The Clay Bird

East Pakistan at the end of the 1960s. Anu's father is holding onto religion more and more tightly, and sends the boy away to a madrasa. There Anu has to deal with a rigid order, with the other children and with his own curiosity. At home the distance between his mother and father is widening, and outside the country is moving towards a war of independence. Tareque Masud's first feature, from 2002, comes largely out of his own childhood; he was educated in a madrasa himself. It does not present Islam as one solid thing but shows the different readings and the argument inside it. The film took the FIPRESCI prize in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes and became Bangladesh's first Oscar submission, while at home it was first held up by the censors.