''Swapnabhumi'' (''The Promised Land'') is a 2007 Bangladeshi documentary film by

Tanvir Mokammel Tanvir Mokammel (born 8 March 1955) is a Bangladeshi filmmaker and writer. He is the recipient of Ekushey Padak in 2017. He won Bangladesh National Film Awards total ten times for the films ''Nodir Naam Modhumoti'' (1995), '' Chitra Nodir Pare'' ( ...

. The film tells the plight of

Stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh Stranded Pakistanis in Bangladesh ( ur, , , bn, উদ্বাস্তু পাকিস্তানি, udbāstu pākistāni) are Urdu-speaking Muslim migrants with homelands in present-day Bihar (then part of British India) who settled ...

, who are also identified as ''Biharis.''

Plot

The film highlights the current stateless status of

, otherwise known as ''Biharis''. The story of six decades, three countries-

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

and statelessness of about more than 150,000 people from the Urdu-speaking community people who originally emigrated from India to Bangladesh. It highlights the violence against Biharis and their despair of not being able to settle in Pakistan, which the

Biharis The Biharis () is a demonym given to the inhabitants of the Indian state of Bihar. Bihari people can be separated into three main Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic groups, Bhojpuris, Maithils and Magadhis. They are also further divided into a v ...

see as a betrayal.

Music

Background score by Syed Shabab Ali Arzoo with sound by Nahid Masud, the film used tracks used before in popular culture.

Reception

The film premiered at the

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tic ...

in 2007. It was screened at the Bahrain International Film Festival in 2009, where it received critical praise. In 2009, the film won second best documentary film award at the Film South Asia Film Festival at

Kathmandu , pushpin_map = Nepal Bagmati Province#Nepal#Asia , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 = Bagmati Prov ...

References

;Sources *

External links

''The Promised Land''
on Tanvir Mokammel site * * * 2007 films 2007 documentary films Bengali-language Bangladeshi films 2000s Bengali-language films Bangladeshi documentary films Films directed by Tanvir Mokammel Documentary films about human rights {{Bangladesh-film-stub