Imtiaz Bijon Ahmed, whose “Live From Dhaka” won two Silver Screen Awards in Singapore in 2016, has brought Germany’s Razor Film on board his new film “Paradise.” Set on a small, isolated island off the coast of Bangladesh, the film will follow a 14-year-old student at an Islamic school whose duty and faith are tested. Principal photography on “Paradise” will start shooting in the last quarter of 2019.
Mohammed Arifur Rahman will co-produce for Bangladesh’s Goopy Bagha Productions. Ahmed previously directed 2016’s “Kingdom of Clay Subjects” that was produced by Goopy Bagha.
Razor will serve as co-producer. The company has credits that include the Oscar-nominated and Golden Globe winning “Waltz With Bashir,” and 2018 Cannes title “Rafiki.”
“We were very impressed by the audacity of the director and producer, and the artistic strength of the early draft of the screenplay that we read,” Razor’s Roman Paul told Variety. “It is a difficult project to mount that requires courage but is also important for Bangladesh and the world. We at Razor Film have a tradition of getting involved in projects that have universal appeal, yet are complicated to impossible to finance and realize in their respective countries. We are excited to be involved with Bijon and Arifur on this riveting story about love in an utterly beautiful but also utterly scary place.”