Bangladeshi independent filmmakers Tareque Masud and Catherine Masud had been invited to the 61st Cannes Film Festival 2008 to take part in the 40th anniversary celebrations of the “Directors’ Fortnight” section of the festival. The Directors’ Fortnight was born out of the new French director’s union in 1968, by independent filmmakers like Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Roman Polanski and Louis Malle, in protest of the Cannes Film Festival’s ‘narrow star-studded focus’ which, they felt, ignored creative independent filmmakers.

Tareque Masud’s first full-length feature film Matir Moina premiered at Cannes in 2002 as the opening film of the Fortnight, and was awarded with the International Critics’ Prize as ‘Best Film’ in the section. The film is also the first Bangladeshi feature film to have a general release in the USA. Matir Moina toured the international circuit and was received with critical praise for its realistic depiction of life without the melodrama that is prevalent in many South Asian films

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