Fandomize Media got the chance to speak with Mitali Perkins, the author of “Rickshaw Girl,” on its film adaptation. “Rickshaw Girl” was named one of the New York Public Library’s 100 best children’s books in the past 100 years.
Rickshaw Girl is about a teenage girl, Naima, who longs to earn money for her poor Bangladeshi family, but her unrivaled artistic talent is of little use. When her father grows gravely ill, Naima feels she has no choice but to leave her small village for the bright lights of Dhaka. In the big city, Naima finds the same economic, societal, and gender pressures faced by most young girls in Bangladesh. She cleverly disguises herself as a boy and takes the difficult job of a rickshaw puller. When her gender is revealed and her livelihood vanishes, Naima finds an unconventional solution to her problems.
Rickshaw Girl is directed by Amitabh Reza Chowdhury and stars Novera Rahman, Naresh Bhuiyan, Allen Shubhro Gomes, Momena Chowdhury, and Gulshan Champa. Based on the acclaimed novel by Mitali Perkins.
Check out our interview with Mitali!
Director’s Statement:
“I was brought up in Dhaka, and from a young age, I traveled by rickshaw. Usually I could never remember the face of the rickshaw puller. Maybe because we usually don’t see their faces but only their backs. I could always see their muscular bodies drenched in sweat, but never understood the meaning of the sweat.
As I grew up and my social and economic understanding got better, I realized that our country’s destitute people were oppressed by the upper class. I always wanted to tell a story about them.
Our heroine, Naima has a vivid imagination. In our film, her beloved drawings come alive in animation to help her deal with her impoverished world. We use the colorful palettes of Dhaka’s rickshaws to distinguish her inner world from the drab outer world of the city.
Dhaka Bangladesh is a city filled with color and motion, and rarely is the city captured in film properly. We set out to capture chaos and beauty of the city on screen with deep colors and hand-held movement, generous use of close-ups and cutaways of city life, revealing the details of the misery and joy experienced daily by the city’s 15 million residents.
This is a personal story, shot in quasi-documentary style, using the kinetic energy of the rickshaw trade as the engine that drives the visual storytelling.” – Amitabh Reza Chowdhury
