Bangladesh cancels screening of Chittagong

The first public screening of Bedabrata Pain’s debut Hindi film Chittagong in Bangladesh has been cancelled by the organisers of the Hay Festival, according to the film's director. This Manoj Bajpai and Nawazuddin Siddiqui-starrer was scheduled to be held today in Dhaka during the ongoing film festival that ends this Saturday. "They gave me no reason for the sudden cancellation. It was to be the closing night film. Then at the 11th hour they shifted it to the 16th and finally cancelled it finally," Pain said in a statement. "I didn't want to go to this festival - they practically begged me to come and I had to change a lot of my plans to go to Dhaka only to be unceremoniously dismissed. I consider this extremely unprofessional," the NASA scientist-turned-film director added. Chittagong deals with a group of schoolboys and young women, led by freedom fighter Surya Sen (Manoj Bajpai), a teacher, who raided two British armories to loot it during India's freedom struggle. Pain said since the film is based on a story from the city of Chittagong, now in Bangladesh, it was his ardent wish to release the film in Bangladesh.