Ali Zulfikar Zahedi's early life might suggest he was destined for a corporate career

GULSHAN 1, Bangladesh - March 10, 2023 - PRLog -- Filmmaker Ali Zulfikar Zahedi's background and early life might suggest he was destined for a corporate life rather than directing. Born in Rajshahi in 1976, he spent his childhood between there and Bogura, where his maternal grandfather was a local businessman. And although Zahedi's father, Matiur Rahman Zahedi, started his career as a university lecturer, he was working in the pharmaceutical industry by the time Zahedi was growing up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI6Mhv2f7tI



However, as Zahedi entered adulthood, there were already hints that he was looking for a little more than the typical corporate career. His education took him increasingly further from his family home in Bogura, first to Gazipur, then Dhaka. When it came to gaining a bachelor's degree BBA and his MBA, he left Bangladesh entirely, opting to study in India.

Zahedi  never intended to be a filmmaker," he says, perhaps surprisingly, "but I always wanted to be creative."

The move into filmmaking may seem unusual. The creative and business industries are usually worlds apart. Although many stars move from the set to the business side of movies, and a rare few go the other way, corporations and the creative industries are typically quite separate: spreadsheets and business plans are not obvious inspirations for emotive scripts.

However, Zahedi's career, mixing travel with ongoing education, might hint at a yearning for adventure that was not being satisfied. "Even as a young child, I would write poems. I always wanted to write: poems, songs, short stories," Zahedi explains. And with a creative heart, it is no surprise he developed a love of movies.

Like many youths in a time before the ready availability of streaming, regular visits to the cinema were a feature of his teen years. "Going to the movies was a crazy entertainment," he recalls, "I had a steady diet of movie-watching throughout my adolescence." But while the movies captured his creative imagination, he did not believe it was a possibility for him. "I used to believe that being a director was a dream job, but one that very few people ever got."

"As I learned more about the movie industry, the more I learned about the opportunities," Zahedi said. "Directors organize the creation of the movie. Directing needs a lot of delegation and collaboration: working with actors, cinematographers, editors, composers, and hundreds of others. In many ways, filmmakers are like managers, just in a different field." It was time, Zahedi realized, to take all his life and business experience, and all his passion and let them work together to make films.