‘Rickshaw Girl’: A celebration of the spirit of the Bengali people brings Bangladesh to an international audience

A film that shows a teenage girl’s struggle to survive and provide for her family has become a success with young audiences. Rickshaw Girl doesn’t disguise how tough life can be but also celebrates the determination and talent of its central character wrItes Nick Powell.

Rickshaw Girl is a film that should inspire audiences of all ages but it’s become a particularly popular choice at young people’s film festivals. It tells the story of Naima, a village girl who’s a talented painter. When her father falls ill and can no longer provide for the family, the brave and determined teenager heads to Dhaka to find work pedalling a rickshaw.

When the film was shown in Brussels as part of the International Film Festival for Young Audiences (Filem’On), its star, Novera Orishi, appeared by video link after the screening. She said that “the movie was hard work but easy, because it was fun”. The physically demanding role first required three months in the gym, so that she could actually pedal a rickshaw on location in Dhaka.

She felt that her role had demonstrated how “Bengali girls are strong and headstrong, sweet and determined”. She added that for her character the tough world of the rickshaw garage was first and foremost a place of opportunity.

The director, Amitabh Reza Chowdhury, was in Brussels for the screening. He told me afterwards that he didn’t want to celebrate the rickshaw itself, which he described as “not a humane vehicle at all”. Rather he wanted to give expression to the lives of the people who rely on muscle power to carry passengers often twice as heavy as they are.

What he did want to celebrate was rickshaw art, paintings on the vehicles’ bodywork that are wonderful and beautiful products of the imagination. In Rickshaw Girl, Naima emerges as a fine practitioner of this dying art form. The film is truly and literally a very colourful one.

“Never stop painting, never stop what you want to do”, was Amitabh Reza Chowdhury’s message. “And that is my life, in the same way I wanted to make me a filmmaker and nothing stopped me. I found that if you focus on what you want to do, you just keep on doing it if you’re really passionate”.

“If you ask me, should I leave Bangladesh and go somewhere and make films, no I’m not. I’m not interested. I want to be there and make films with the people. That is my passion”. He spoke with great affection of the riverside area of Dhaka where he shot Rickshaw Girl and where he has filmed before.

“From every village and small town people come to this place. They come in the morning when there is a vibrance I always enjoy. I love the people where everyone comes to work and dream -and that is always my story”.

That is not to say that one of Bangladesh’s most prolific directors lacks range. His next film will be a drama about a conspiracy trial in 1969, which was a key event in the country’s liberation struggle.

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