The God of Small Things

Saud Jubaer’s debut film “The God of Small Things," is a story told through the eyes of a cow. She is owned by a poor Bengali-Hindu villager and prayed to as a God. When she has to be sold, her new owner sacrifices her in the name of his God. To please the God, one religion must worship her, another one must kill her.

The film is inspired by the Italian Neorealism. Its action takes place in a remote poverty-stricken village in Bangladesh (known to us from the films of Satyajit Ray), with no electricity, no hospital nearby, and no classrooms in the school. The village people are split and divided by their respective deeply felt and blinding religious identity. They are either the Hindus or the Muslims.

Saud Jubaer, the author of the film, showcases the beauty of both religions: daily rituals, rich traditions, simple lifestyles, and the happy faces of people who practice them. But eventually, we realise that underneath the human layer of each religion lives a blind hyena of religious dogma ready to strike at any moment.