Kamar Ahmad Simon

Kamar Ahmad Simon was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Considered as the auteur du jour in Bangladesh, Kamar Ahmad Simon is a new generation Bangladeshi filmmaker, writer, and cinematographer with many international awards and acclaims. A graduate in Architecture from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Kamar is one of the very few filmmakers who has been featured as the Red Carpet film on the Grande Piazza, Locarno's 8,000 seat open air theater, received WCF from Berlinale and was invited to La Atelier Cinéfondation of Cannes where only the organizers reserve the right to invite the upcoming very best of world cinema. La Bibliothèque publique d'information (BPI) France, Johns Hopkins University USA has acquired his film and Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) have exhibited his work. After graduating as an Architect, Kamar started his career as a Creative Director to gather in-depth knowledge about audio-visual production. When Tareque Masud (1955-2011), the only Cannes award-winning director (The Clay Bird, 2002) from Bangladesh, invited him join his mega-period project 'The Paper Flower' (unfinished). For all the technical skills Kamar explored online and built a basic studio setup of camera, sound, gears and an alternate projection setup on his own. To advance his learning with no film school in the country, Kamar enrolled into programs like Berlinale Talents, European AudioVisual Entrepreneurs (EAVE) workshops (Croatia, Luxembourg and Amsterdam), IDFAcademy Summer School (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Produire au Sud (Nantes, France) and Asian Film Academy (Busan, South Korea). Kamar first came to discussion with his award-winning epic debut 'Shunte Ki Pao!' (Are You Listening!). Made in a style that blends the traditions of documentary and narrative film, it was the curtain-opener of Locarno Open Doors Screening and Dok-Leipzig in Germany. The film was in official selection of many festivals including IDFA in Amsterdam, was awarded Grand Prix in Cinéma du Réel in Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris and Golden Conch in Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF). Kamar received the Best Cinematography in MIFF as well. Screenings of the film were held in Louxor Cinema, the oldest cinema in Paris, Conference of Youth (COY) in Paris and Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI) London while the library of Johns Hopkins University and La Bibliothèque publique d'information France acquired rights of the film. Kamar was awarded and featured as the Red Carpet Director on the Piazza Grande, Locarno's 8,000 seat open air theater for his upcoming film 'Day after...', 2nd of his 'Water Trilogy' For the same he has been officially invited to Cannes in La Atelier Cinefondation, where only the organizers reserve the right to invite the very best of upcoming world cinema. Berlinale awarded Kamar with World Cinema Fund (WCF) for his upcoming feature 'Iron Stream', a co-production with leading German Producer Weydemann Bros. that was one of the top ten producers according to Variety in Cannes 2019. For his upcoming feature 'Iron Stream', Kamar was selected as one of the ten invitées of La Fabrique Cinéma du Monde in Cannes. Sundance has awarded him grants, along-with IDFA-Bertha, Jan Vrijman Fund, Visions Sud Est, Sørfond and Göteborg Film Festival. Europe's cultural channel ARTE has acquired rights to Kamar's unpublished work for it's showcase program La Lucarne . Asian broadcasting giants like NHK (Japan), KBS (Korea), PTS (Taiwan) and Mediacorp (Singapore) have co-produced multiple projects of Kamar. For the love of cinema Kamar regularly contributes in publications, takes part in dialogues and has masterminded discourses where European art-house cinema icons like Claire Denis (France), Viktor Kossakovsky (Russia/ Germany) were invited in Bangladesh.