Dhaka, Apr 25 (UNB) – A solo painting exhibition titled ‘Rupomoy Bangla (Graceful Bangla)’ by artist Suman Kumar Sarkar  will begin in the city on Friday.

The inaugural programme will be held in the afternoon ( 5pm) at La Galerie of Alliance Française de Dhaka .

Chairman of University Grants Commission of Bangladesh Prof. Abdul Mannan  will attend the opening ceremony as the chief guest while Prof. Dr Sushanta Kumar Adhikari, Chairman, Department of Printing, Oriental Art and Printmaking, Faculty of Fine Art, University of Rajshahi will attend the event as the special guest.   

A total of 30 artworks will be displayed at the exhibition.

The exhibition will remain open to all from Monday to Thursday from 3:00 pm to 9:00 pm, Friday and Saturday (9:00 am to 12: 00 noon and 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm). 
 

Dhaka, Apr 22 (UNB) - With the hope to portray the true essence of our Liberation War through our documentary and mainstream films, the closing ceremony of the 7th International Festival of Docufilms on Liberation and Human Rights- 2019 was observed at the Liberation War Museum, Dhaka on Monday.

Liberation War Affairs Minister A K M Mozammel Haque attended the closing ceremony as chief guest. Director General of Dhaka Film Archive Bidhan Chandra Karmakar, Mass Communication and Journalism department of DU Chairman and one of the jury board members of this festival Kaberi Gayen, festival director Tarek Ahmed, eminent cultural persona and Chairman of Dhaka DocLab Nasiruddin Yusuf Bacchu, Cinematographer and one of the trainers in this workshop Nilotpal Majumdar and Trustee Board members of Liberation War Museum Mofidul Haque and Robiul Hossain were present among the guests.

“The real scenario of the massive genocide happened at our Liberation War is by far one of the most horrific tragedies in history, and I urge our young directors to step up and portray the situations and emotions through their films,” said Mozammel Haque .

The festival started on 18th April at the Liberation War Museum at Agargaon, Dhaka. The theme of this year’s festival was Rohingya Persecution.

Jury board member Kaberi Gayen awarded director Fuad Chaudhury’s film ‘Merciless Mayhem’ as the best documentary among the 6 documentary films  that were part of the main competition, titled as ‘1971 and Beyond’. 

A total of 12 young directors presented their projects in the special workshop titled ‘Exposition of Young Film Talent’. Rafiqul Islam Anowar’s project ‘Mandolin in Exile’ was nominated for the best project award while Priyanka Acharya’s ‘Muktijuddhe Tripura’ was nominated for the special project award. Also Krishnakali Islam’s ‘NOC’ was nominated for Doc Lab’s special prize.   

The festival committee announced the theme of next year’s festival titled as ‘Bangabandhu: The Liberator’ with a vision to celebrate the centenary of the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Elsterheide, Apr 16 (AP/UNB) — A small Slavic minority in eastern Germany is keeping alive a long, intricate tradition of hand-painted Easter eggs that's been passed down by Sorbian families for generations.

At an Easter egg market in Elsterheide near the Saxon town of Hoyerswerda, around two dozen egg painters showed off their trade on Sunday.

Werner Zaroba said he learned the craft from his grandparents, remembering how as a child on Good Friday, "we would paint the eggs to give them to our godparents as an Easter present."

Decades later, the elderly man sticks to the tradition. He dips the eggs into a color bath, then using fine knives he scratches delicate patterns on the surface of the eggshell.

Zaroba says it takes him up to seven hours to decorate one egg alone.

Beirut, Apr 14 (AP/UNB) — They are a common sight around Beirut, but their presence barely registers with Lebanese citizens anymore.

Nearly 30 years after civil war guns fell silent, dozens of bullet-scarred, shell-pocked buildings are still standing — testimony to a brutal conflict that raged for 15 years and took the lives of 150,000 people.

Some are Beirut landmarks, like the iconic Holiday Inn, a hulking, bullet-riddled blue and white building that towers over the capital.

The hotel, which opened for business just two years before the war broke out on April 13, 1975, was destroyed early on during battles between rival factions and used as a sniper's nest. It has stood deserted and untouched since then, its shareholders locked in a dispute over its future.

There's the modernist movie theater that never was, nicknamed locally "The Egg." Its moldy skeleton stands as a ruin, its future unclear. Like the Holiday Inn, it is a curious attraction for visiting foreigners.

There are also a few remaining residential buildings located along the former Green Line, which separated the mainly Muslim part of West Beirut from the predominantly Christian part, their ravaged facades a testimony to the horrors witnessed many years ago. They still stand, either because their owners have no money to fix them, or because of disputes over ownership.

"Seeing these buildings is like being slapped in the face," said Sahar Mandour, a Lebanese journalist and a writer. "You're walking around going about your daily business when suddenly you come face to face with a scene that takes you back to the old days."

Unlike others who dislike the sight of these buildings and think they should be demolished, Mandour, 42, says it's important that they stay for the nation's collective memory, to never forget a war that pitted Palestinians against Lebanese, Christians against Muslims, Christians against Christians and every other combination possible. Israel also stepped in, adding to the destruction.

"For a foreigner, it is a destroyed building. For us, it is a painful reminder of the bullets that pierced our bodies, streets and walls," Mandour says. "I don't want these buildings to disappear, their mission is not over yet."

Not everyone feels the same. A woman who rents an apartment in a bullet-scarred building on the former Green Line between the mainly Muslim Shiyah and Christian Ayn el Rummaneh districts, said she worries about her two sons and society judging them for where they live.

She keeps plants on the veranda and on the stairs to compensate for the building's grim facade.

"If I had somewhere else to go, I would," she said, identifying herself by her nickname, Imm Lebnen, or mother of Lebanon.

Egypt, April 6 (Xinhua/UNB) -- The Egyptian Minister of Antiquities announced on Friday the discovery of a tomb, dating back to the Ptolemaic era which spans from 305 BC to 30 BC, in Sohag province south of the capital Cairo.

"The perfectly well-decorated tomb belongs to a nobleman called Toutou and his wife, a musician who played castanets," Khaled al-Anany said in a press conference.

The tomb, which was discovered at Al-Dayabat archaeological site, consists of two tiny rooms containing two limestone sarcophagi, the minister said.

Egyptian archeologists found a very-well preserved mummy for the wife and more than 300 objects and fragments including 50 mummified falcons, eagles, cats, dogs and rats in the tomb, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Mostafa Waziri told Xinhua, describing the tomb as "one of the most exciting discoveries ever in the area."

"A large number of mummified shrews, which look like very small mice but with longer nose, were found in perfect conditions of preservation inside the more than 2,000-year-old tomb," Waziri added.

He pointed out that ancient Egyptians believed small rats which run very fast and see very well at night resemble Horus, a god of the sky who could work efficiently in the dark.

Egyptians at that time worshiped those kind of rats because they believed these small creatures can cure blindness, he added.

The hall in front of the sarcophagi is divided into two parts, containing paints for Toutou as presenting gifts to gods and goddesses while his wife recites some verses of the book of resurrection, he explained.

The tomb was accidentally discovered in 2018 when the Tourism and Antiquities Police arrested a gang who were carrying out illegal excavations in an area near the archeological site.