Behind the Scenes: Making of Aaral

Aaral began as a poem — a meditation on displacement, belonging, and the fragile threads that connect people to place. Our writer discovered it in a dusty anthology of contemporary Bengali poetry, and by the third reading, we knew it had to become a film.

The story follows a young woman who returns to her ancestral village in rural Sylhet after decades away. What she finds is both familiar and unrecognizable — the river has changed course, the family home is gone, and the community she remembers has been transformed by time and migration.

Location scouting took us deep into the tea garden regions of Sylhet. We spent three weeks exploring villages, meeting families, and understanding the particular rhythm of life in this part of Bangladesh. The landscape became a character — the rolling green hills, the mist-laden mornings, the sound of tea pluckers singing as they work.

The production was our most ambitious to date. We worked with a crew of 35, including local community members who served as cultural advisors, extras, and production assistants. The result is a film that feels genuinely rooted in its location — because it was made by the people who call that location home.