‘This moment lives in me’: Leesa Gazi’s Oscar-bound feature

In Bangladesh, the hardest thing for many women to own is not a dream; it's placing her name on a deed. Barir Naam Shahana begins there, with the stubborn courage it takes to write a woman's name into a house, a life, a future. That stubbornness has carried writer-director Leesa Gazi from a 2011 novella to an Oscar journey she still calls "unexpected." 

"I'm having goosebumps right now – every part of me is alive with this moment," Gazi said, her voice catching as she searched for words after learning that her feature had been chosen as Bangladesh's official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards.

Photo: Sheikh Mehedi Morshed

"This is a film where ordinary people become extraordinary. After watching it, audiences – especially women – will see themselves on screen; they'll recognise their own lives in this story."

The director of Barir Naam Shahana (A House Named Shahana) was speaking to The Daily Star hours after Bangladesh named her film as the country's official submission for the Oscars. Yesterday, at a press conference at Pan Pacific Sonargaon in Dhaka, the Bangladesh Oscar Committee announced its decision after weeks of deliberation over five shortlisted films. "For the last month we have been on this so that we can make the right decision," said jury chair Dr Mohammad Zahirul Islam.

For Gazi, the film is inseparable from her own history. "I am a woman of the 1990s who had to fight for her place," she said. "Our lead actress, Aanon Siddiqua, shares that experience too. To make space for ourselves, we had to push through a thicket of obstacles." Even the title, she explained, holds deliberate meaning." "Barir Naam Shahana speaks to a woman's journey to own property, to claim a home and a name in a world that frequently denies both.

Photo: Collected

Adapted from Gazi's 2011 novella, critics have praised the work for its layered storytelling and its unflinching look at forced marriage and gender inequality, but for Gazi the response has felt intimate rather than abstract. "All of these struggles are part of who I am," she said. "That the film now goes to the Oscars feels wholly and genuinely deserved."

She paused, then added softly, "This isn't only my story. It belongs to the women who fought before us and the girls who will carry the fight forward. If Barir Naam Shahana helps even one of them feel seen, then every struggle was worth it."