Tuesday, 9 June 2026 · Issue 074 · The Festival IssueIn theatres this week · Subscribe
Film & Visual Arts, Frame by Frame
FrameRate
What the camera saw
Cover Review

The Salt Road: The Most Assured Bangladeshi Debut in a Decade
★★★★½ 4.5 / 5
Review  ·  Dir. Saif Rahman · 138 min  ·  By Imran Sobhan
Read the Review

In Theatres This Week

All reviews →
A cinema seen from the projection boothReview
★★★★★

Karwan Bazar at Night: A Neon Thriller That Never Quite Closes the Deal

Gorgeous to look at and tense for an hour, before a script that mistakes motion for momentum lets the air out.

By Imran Sobhan · 6 min
A director's chair and camera on setInterview
Director feature

"I Shoot in the Rain Because the Rain Is Honest": A Conversation with Rubaiyat Hossain

The director on weather as a character, why she rejects coverage, and the scene she waited three weeks to film.

By Tanha Reza · 12 min
A cinematographer framing a shotCraft
Cinematography

The Anamorphic Turn: How Dhaka's DPs Learned to Love the Widescreen Frame

A new generation of cinematographers is reaching for vintage glass — and remaking what a Bangladeshi film can look like.

By Anika Tabassum · 9 min
On Location

Shooting Monsoon: 47 Days on the Set of Bangladesh's Most Ambitious Film

Unit photographer Sadia Marium documented a production that chased the rains across three districts — Cox's Bazar, Sylhet and the Sundarbans — to capture a single, unrepeatable season.

View the Essay
A clapperboard held before a take
The Director Interview

Saif Rahman on Patience, Salt, and the Ninety-Second Take

"You can't feel the weather from a monitor. So I stopped sitting in the chair."

The Salt Road holds a single shot for almost ninety seconds — a salt farmer ankle-deep in a drying pan as the light moves across the water. We asked its 31-year-old director why he cut nothing, how he held the light, and what nearly went wrong on the day.

"I trained as an editor," he says. "So I know exactly how long an audience can be asked to wait. I decided, almost out of spite, to ask for more than is fashionable."

Interview by Imran Sobhan · Photography by Sadia Marium
Read the full interview
A microphone in a darkened studio
The Cut

The podcast about how films actually get made

Every Friday, critic Imran Sobhan and editor Tanha Reza pull apart a single scene with the directors, cinematographers and editors who built it. 61 episodes, updated weekly, available everywhere.

Ep. 61 · June 6, 2026 · 54 min
Ninety Seconds of Salt — Inside The Salt Road's Boldest Shot
Ep. 60 · May 30, 2026 · 48 min
Cutting for Rhythm: Editor Rafiq Ullah on the Invisible Craft
Ep. 59 · May 23, 2026 · 56 min
Shooting in the Rain: Rubaiyat Hossain on Weather as a Character
Listen Now

The FrameRate Dispatch

One review, one interview, one frame worth pausing on — in your inbox every Friday.