Bangladeshi filmmaker Raka Noshin Nawar has completed an eight-month course at the International Film Business Academy (IFBA), run by Busan Asian Film School in South Korea, according to প্রথম আলো. She began the programme on 19 March 2026 and finished with a graduation ceremony after two semesters of study. Tuition, accommodation and travel were all covered by a scholarship.
Nawar told প্রথম আলো that she arrived in Busan with a suitcase, some winter clothes and a head full of cinema, intending to learn film production and pitch her own project to producers and investors at the Busan International Film Festival. What she did not expect, she said, was that the same eight months would also teach her to cook, shop, wash dishes, track her spending and scan her own groceries at the till.
Why it matters
The IFBA brings together producers and filmmakers from across Asia in a single cohort, and Nawar's account offers a rare first-hand look at how that kind of international training works in practice. She studied alongside filmmakers from 12 Asian countries, each with different cultural backgrounds, storytelling traditions and ideas about cinema. She described moments when the group seemed to share one language, and others when discussing the same film made them feel like inhabitants of different planets.
Nawar was one of two fellows from Bangladesh; the other was Shubho Kumar Pal. She said she took pleasure in presenting Bangladeshi society, culture and film ambitions to filmmakers from so many other countries.
What the course covered
The curriculum, as Nawar described it to প্রথম আলো, ranged widely: script development, film budgeting and financial planning, international co-production, film history, policy, contracts and marketing. Her favourite class was James Bang's "Storytelling and Communication Strategy," which took students from a story's core idea through to a screenplay, a project proposal, a pitch script and a presentation.
Across the two semesters she gave presentations on the Bangladeshi film industry, virtual reality and cinematography, among other subjects. She said the experience helped her understand how a film can be made through international collaboration that crosses national borders.
Alongside her coursework, Nawar continued developing her own feature, Les Miet — a body-horror story about a woman's body, social ideas of beauty and a strange flesh monster. In the final week of classes she used artificial intelligence to build a previsualisation trailer for the project.
Busan, the festival and the market
A major draw of studying in Busan, Nawar said, was proximity to the Busan International Film Festival, which she had never attended before. Her days there began with a race to buy tickets at 8:30 in the morning, followed by back-to-back screenings, meetings with investors at the Asian Contents and Film Market, and conversations in the school's lounge. She said the international film world she had previously watched from a distance now felt like something she belonged to.
She met directors, artists, critics and producers, and was struck by their warmth. They listened to her project, asked questions and offered advice, and new possibilities for collaboration emerged. She credited the school for creating those opportunities.
Nawar also worked long hours on Les Miet with her Bangladesh-based team — Dipu, Nazrul and Indian classmate Aditya — often putting in five or six more hours of writing after six hours of classes. The workload left her with back pain in the second semester, and she eventually needed physiotherapy.
Cooking, Splitwise and a wider city
The closest co-productions, Nawar said, may have happened in the kitchen rather than the classroom. Students shopped, cooked and shared meals together, then faced towering piles of dishes. She picked up several recipes from a classmate from the Philippines. Expenses were tracked on Splitwise, so that even the cost of a cup of tea felt like a clause in an international economic agreement.
Outside school she explored Busan by subway and bus, and said she repeatedly wished Bangladesh had a comparable public transport system. On holidays she visited Jeju Island, attended the Busan International Film Festival's BIFF event and met friends in Seoul. She also spent time along the coasts and hills of Gwangalli, Songdo, Yeongdo and Dadaepo, and formed friendships with teachers, actors, comedians and café owners, who knew her as "Raka from Dhaka."
She recalled the kindness of older Korean women, addressed as "ajumma," whose smiles and small acts of help stayed with her even though she did not speak the language. The school library, she said, was a treasure house of books and films, and she regretted not getting through more of them. Her advice to the next cohort: learn as much as possible, ask questions, read the books, watch the films and spend weekends exploring the city.
What happens next
Nawar said she returned to Bangladesh more self-reliant than when she left, and that her mother and her cat, Pucchho, would no doubt be pleased to see her. She described Busan as one of the best chapters of her life and said she wants to go back with new films, new projects and new dreams — perhaps one day with a film screening at the Busan festival itself. Applications for the IFBA are currently open, with details available on the film school's Facebook page, according to প্রথম আলো.
