As part of the eight-day film festival titled Tri-Continental Film Festival Dhaka, a seminar was held recently at Begum Sufia Kamal Auditorium, National Museum. The title of the seminar was Women in Tri-Continental Cinema: War, religion and social strife.

Presided over by social activist Khushi Kabir, the main discussants in the seminar were theatre activist Sara Zaker and filmmaker Shameem Akhtar.

Dicussants in the seminar over-viewed the films of the festival. According to them, the films in the festival bring to light the complexity of war and social strife, not taking sides, rather showing conflicts through the personal stories of the characters. They further added that roles of women in the society, their strength and survival, are recurring themes in the movies.

Gaelle Le-Golf, the cultural attaché, French Embassy, Dr Hameeda Hossain, and actor Rokeya Rafiq Baby also participated in the discussion. Munira Morshed Munni moderated the seminar.

On future plans, Catherine Masud, the co-ordinator of the Tri-Continental Film Festival committee, said, "We will screen these movies outside Dhaka in DVD format. So that the viewers can watch the quality movies of the third world countries, which are usually not available in the country."