Filmmakers often go to great lengths to realise their ideas on screen. For his next film ‘Roid’, Mejbaur Rahman Sumon took that commitment to an extraordinary level. Rather than relying on digital effects or existing locations, he created an entire forest from scratch, planting around 50,000 trees to bring his vision to life.
The process took six months. Sumon and his team selected a location near Meghalaya in Sunamganj, surrounded by lakes, rivers and open natural landscapes. While the area offered water and scenery in abundance, it lacked the dense forest Sumon imagined for the story. He wanted a couple’s home set beside a forest that felt organic and untamed, not arranged like a park.
To achieve this, the production leased the land for six months. Around 25 to 30 local suppliers worked in three shifts every day to plant the trees. Approximately 70 per cent were wild species, with the remainder including cassava, coconut and palm trees. The effort stands as a remarkable achievement in Bangladeshi cinema, even if it is not without precedent internationally.
Asked why such an elaborate set was necessary, Sumon was unequivocal. He said the film could not have been made any other way, not even with chroma or visual effects. “The story has a character called the tree,” he explained. “It is a story about the relationship between human beings and nature, and the love within that relationship.”
“When we talk about the love story of Adam and Eve, nature is inseparable from it. Whether it is the fruit mentioned in the Quran or the Bible, philosophically it represents the human inner mind. To capture that feeling, we had to create the environment first. There was no alternative. If we could not do that, we would not have made the film,” he added.
Because of the time needed to establish this atmosphere, the shooting of Roid was postponed several times. Production has now been completed, and the trailer was released on Tuesday, December 16.
The film has already drawn international attention. Roid has been selected for the main competition section of the 55th International Film Festival Rotterdam, one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals. While Bangladeshi films have been screened at Rotterdam before, Roid is the first to compete in the festival’s main section. In the past, early works by filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan and Bong Joon-ho have been shown there.
Sumon began working on the screenplay in 2020. He said the story is deeply rooted in personal memory. From childhood, he was familiar with a man named Sadu and Sadu’s eccentric wife. Sadu, an orphan, grew up in Sumon’s grandparents’ home and remained a lonely, estranged figure throughout his life.
“I do not remember how Sadu grew old or even his death,” Sumon said. “He exists in my memory only as part of my childhood. The rest of his life came to me through stories my mother told. I wanted to imagine what happened to him after that. That thought eventually became Roid.”
Mostafizur Noor Imran plays Sadu, while Nazifa Tushi appears as his wife. The cast also includes Gazi Raqayet, Ahsabul Yamin Riyad and others in supporting roles. The story was co-written by Mejbaur Rahman Sumon and Selina Banu Moni, with Zahin Faruk Amin, Siddique Ahmed and Sukarn Shahed Dhiman contributing to the screenplay.
Following Hawa, Roid marks Sumon’s second feature film. It has been produced by BongoBD, with Facecard serving as co-producer. Sumon said the film is scheduled for a domestic release shortly after its world premiere in Rotterdam.
