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Trailer of ‘Dhaka Metro’ unveiled

The event also showed snippets from the web series, before unveiling the trailer, to introduce the characters of ‘Dhaka Metro.’ The series will depict a corporate individual, who decides to leave Dhaka because of various frustrations, and the new chance encounters he has with people from various walks of life. The dark-comedy thriller series boasts nine unique episodes, representing different phases of a person’s life

The official trailer of Amitabh Reza Chowdhury’s first web series “Dhaka Metro” premiered at a beautifully-organized press conference at Pan Pacific Sonargaon yesterday.

The event featured the principle cast of the “Dhaka Metro”: Neville Ferdous Hasan, National Award-winner Aupee Karim, Shariful Islam Shamim, Sharmin Joha Shoshi, and Mostofa Monwar. The National Award-winning director Amitabh moderated the entire event himself.

Mahjabin Reza Chowdhury and Md Asaduzzaman, producers at Half Stop Down, also attended the event with the writer of the web series Naseef Amin.

Director Amitabh said in his speech: “Ten years ago, I met my friend Neville—who plays the protagonist of this series—as a run-of-the-mill corporate personality, always busy in this city. We became close, and I kept thinking of the day, when a corporate personality like him snaps, and decides to leave this city. I kept thinking of the new characters he might encounter or the incidents that he might go through. I thought of this as a film story.

“I shared the idea of my story with a friend of mine, who prepared the script in one day. I took the script to various producers of Bangladesh at the time, but they all told me to introduce more romantic relationships and songs into the film, to attract viewers to the cinemas. Eventually, the script started gathering dust.

“In 2017, Hoichoi, the streaming platform, gave me the opportunity to work with them. They only asked for a one-line summary of the script. Since then, the Hoichoi team has never asked me any additional questions about the script, or what changes I was doing to it. It was a film script, that was turned into a web series. All Hoichoi ever wanted to know was whether I would be able to finish it on a fixed budget. I agreed to that, and here we are. I am very grateful to Hoichoi for giving me the chance to tell this story,” Amitabh added.

The event also showed snippets from the web series, before unveiling the trailer, to introduce the characters of “Dhaka Metro.” The series will depict a corporate individual, who decides to leave Dhaka because of various frustrations, and the new chance encounters he has with people from various walks of life. The dark-comedy thriller series boasts nine unique episodes, representing different phases of a person’s life: “Relation,” “Alienation,” “Recollection,” “Exemption,” “Incarceration,” “Self-Regulation,” “Ennui,” “Delusion,” and “The Last Journey.”

One way Hoichoi is different from other streaming platforms—that are mushrooming everywhere—is that it is a platform that showcases exclusively Bangla-language content, for the Bangalis strewn across the world. Hoichoi is now available in Bangladesh, and subscriptions cost Tk500 per year.

Co-founder of Hoichoi, Vishnu Kant Mohta, told Dhaka Tribune’s Showtime: “We are very excited about bringing Hoichoi to Bangladesh. There are some very unique talents here. Hoichoi is not just another web content company, but also a platform where we want to show these unique talents to every Bangla language speakers around the world. I see all Bangalis across the world as one single community and Hoichoi is their exclusive streaming platform.”

“Dhaka Metro,” a Half Stop Down production, is available for streaming at Hoichoi.