in art
This year was objectively a successful one for both renowned and promising artists. Professor Mahmudul Haque received Japan’s ‘The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon’ honour for his immense contribution in strengthening cultural exchanges between Japan and Bangladesh through promoting modern art. Cartoonist Morshed Mishu was one of the two Bangladeshis to be named in the Forbes 30 under 30 Asia list of 2019. At the beginning of 2018, Mishu began transforming tragic and shocking images from wars into joyful art, hoping to show how beautiful the world would be without violence or war. His series, Global Happiness Challenge, went viral after that. Bengal Shilpalay’s Breaking Ground: Modern Art in Transition, opened on December 17. Featuring the works of Aminul Islam, Gaganendranath Tagore, Jamini Roy, Kazi Abdul Baset, Mohammad Kibria, Murtaja Baseer, Qayyum Chowdhury, Quamrul Hassan, Ramkinkar Baij, Rashid Choudhury, Safiuddin Ahmed, S M Sultan and Zainul Abedin, it is quite an iconic art exhibition.