Inside a small roadside tea stall in Old Dhaka’s Gendaria, a song suddenly begins to play on an old radio – “Barricade, bayonet, barbed wire…” – and the familiar tune stops 47-year-old Taslima in her tracks.
She recalled that her father was a singer for Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra – the clandestine radio station that carried the heartbeat of the Liberation War. And this very song, a choral call to resistance, carried his voice too.
It is more than a melody to her. It is an intimate family treasure – now considered by researchers to be an “irreplaceable audiovisual artefact”, preserved digitally in the sound archive of Bangladesh Betar.
Taslima’s sudden moment of remembrance mirrors a much broader national story – the fight to save Bangladesh’s memory. In this narrative, sound recordings, photographs and wartime footage have become living witnesses of history – proof of courage, hope and survival.
Audiovisual preservation in Bangladesh does not have a long history, but it is a vital one.
For more than four decades, the Bangladesh Film Archive has quietly fought a race against time – rescuing ageing reels of feature films, documentaries, news footage and video records before they vanish forever.
Founded in 1978, the institution is now undergoing an ambitious digital transformation, preserving some of the rarest works in Bangladesh’s cinematic history.
A recent report by Unesco and the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) recognises it as one of South Asia’s most active national film preservation centres – a notable achievement for a country whose audiovisual heritage has faced years of neglect.
“We have launched a new initiative to collect and preserve audio-visual records of mass uprisings and social movements for future generations,” said Film Archive Director General Abdul Jalil.
For him, this effort is about more than protecting heritage. It is about giving young people the chance to see and feel the history they have inherited.
Among the archive’s latest undertakings are digital scanning of historical newsreels, sound remastering, and the establishment of a temperature-controlled cold vault to protect fragile film stock, he added.
During the Liberation War of 1971, the most powerful documentation did not come from newspapers or film crews – it came from the airwaves. Broadcasts from Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra travelled across radios nationwide, lifting morale, delivering information and inspiring resistance. Those voices helped a nation at war stand firm.
But after independence, many of those original tapes were lost, damaged or simply wiped away by time.
Eventually, Bangladesh Betar and the Liberation War Museum undertook the painstaking task of digitising those fragile recordings. Today, much of that archive is accessible online – a priceless resource for researchers, students and ordinary listeners alike. It serves as a reminder that audiovisual documents are not silent relics of history, but echoes of a time that continues to breathe.
The memories of the Liberation War live on through cinema as well. Drawing directly from wartime footage, filmmakers Tareque Masud and Catherine Masud wove together the acclaimed documentary Muktir Gaan (1995), revealing the cultural resistance that fuelled the war effort.
Their follow-up, Muktir Kotha (1999), layered these visuals with powerful testimonies from freedom fighters and civilians, unlocking an even deeper emotional dimension of the struggle.
A tough challenge
Preserving audiovisual heritage has become a daunting challenge worldwide. Ageing tapes and film reels are constantly deteriorating due to chemical decay, outdated playback technology and years of inadequate maintenance. Unesco estimates that nearly 50% of the world’s audiovisual heritage has already been lost – much of it forever.
In Bangladesh, the challenge is even more complex.
“We still lack a comprehensive culture of archiving in this country,” said Habiba Rahman, assistant professor in the Department of Television, Film and Photography at the University of Dhaka. “Institutionally and socially, our efforts and capacities remain very limited.”
For Asha Islam Nayeem, professor of history at the University of Dhaka, preserving audiovisual history is not just a technological exercise – it is a moral and cultural responsibility.
“When we watch or listen, it becomes more than information – it becomes lived experience,” she told Times of Bangladesh. “Preservation, therefore, is a process of safeguarding collective memory.”
She believes the effort should not remain centralised in the capital.
“Every district needs its own archive so that local histories also find a place in the national memory,” she said.
Asked what technical priorities Bangladesh should pursue, Nayeem outlined two essentials: “First, technology evolves rapidly. Older content must be digitised in formats that remain accessible over time. Second, we must follow international archiving standards to ensure that researchers – both at home and abroad – can access these materials.”
Educational institutions can play a transformative role as well. According to Rahman, universities and colleges should build functional digital archives, allowing students to actively preserve local history, culture and folklore.
