Bangladeshi filmmaker Abu Shahed Emon is finally seeing his decade-long dream project, A Foolish Man, move toward production with the backing of Taiwan’s Flash Forward Entertainment.
The collaboration marks a milestone for Bangladesh’s independent cinema, aligning one of its most persistent filmmakers with one of Asia’s most seasoned international producers.
A story shaped by survival and shame
At its core, A Foolish Man follows Yakub, a man whose lifelong ambition was to become a policeman. But as political chaos engulfs his country and he accidentally escapes death row during the collapse of a dictatorship, Yakub discovers that the badge he idolized now makes him a target. In a nation where the old institutions have crumbled, lawlessness prevails, and justice is absent, his dream becomes his curse.
For Emon, the film has been an inseparable part of his life since 2011. “A Foolish Man is not a film I chose to make — it’s a film that has lived inside me for over a decade,” he explained. What began as a story about a man ridiculed for his name has transformed into an allegory of shame, identity, and survival in a fractured society.
From promise to purgatory
The project first earned international attention in 2011 when it received the Asian Cinema Fund for development and won the Göteborg Film Festival Fund at the Asian Project Market. Yet despite this promising start, A Foolish Man was shelved as Emon shifted focus to his breakout debut, Jalal’s Story (2014), which became the first Bangladeshi film to compete in Busan’s prestigious New Currents Competition and later represented the country at the 2016 Oscars.
Over the years, A Foolish Man resurfaced at India’s Film Bazaar and at Locarno’s Open Doors Lab in 2016. Momentum grew, but Emon’s commitments as a filmmaker and producer, followed by the paralysis of the COVID-19 pandemic, kept the project in limbo.
Building a voice for Bangladesh
During this period, Emon established himself as one of Bangladesh’s defining independent voices. Jalal’s Story, the anthology Sincerely Yours, Dhaka (2018), and No Ground Beneath the Feet (2021) all went on to represent Bangladesh at the Academy Awards. Both Sincerely Yours, Dhaka and No Ground Beneath the Feet premiered at Busan, cementing his status as a filmmaker who consistently brings Bangladeshi stories to international audiences.
Emon also expanded into digital media, directing the acclaimed web series Mercules in 2023, and has built an impressive career as a producer.
Reality catches up with fiction
The filmmaker insists that A Foolish Man is no longer a period drama but a story painfully resonant with current events. Reflecting on the turmoil of 2024, when Bangladesh’s government collapsed amid violence, he recalled watching news footage of empty police stations and civilians taking law enforcement into their own hands. “I realized then: A Foolish Man is not a past drama anymore. It is a contemporary tragedy.”
A cross-continental partnership
The turning point came at the Red Sea International Film Festival in November 2024, where Emon pitched the project to Taiwanese producer Patrick Mao Huang of Flash Forward Entertainment. Known for shepherding films to global recognition — including Cannes winner Tiger Stripes and Karlovy Vary victor Pierce — Huang initially hesitated. But after reading Emon’s script, he was convinced.
“The shifting political and social landscape in Bangladesh – and in South Asia more broadly – has only made the story more resonant,” Huang noted. “At a time when questions of class, power, and justice dominate global discourse, this is exactly the kind of film that demands to be made.”
Flash Forward Entertainment will co-produce the film alongside Bangladesh’s Golpo Rajjo Films and Batayan Productions, represented by Emon and Tahrima Khan. With initial financing secured, the team is now seeking further partners to complete the project.
Toward production
For Emon, this partnership is more than financial backing — it is validation of a vision he refused to abandon. After over a decade of false starts, festival labs, and delayed timelines, A Foolish Man stands at the edge of realization.
As global interest in South Asian cinema continues to grow, the journey of A Foolish Man reflects not just one filmmaker’s persistence, but also the rising determination of Bangladeshi cinema to carve a permanent place on the world stage.
