Bengali Film Festival of Dallas Returns For Its Eighth Year

What began as a modest collection of showings in Plano nearly a decade ago has become a highly anticipated yearly event that focuses on the past, present and future of Bengali art.

The Bengali Film Festival of Dallas (BFFD) has long served as the only Bengali-language film festival in North America, and it will celebrate its eighth year in August with a series of screenings at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas.

BFFD’s 2025 slate includes a mix of shorts and feature length films, with the intention of kick-starting cultural conversations based on the topics addressed. However, the cinematic showcase is just a portion of what makes BFFD a groundbreaking event. This year’s festival includes the exhibition of “Nakshikanthar Chhobi: Film, Fashion & Heritage,” which celebrates a 500-year-old tradition.

“To make it more palatable, we want to show the people the best of the best films,” says Dr. Tariq Yasin, Festival Director of BFFD. “These are not commercial films, they are real art films that people can watch to think about what is happening in the world.”

While audiences in North America have limited exposure to Bengali cinema, it has been a thriving industry since the 1930s, regularly producing some of the most acclaimed works in the Indian film industry. Although Bengali cinema received a global spotlight after Satyajit Ray's 1955 masterpiece Pather Panchali screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Bengali-language cinema continues to be popular today — over 250 films were released in 2024 alone.

According to Yasin, BFFD was inspired by the International Film Festival of India, founded in 1952. This festival offered an opportunity to different nations to showcase their work. Beginning in 1962, the festival became more competitive thanks to the excellence of post-war films and the rising awareness of Bengali cinema.

“That’s where this whole film festival thing started, and went to Eastern Europe, and then to France, Western Europe, and America,” Yasin says. “Film societies started there, and you see them all over America now.”

The 2025 BFFD is centered on the theme "Nakshi Kantha," a form of quilt art that has been part of the region’s traditions since the 16th century. With their colorful designs and medley of components, Nakshi Kanthas traditionally served as a means of preserving folklore traditions.

“Filmmakers come from all over these countries to show their films, and when they are accepted, we try to bring them over here for the red carpet,” Yasin says. “In our eighth year, we realized we can show the world a very unique festival. We invite all these mainstream media, fashion designers, and other festival leaders to meet-and-greet on the red carpet to show them what Bengal has.”

A benefit of BFFD’s history within the DFW region is direct access to creators who have helped to shape the modern Bengali cinema landscape, as the acclaimed actress Rituparna Sengupta is set to appear on the Red Carpet. Although her early work drew frequent comparisons to the legendary actress Satabdi Roy, Sengupta developed an independent identity through decades of work, including acclaimed films such as Shwet Patharer Thala, Paromitar Ek Din and Mondo Meyer Upakhyan. Her resume is also stacked with accolades, as she earned the National Film Award for Best Actress for Dahan, the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress prize for both Alik Sukh and Praktan, and received the honorary Banga Bhushan title from the West Bengal Government in 2022.

BFFD has remained consistent with this tradition of accessibility, as the festival is designed to share the wealth of Bengali art with members of the public. Unlike many film festivals, BFFD allows for the audience to participate in the assessment in an event that it has described as “where global heritage meets contemporary creativity.”

The 2025 edition of the festival also includes a Nakshi Kantha showcase and fashion show curated by Tahsina Shahin, a world-renowned fashion designer whose work will finally make a North American debut. In addition to earning praise for celebrating the diversity within Bangladeshi fashion culture, Shahin has been heralded for eco-friendly designs and the use of activism within the environmentalist movement.

“This is the first time we are trying the fashion show inside the theater hall,” says Yasin. “A long time ago, it happened in New York, but we are trying this unique style in Dallas. We want to show Bengal to the mainstream to broadcast or message to people all across the Dallas metroplex.”

Environmentalism is a key theme in this year’s festival, as the Sunday closing night event — co-sponsored by the Dallas International Film Festival — will screen a film relevant to the ongoing climate crisis with its director in attendance. While the topic is always in the news, the screening is aimed at remembering the recent Texas flood tragedies.

“We want to show what actually happened, and we want to send a message about how the environment should be protected,” Yasin tells us. “We want to show in the movie how floods can make people’s lives change, and how it can affect the world.”

Over the course of three days, BFFD will include Q&A sessions, community engagement activities, and networking opportunities for those interested in cinematic expression. Bengali cinema may be more widely accessible than ever before as the result of streaming, but positive discourse is only possible within communal events.

Dallas has long been a hub for international cinema, as the Angelika Film Center has consistently endeavored to acquire more programming to suit the vast array of diverse cinephiles in the area. However, the BFDD is a unique event in which the screening of excellent cinema is simply an inciting draw to develop a deeper understanding of Bengali culture – one that Dallas audiences surely won’t want to miss.