Zareen Nawar

“Superman”, the first film in the rather promising new DC Cinematic Universe reboot, is above all a callback to the good old days. Its director, James Gunn, who is also navigating the new DC terrain alongside Peter Safran, delivers a movie rooted in the heart and essence of the comic books we grew up reading, and true to his words, especially “Superman: Birthright”, “All-Star Superman”, and “Superman for All Seasons”. On top of that, Clark Kent's look and sensibilities in the movie are so unapologetically canonical that they conjure comforting whiffs of growing up watching “Smallville” and the iconic animated series “Justice League Unlimited”. Having acknowledged as much, I will abstain from comparing it to the previous iteration of DC, which Zack Snyder helmed for the most part. There is...

“I might have been making a name for myself during the tail end of my teenage years, but that also entailed eventually making deals and working with questionable people,” divulged Dameer Khan. The once-emerging, unprecedented talent, who shot to popularity, recently spoke with The Daily Star over a call from Canada to exclusively share his story — one that involved undergoing a critical legal dispute with his ex-management while assembling his nightlife business from the ground up, prior to the release of “Khancha”.

It was during the school-free weekends when my maternal cousins and I would huddle in front of our grandparents' grey old box TV after a hearty, yet customary lunch arrangement at their place. We would take up the gap on the floor between their king-sized bed and the unforgettable TV set to watch the black and white Satyajit Ray films, and even the vibrant late 20th-century Bangladeshi cinema, previously defined by over-the-top performances. The adults would lounge about on the bed, imbuing us with not only the significance of family viewing content but also a perception of what we understood as “our cinematic language.”

What makes a visual artist tick in the cacophony of your typical modern existence, which in hindsight has the tenacity to make one increasingly distracted? One of the answers lies with the recently declared winner of the second iteration of the 2025 East London Art Prize, Laisul Hoque. This all-media art prize competition received 900 submissions from artists and collectives living or working within London’s ‘E’ postcode this year. Laisul won £15,000 (over $15,000) and the opportunity to host a solo exhibition at the Nunnery Gallery in Bow, scheduled for 2026, owing to his interactive installation art piece “An Ode to All the Flavours” (2024), which was selected from 12 shortlisted artists.

Bangladeshi singer Resmi Mirza, one with a sharply grounded vocal prowess is also one with a tried and true love for folk music since the beginning of her musical voyage. Mentored by the celebrated Khulna Shilpa Kola Academy music teacher and founder of his own Music Academy Sa-re-ga-ma-pa, Mirza Golam Rasul, who also happens to be her father, Resmi found her direction. In a way, she found her calling having come from a musical family — her siblings are self-assured musicians too.

The country might have undergone an unprecedented shift in power this year, marked by various sacrifices that have, and will continue to, drive seemingly necessary transitions across all sectors.

The frameworks of portrayals of gender-based violence in our local productions have been birthed from the need to give voice to the oppressed Biranganas (war heroines)—as portrayed through several films or dramas throughout the years.

The arduous journey of Tamzid Islam Zarir, an ardent Shah Rukh Khan fan, reached its culmination this year during the SRK Day event on November 2. His story, as the current organising secretary of the devoted SRK fan club SRK Bangladesh CFC, gained significant attention earlier this month when he met the Bollywood icon alongside 400 to 450 other fans on the occasion of King Khan’s birthday.