Dhallywood dreams
‘My mother’s love for acting flowed from her blood into my own,’ says Bulu Bari, an extra in Dhallywood, Bangladesh’s Dhaka-based film industry. ‘I remember being five years old, going to rehearsals with her in a rickshaw.’
Petite and now elderly, Bulu is dressed in a vibrant orange, green and purple sari and walks with slow, deliberate steps. A Dhallywood regular since childhood, she is greeted by almost everyone at the Bangladesh Film Development Corporation, commonly known as FDC. Bulu travels here most days, on a bus which takes several hours each way. Here, extras like her sit beneath the large central tree, chatting together while they wait for work. Mainly women, many have been working in the industry their whole lives.
Much like Dhallywood films themselves, the Bangladeshi film industry has had a melodramatic past. When Bulu’s mother – Bilkis Bari – appeared in the first full-length Bengali ‘talkie’ in 1956, , Bangladesh was
