A film and literary production house since 2000 In 2005 Zakir Hossain moved to the UK and that was the end of ABSURD in Bangladesh.
ABSURD began its journey in Bangladesh in November 2000, to appreciate and create some extraordinary pieces of audiovisual art. Innovation, deeper and higher consciousness of human souls should be portrayed in audiovisual productions to appreciate the pure artistic expressions and to purify the consciousness of mankind- this was the ambition of ABSURD founded by Zakir Hossain, a poet, reciter, ac
tor, theatre activist, trainer, scriptwriter, novelist and entrepreneur. The First production was a television film called ‘Omrito Kotha’, the English version of which was ‘Before the Destiny’. The film took an innovative step to show how two love-myths from two different parts of the world merge into each other; one was Bengali myth ‘Behula-Lakhindar’ and the other a Greek myth ‘Eurydice-Orpheus’; also the presentation of the film was sort of surrealism- a postmodernist actually. The film was very successful at its premiere show on 5th January 2001, it moved both the general and intellectual viewers, the Bangladeshi media reacted very positively to the film after the premiere, nearly all the major national newspapers and magazines made news on it. The film was then screened in Rainbow Film Festival in the UK in 2003 and 8th Dhaka International Film Festival in 2004 in Bangladesh and earned love from the audience. But ABSURD got stuck in the vicious cycle of media-bureaucracy to return its investment and that is natural in this world where we saw Jesus was crucified, Socrates was poisoned and Galileo Galilee was tortured; Of course the height of the film was not that of Jesus, Galileo, and Socrates, but the film intended a superior goal; so ABSURD struggled nearly 5 years to bring the film to the bigger audiences nationwide by somehow convincing Bangladesh National Television BTV; then the film once again satisfied the viewers of the whole country when it was on BTV on 6th November 2004. Meanwhile, in 2002, ABSURD created a successful documentary film for Save the Children UK, on working children in Bangladesh. In the UK, Zakir Hossain personally made two successful feature films, ‘The Auction’ and ‘The Blade’, but he was not finding any way to bring back ABSURD to the world’s art and literature field till September 2012. In September 2012, Zakir Hossain finally managed to start working with ABSURD, based in the UK.
24/01/2024
Films of Andrei Tarkovsky and Ingmar Bergman are sad, and shocked by the uncertainties of human existence, they struggle to find any meaning in life. But Samuel Beckett is the one who has taken the meaninglessness of life to the highest level possible, so his stage plays sound insane, they don't see any reason to move at all, and that is why his plays stand still in an abyss of meaningless, nothingness. But while meaningless, nothingness, is suffering for Tarkovsky, Bergman, and Beckett, it is a joy, a celebration, for Gautama the Buddha. Tarkovsky, Bergman, and Beckett have taken us to the edge of suffering, to the peak of meaningless, but couldn't push us a little further to cross the border, the other side of which is the state of Buddha. Buddha doesn't encourage man to commit su***de, he teaches man the end of suffering, he calls for man to live like a candle until the end of earthly identity fully burns out, and then to vanish into nothingness like a celebration. And nobody but OSHO has unpacked Buddha with the highest level of clarity possible. OSHO is undoubtedly the greatest modern time teacher of human consciousness.
Oh I couldn't do enough (... when my mother was alive...). A poem from the audiobook " the Verses from the Verseless Land" ...soon will be available on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon. Poetry by Zakir Hossain, and recited by Jaymes Rodriguez
A poem from "The Verses from a Verseless Land". The audiobook will soon be available on Audible, iTunes, and Amazon.
04/10/2023
Life in a Mumbai Brothel, narrated by Jessica Starck-
An excerpt from "In the shadow of the red-light," a documentary-novel on global s*x trade. This book is one of the 10 books in "Selected works of Zakir Hossain" . The audiobook which is being narrated and produced by Jessica Starck is now in production, and will be available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes soon.
youtu.be/o0wNWy-oGXk?si=C9Da4NtZ1MZOZiRj
*xtrafficking *xtrade
An excerpt from "In the shadow of the red-light," a documentary-novel on global s*x trade. This book is one of the 10 books in "Selected works of Zakir Hossa...
A land without verses, where words were scarce,/ Silence reigned, like an empty voided universe./ No rhymes danced upon the tongues of the land,/ No verses flowed from the poet's wandering hand./ In this reality where language seemed lost,/ One soul rose, defying the tempestuous cost./ With a hea...
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We found Absurd in November 2000, in Bangladesh, to create some audio-visual productions- films, TV dramas, documentaries, music videos, etc. Since the very beginning of its creation, we have been asked by our friends, well-wishers, and the clients, why we have named our organization "Absurd". According to them, the word "absurd" may not sound positive to some audience, it may sound weird. Especially when we proposed to make some productions for some NGOs such as Save the Children and USAID, we always had to explain our organization's name. Those NGOs worked in social development sectors worldwide and would not feel comfortable in the beginning to produce their films by an organization called Absurd. Anyway, finally, we made productions for NGOs as well as many other types of organizations in Bangladesh, in addition to our own in-house productions. Now we are based in the UK and now, in addition to film and TV productions, we are working in book-publishing sectors too. But we still feel to explain our idea behind such naming to those who haven’t known about us yet.
Let's reply the question to ''why Absurd?" from a few different angles. Let's try to find out what lies in the word "absurd". A university-level math may sound absurd to a primary-school-level student, but the same math becomes understandable and easy when that particular student grows up gradually, continues learning and finally reaches the university level. So the math is not absurd, but the student is not knowledgeable enough now to understand it, he has to keep enlarging his world of understanding to understand it. Let's bring another example in; when Galileo Galilei experienced that the world moved around the sun and shared the truth with his society, he was found absurd by the society, he was found insane and was even punished by the society that he wanted to enlighten by telling the truth he realized. Galileo was not absurd or insane or a liar, it is that the society was not able to see what Galileo was able to. Now the society knows that truth, it took the society some time to understand Galileo's truth. Vincent van Gogh was abandoned by the mass, he was left hungry by the world, but now his paintings are being sold for millions of dollars, it took the world some time to feel the depths of his works. So, in brief, anything that is very deep or very high which is unreachable for others may be considered absurd by them, but it is not absurd in that negative sense, it is rather a deeper realization that is yet to be understood or felt. So our Absurd is not a negative but a very positive word. Our Absurd doesn't want to deal with the superficial meaning of us and everything around us; it wants to reach the cores. In fact, a great piece of art or literature is always something that intends to go to the deepest level of its subject possible. Another way we can explain our Absurd by saying that let's push the boundaries of creativity to absurd levels.
So has Absurd, our organization, reached its goal yet? Has it made yet any highly creative, artistic, powerful production that represents its expectations? The honest answer is no, not at all. It has been moving through lots of challenges, but it is still moving with its dreams within its heart, it is still working on creating a right atmosphere where it can create extraordinary pieces of art and literature. Whatever Absurd has created so far through limitations not ignorable at all, only that they are still not what Absurd wants to make.
And we invite all of you to come and join us to create together some pure pieces of art and literature.
