Cinema
The Day Shall Dawn
Jago Hua Savera
A. J. Kardar · 1959
Synopsis
In East Bengal, fishermen live on the bank of the river, in debt to the moneylender Lal Mian. Mian struggles to feed his family, his wife is ill; Mala, his sister-in-law, attracts the attention of Kasim, a friend of the moneylender, who shows kindness to the family. Like Ganju, a neighbour who saves every coin to buy a boat from Lal Mian, Mian dreams of finally owning his own boat and gathers for that purpose the household's savings, his son's piggy bank and the help he is offered.
Context
The screenplay, the only one that Faiz Ahmed Faiz ever completed, adapted a Bengali novel by Manik Bandopadhyay; the film was shot near Dhaka, with Walter Lassally behind the camera. Ayub Khan's government asked the producer, Nauman Taseer, to suspend its release; shown in February 1959, it was quickly withdrawn, the distributors having come under pressure. Reels scattered between London, Paris and Karachi were brought together for Nantes in 2007, then restored in London in 2010.
Who it is for
In Urdu and Bengali, in black and white; a film without stars, which critics link to neorealism.
Prizes and reception
Gold Medal at the first Moscow festival in 1959; the first film submitted by Pakistan for the Oscar; Cannes Classics, 2016.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.