Past Is Present

When his sister marries her cousin and takes her new husband to Australia, Shaheen Dill-Riaz’s family begins to crack. Scattered across continents and shot over fourteen years, Past Is Present offers a sweeping domestic documentary of their attempt at reconciliation.

In 2007, Berlin-based Bangladeshi documentary filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz found himself in the midst of a family scandal: while studying abroad, his sister Mitul had secretly married their cousin. To the great chagrin of their parents, this transgressive event began to tear the family apart. So, Dill-Riaz decided to mediate between Mitul in Australia, his younger brother Tutul in the USA and his heartbroken parents back home in Dhaka.

In Past Is Present, Dill-Riaz turns his camera onto himself and his dear ones, producing a sweeping domestic saga shot over fourteen years and across four continents. Tracing his parents’ journey from rural Bangladesh to Dhaka and their three children’s subsequent drift to far-flung corners of the globe, the filmmaker examines the complex personal fallout of voluntary migration, presented here in all its dimensions.

Dill-Riaz seamlessly interweaves moments of torrid drama with passages of mundane poetry, his handheld camera adopting a transparent, unassuming style. The film’s international narrative produces a startling contrast of textures and lifestyles, but also crystallises the continuities in emotional and moral values across cultures. A touching study in the tyrannies of distance, Past Is Present actualises the immortal struggle between the home and the world. 

– Srikanth Srinivasan

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