Now, one can argue that the Oscars may not be the most appropriate benchmark to judge a Bangladeshi movie due to its pro-Western views, but it is perhaps the most-viewed and celebrated awards show in the world. And if something catches the attention of Oscar honchos, it is certainly highlighted all over the world.

Today, there are many young creative Bangladeshis who are actively involved in making Bengali short films that are proving to be quite popular while maintaining a certain standard. This is a very positive sign. Bengali music also has reached a new level of popularity in recent days, thanks to the talent hunts and brilliant upcoming musicians. Our mainstream films need to reach that level of popularity as well. Through improved editing, creative cinematography, sharp sound, and most importantly, fierce salesmanship and marketing strategies, our movie industry can get a much-needed boost.

Bollywood was not that far off from our films back in the day. But today, they have successfully placed themselves all over the world. All over the world, even people outside the Indian subcontinent are now taking an interest in Bollywood movies.

We cannot compete with Bollywood; it's the largest movie producing industry in the world, and we don't want to either. Bangladeshi film industry has been, for a long time now, going through a slump. But no one can deny that our filmmakers have made some exceptionally good movies. Zahir Raihan's Jibon Thekey Neya, Humayun Ahmed's Nondito Norokey, Shongkhoneel Karagar and Shyamol Chhaya, Tareque and Catherine Masud's Matir Moyna are indeed films that we are all proud of.

These movies need to be digitally re-mastered with accurate English subtitles. They should have millions of legal copies, and should be sold all over the world with the right kind of publicity. Every nation has a keen audience for foreign films. Films depicting Bangladeshi culture and history will definitely find an audience who are eager to know about us and our heritage.

The movie Gandhi created a buzz and won several Academy Awards in 1982 and because of that movie people from all over the world had an accurate impression of who Gandhi was and how he led India to freedom. The Western world knows about the atrocities committed against the Protestants by the Catholics during The Spanish Inquisition, or against the Russians by the Germans during World War II, mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust, against the people of Vietnam by the Americans, and so on. Unspeakable carnage was carried out against our people by one of the most brutal and well-equipped military forces in human history, yet the whole world is not aware of the authentic history of the Liberation War.

As emphasized earlier, our movies lack proper marketing, accurate subtitles while some just depict fragments of an event of epic proportions. A movie should be made with befitting graphics when necessary and should be true to life if they attempt to delineate great historical figures. Precise depiction of political personalities who were part of our history, starting from Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq, Husseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Ayub Khan, Maulana Bhashani, Yahya Khan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Bangobandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Ziaur Rahman are also a must.

Bangladesh is a country with a rich heritage and a history often entangled with turbulence. When we attained independence in 1971, we started with nothing, thanks to the Pakistani Army for burning everything into ashes! From that low point, we have come quite a long way as a nation in the past 35 years. We have innumerable internal problems but so does every country in the world.

Bangladesh has immense potentials. The world needs to see that. Through a dynamic, well-made movie with proper historical facts and accurate subtitles in all the major languages -- English, French, German, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic -- our stories too can create sensation in the global movie circuit.

It would make me extremely proud as a Bangladeshi (and I'm sure my fellow countrymen would feel the same way) when non-Bangladeshis in far-off countries would flock to the theatres to watch a Bengali movie.