A 28-minute documentary film
Mandi is a 28-minute documentary film on the struggle of the matrilineal Garos and the destruction of a unique sal forest in Mymensingh and Tangail districts of Bangladesh. Of 100,000 in Bangladesh, around 20,000 of them live in the Modhupur sal forest. Not many years ago, huge sal, other timber trees and medicinal plants covered the third-largest forest of Bangladesh, the Modhupur forest. Today vast areas lie denuded or sparsely covered by trees and undergrowth. The government's commercial plantation programs in the name of “community” or “social forestry” have generated some patches of exotic fuel wood trees, causing further harm to the natural forests.
Direction and photography: Ashfaque Munir
Editing: Kazi Belal Uddin
Screenplay: Qurratul-Ain-Tahmina and Ali Reaz
Research: Philip Gain, Shishir Moral and Benedict Mangsang
English and Bangla 1994
Price: DVD Tk.200 (US$10); CD TK.100 US$5
