Japan Premiere

Naima is a teenage girl gifted in the art of painting alpona, traditional Bengal floor paintings, in a village in Bangladesh. She showcases her beautiful work around the village and when she decorates her father’s rickshaw. However, she decides to go to the capital city of Dhaka to support her family after her father’s sudden illness plunges them into a financial crisis. Disguised as a man, she becomes a rickshaw puller, just like her father. It is a precarious situation for a young woman alone in the city. In the end, her talent for painting saves her from her predicament.

Based on the children’s novel of the same title by South Asian-American author Mitali Perkins, Rickshaw Girl depicts the reality of the people, rickshaws, and the city of Dhaka. Director Amitabh Reza Chowdhury has had a revolutionary impact on the Bangladeshi cinema industry with his previous film Aynabaji (MirrorGame) in 2016, which launched actor Chanchal Chowdhury to stardom in the industry. Rickshaw Girl also features Novera Rahman, who also performed in another successful Bangladeshi film Made in Bangladesh directed by Rubaiyat Hossain in 2019. The beautiful depiction of rickshaws and rickshaw paintings in Dhaka, which was registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2023, is one of the highlights of this film. [MINAMIDE Kazuyo]