The Bangladeshi drama Master has emerged as one of the most talked-about titles on the international festival circuit after winning the Big Screen Competition at the Rotterdam Film Festival, positioning the film for wider global distribution and streaming interest.
Directed by Rezwan Shahriar Sumit, the filmmaker’s second feature follows an idealistic schoolteacher whose entry into local politics gradually reshapes his values and personal life. While stories about power and compromise are familiar in cinema, Master stands out for grounding its narrative in Bangladesh’s social and political structures, offering international audiences a rare and revealing glimpse into the country’s institutional realities.
The film centers on Jahir, a popular history teacher in the rural town of Mohoganj, played by Nasir Uddin Khan. Known for his integrity and commitment to education, Jahir enters local politics with a progressive platform focused on women’s rights and better schooling. His campaign resonates in a region that feels distant from political power in Dhaka, leading to a swift electoral victory and a hopeful start to his new role.
Supported by his wife Jharna, portrayed by Zakia Bari Mamo, and their young son, Jahir believes he can bring his ethical principles into governance. However, his optimism soon collides with entrenched interests, bureaucratic pressure and criminal networks that thrive within the system.
A pivotal figure in Jahir’s transformation is the local administrative officer, played by Azmeri Haque Badhon. Neither fully villainous nor sympathetic, her character embodies the compromises required to wield authority in a male-dominated political environment. Her interactions with Jahir steadily pull him toward decisions that conflict with his earlier ideals.
As Jahir’s personal and professional lives unravel, the film increasingly examines his political journey through his relationships with women, subtly challenging the feminist promises he once championed. The emotional cost of his choices becomes clear as his marriage weakens and his public image shifts from reformer to participant in the very machinery he once opposed.
Midway through the narrative, the moral tension intensifies when Jahir is pressured to support a luxury hotel project that would displace a vulnerable settlement. His wife confronts him, declaring, “You’re a history teacher, but you’ve learned so little from the past,” a line that underscores the film’s central irony and ethical reckoning.
While the screenplay—co-written by Sumit and Sabbir Hossain Shovon—grows more direct in its later stages, the film maintains visual restraint through bright, pastoral imagery that contrasts sharply with Jahir’s internal decline. This aesthetic choice reinforces the gap between outward success and inner corrosion.
Following its Rotterdam victory, Master has been widely viewed as a significant step forward for Bangladeshi cinema on the world stage. More ambitious and expansive than Sumit’s debut The Salt in Our Waters, the film signals his growing confidence as a storyteller with international reach.
By blending local specificity with universal political themes, Master delivers a cautionary tale about ambition, compromise and institutional power—one that resonates far beyond the borders of Bangladesh.
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