Kamar Ahmad Simon

Kamar's first feature creative non fiction film is Are You Listening!

Are You Listening! was the ‘Curtain-Opener’ of 55th DOK Leipzig in Germany (2012), the oldest documentary festivals of the world.[3] Later the film won the ‘Grand Prix’ in the 35th Cinéma du Réel held in Paris (2013)[4] and Golden Conch Award on 9 February 2014 at the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF).[5] Kamar also won the award for “Best Cinematography” for the same film.[6] It was also the opening film of Open Doors Screening at Locarno Film Festival.[7] First of Kamar's Water Trilogy, the film was awarded twice by Jan Vrijman Fund from IDFA and also by Visions Sud est from Switzerland. It was awarded as one of the best Pitches at the Asian Forum for Documentaries and it is invited to Berlinale Talent Campus Studio Lab for editing. The film won 2015 Bangladesh National Film Award for Best Documentary Film.[8][9] The film theme is selected among the top ten lists out 125 in the La Cinema Du Monde (World's Cinema) in Cannes Film Festival and it is the first of this sort of achievement for Bangladesh.[10][11][12][13]

Testimony of a Thread was his first television documentary which was co-produced by four leading Asian Broadcasters NHK (Japan), KBS (Korea), Mediacorp (Singapore) and PTS (Taiwan).[14] This film won the Asian Pitch for its screenplay.[15] According to the director, Testimony of a Thread is a monologue collage inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Roshomon, in search of a face behind the numbers of the deadliest structural failure accident in modern human history.

Co-produced by four leading Asian Broadcasters NHK (Japan), KBS (Korea), Mediacorp (Singapore) and PTS (Taiwan), Neel Mukut was set for theatrical release on March 27, 2020 but then halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[16] Although nothing have been shared about the film's story or lineup but the poster of the film drew much attention.[17] The film also received an uncut censor certificate from Bangladesh Censor Board.[18]

'Day After ... ' is the second part of Water Trilogy by Kamar after Are You Listening!. The project was invited to La Atelier in Cannes 2017 as one of the 15 promising scripts.[19] For this work-in-progress Kamar was awarded ‘Best Project Award’ & ‘ARTE International Prix’ in Locarno Film Festival (Open Doors) 2016. Co-produced by Barents Film and DW Film, earlier the project also received grant awards from Sundance Film Festival and International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA).[20]

Iron Stream is Kamar's first fiction project. It was the only non-European selection out of 24 projects which were invited to European Producers Workshop.[21] Iron Stream received script development grant from Goteborg International Film Festival, Sweden.[22] It was also invited to European Post-Production Connection (EP2C) and Produire au Sud a co-production platform of Festival of 3 Continents in Nantes, France.[23][24] This script also won World Cinema Fund (WCF) from Berlin International Film Festival twice and National Film Grant of Bangladesh.[25][26] The film is co-produced by Germany's Weydemann Bros. The project was initially titled as Shongkhodhoni (Silence of the Seashell).[21]