Bengal Cinematheque was a quarterly series of private film screenings, presented by Bengal Foundation – a trust for the arts in Bangladesh. Bengal Cinematheque aimed to present the films and ideas of cinema’s greatest auteurs, at the highest quality, to build a community of emerging film-makers, writers and programmers in Bangladesh. Arranged in quarterly cycles, each set of screenings presented selected works by two rare and unusual film makers. The first cycle of this series featured films by Terrence Malick (USA) and Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy).

‘What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour.’
— Psalm 8:4-5, NIV

Our inaugural cycle of films asked where is the spirit now? Did it die with God? Or is it still in the trees, in the rivers, in the sky? Antonioni and Malick proposed two different worlds: one in which the spirit is futile, absent, hollowed out; and another where it is pervasive, bounteous, and fertile.

L’Eclisse (Antonioni)
2 May 2015, 6:30 PM, Saturday
(1962, 126 mins, black and white)

A couple break up in a tense, art filled modernist apartment. Later she meets another man, who feels more alive. She releases Dionysian urges using African masks. Gradually, despite effort, the couple realise that there is nothing there—that they can’t see each other. It ends like the sea.

The Thin Red Line (Malick)
3 May 2015, 6:30 PM, Sunday
(1998, 171 mins, colour)

American soldiers are fighting the second world war in the lushness of the Pacific. One young soldier is more interested in the glory of nature and the nebulous spirit of the world. Those around him die amongst bombs and bloodletting. He faces death in the midst of quiet, determined, ecstasy

Programmed by Omar Chowdhury, the event was free and open to all.