Fakhrul’s film journey reaches Nepal International Film Festival
Mohammad Fakhrul Alam (Alumnus, ENH) is bringing pride to the university as his short film Memories and Miseries has been selected for the International Shorts Competition (Fiction) at the 9th Nepal International Film Festival (NIFF), scheduled to take place this year from April 2 to 6, in Kathmandu.
Fakhrul’s creative journey began long before university. “From early childhood, even before I understood the depth or necessity of art, I was already writing shayari-like verses in my school diary,” he shares. This passion for art and creative expressions led him to shift his major from Law to Literature at BracU, where he graduated with a full-length feature script as his thesis. What makes his journey particularly remarkable is how that academic work eventually evolved into the festival-selected film Memories and Miseries. While deeply engaged in his thesis on existential ennui, boredom, and post-war cinema and literature, “halfway through one night, I suddenly wondered—why not write a film instead?” he recalls. After writing the screenplay, he shot a few scenes as an experiment, which ultimately grew into Memories and Miseries.
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The film is a conceptual short that traces a character navigating multiple lives, times, and places, all connected by the same emotional thread. Using fragmented moments and shifting stories, it delves into human suffering and our continual quest to understand reality through memory. Fakhrul hopes the film will inspire viewers to “pause for a moment and walk through the kinder parts of their memory lane.” Beyond filmmaking, Fakhrul published his poetry collection Kaler Krondon at Ekushey Boi Mela 2024 and is now writing his first novel. He has worked on another project called Jaal and is developing The House Maryam Lived In, a post-apocalyptic story centered on families trapped inside a skyscraper during a world at war.
For aspiring BracU filmmakers, his advice is straightforward: “Just sit down and write something and go out for a shoot.’’ He encourages students to not fear failure and keep creating.
