‘Bangla Surf Girls’ — Breaking The Glass Ceiling With Their Surf Boards
Filmmaker Elizabeth D’Costa Explains Why & How She Made This Film
1. Can you tell us about you, your childhood and what got you interested in filmmaking?
I was born and raised in Dhaka city, Bangladesh. A city that has both a good and a bad side. I say ‘You have to hate this city, to love this city.’
I had a rebellious childhood. I used to do music, sports, theatre, which of course was against what the society wanted me to be. Some people used to tell me that ‘girls don’t laugh out loud’, ‘girls don’t stay outside the house after 6 pm’, ‘girls shouldn’t have male friends’… I never understood and still don’t understand why those rules exist for a girl.
My father is a freedom fighter and he fought during the 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh. I used to visualize every single story while listening to my father narrate it. I guess that’s where unconsciously I was sprucing up my visualizing/imagination skills. But unfortunately, my dad had to go to Oman on a job to run our family. This means my mom was raising two daughters in a male-dominated crowded Dhaka city by herself. These experiences made me want to raise my voice against the regressive practices, and I dedicated my life to telling stories.
2) Can you tell us the importance of liberal arts education, especially for artists with a social conscience? Does it help make our art better?
While I was doing my Bachelor from the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh on Media Studies & Journalism, I equipped myself with a lot of liberal ideologies. This University was the only one in Bangladesh back in 2005 till now who made general education (GED) compulsory for every department’s student to learn.
As an artist with a social conscience, I think the liberal arts knowledge prepared me better to practice my art. It’s very important that I know not to be biased by giving a one-sided story. And when you are filming something without labeling it right or wrong the result can surprise you. Liberal arts made me look into that perspective clearly. As a filmmaker, I want to capture the raw emotions with my liberal mind and bring it to the world.
3) You’ve worked with giants of TV and media production like the BBC and Vice, what made you branch out to freelance documentary filmmaking?
Yes, indeed those were lovely days. I always wanted to create something on my own. A production that will be independently produced and I will have the freedom to curate the story the way I wanted. In my professional working experiences with my mentor Catherine Masud and BBC Media Action, I have learned how to curate your creative vision while being objective. We learn every day and until our last breath. I was learning from the experienced journalists, TV professionals, and now that is helping me curate my film’s story better with hands-on knowledge and skills. Learning on the field while being a student was my biggest ever achievement. I have learned from my mentors a lot. I will say these experiences have amplified my energy to work on my films.
When I was young, somehow a 9–5 job schedule used to make me feel like the sheep in Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Modern Times’. Starting my day with new stories is something I aspire for so I chose freelance documentary filmmaking; coming from Bangladesh it is hard to procure the international market’s funding. But hope things change.
4) Can you tell us about your latest film ‘Bangla Surf Girls’? How did it all begin?
‘Bangla Surf Girls’ is an observational coming-of-age documentary about three teenage girls who get a rare sense of agency over their lives when they join a surfing club in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Over the course of three years, we follow Suma, Ayesha, and Shobe as they attempt to hold on to the feeling of freedom as they fight insurmountable odds to follow their dreams. Cox’s Bazar, the world’s longest beach, stretches endlessly as the sun beats down on tourists who are fully clothed into the inviting waters. Beach umbrellas provide shade while kids walk in the unforgiving heat selling trinkets and boiled eggs. A little farther down the beach, the waves are stronger and higher. A group of young girls running with surfboards under their arms is not at all a common sight in a third world Muslim country. Their determination is fierce. Waves crashing, men watching, surfers heckling — the girls look straight ahead.
I found out they were already all over the international media like ABC News, PBS Newshour, Guardian, LA Times, National Geography. Then when I got back from the holiday I was discussing my experience with the producer Lalita Krishna and luckily she loved the idea of surfer girls. She encouraged me to go back with my camera and film them for a quick demo which would help us pitch the story.
I felt every news media that’s covering their stories was unable to bring their daily life struggle to fore. So with first phase footages, my producer created the demo which she circulated among her contact in the International Documentary film festival in Amsterdam 2016 (IDFA). I was part of the ‘Accelerator Lab’ where they fund and mentor 10 women filmmakers worldwide for one year and I was the first Bangladeshi to get that opportunity. It helped me hone my skills further. I have taken this project up since then.
5) How did you go about your crew?
At first, I used to go and film on my own. I filmed for over three years. It was a bit of struggle to get the proper crew onboard to film in slums. It was hard to move around with big gears. Some of the girls’ houses were up the hill so hiking up and down required proper planning with minimal gears. My crew was great and being a female director, it was easy to go into their homes/lives. This story required a one-person crew. Thanks to my Producer Lalita Krishna from Canada pushed me and trusted my camera work. Her trust in my storytelling and visuals pushed me this far.
As the dialect of this film is not Bangla I trained local volunteers from Cox’s Bazar who used professional video translating tools and they translated all footages in English. The local production assistants were two surfer boys from Rashed’s surfer club who ensured I am safe in every location. My Producer came along during the last phases of filming along with our Canadian cameraperson who gave a nice touch to the film.
It was great to have an experienced Producer who has worked on many films earlier and understand the documentary market better. She believes in women empowerment; we both have that in common. We did the post-production editing in New York and color grading and the sound work was in Canada. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to finish this film.
6) What was the challenge involved in shooting on a water body?
I can’t swim! Once in my life, I had a terrible drowning experience so whenever I am in the water I am traumatized. It was interesting though when I held my camera, I could forget it all. Filming in water was beautiful. I had to be very attentive. Taking surfing shots are the kind of skills that I had to learn from surfers. It took me time to get used to standing under the sun and taking shots of surfing at the same time guessing who is going to take the next wave. Surfer boys helped me getting GoPro camera shots as I instructed them from the shore. I would take the multi-camera long shots from the shore.
This was a great experience. I was aware of accidents like this with cameras during sports filming so my plan was to minimize the accidents as much as I could.
7) How do you maintain objectivity while interviewing children from the poor socio-economic background? It must have been hard to listen to their stories of oppression.
This is a very important question and I think I can write a whole book about this. This is a kind of discussion I think should happen in film schools. I was lucky to get advice from my Producer as well as the Chicken and Egg mentors to come up with creative ideas to help them rather helping them by giving them money. As giving money would be not ethical. The circumstances or places where I was filming, their living conditions were very bad. I could maintain my objectivity because these girls themselves would tell me how they want to change their future and become a role model. I had my moments of breakdown. I always talked about it with my Producer and my fellow Chicken and egg filmmakers which I think helped a lot. Creating a healthy connection between the director being their mentor helped me with it.
8) What are your plans for the future?
We are waiting for film festivals and looking for international broadcasters with eager eyes. The goal of this film is to bring attention to these girls for them to become role models for future generations.
Bangla Surf Girls is premised on the conviction that by deepening our understanding of the needs of girls living in poverty in Bangladesh could make a significant impact on their futures. By providing an immersive portrayal of girls working towards better for their future against all odds, audiences and funders will be compelled to support local organizations and global networks committed to the empowerment of girls in developing countries. Numerous institutions and organizations have expressed interest after seeing early footage and character reels. We plan to work with all of these organizations to create a strong international campaign.
We want to do both domestic and international impact campaigns to help with the girls’ education, so looking for partners who can help us with that. We hope to use this film as an example for fellow filmmakers in Bangladesh to use films as a tool for advocacy.
Vaishnavi is a writer, self-taught filmmaker among other things. You can read all of her work by signing up for her newsletter.
