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The 1st solo art and craft exhibition of Pintu Deb ends tomorrow at the Zainul Gallery of the Institute of Fine Art of Dhaka University.
   Asaduzzaman Noor inaugurated the week-long show on Tuesday. The director of the institute, Abdus Shakoor Shah, and the AB Bank managing director, Kaiser A Chowdhury, also attended the opening ceremony of the show.
   The exhibition features 37 artworks of different media – wood, serigraph and mixed elements.
   Pintu has featured human figures, their stories, pains and pleasures in his wood-works. He has seen the beauties of women and nature al around him and presented them on his canvas. He has depicted woman figures, fruits, flowers, plants and thus he has given a shape of his dreams and imaginations in his art-works at the exhibition.
   Terming Pintu as hard-working, art critic Nahid Akhtar said, ‘He has worked hard for around five years to attract more attention to wood work, which has remained fairly a neglected area in the art establishment of the country.’
   The exhibition will remain open from 10:00am to 8:00pm every day till tomorrow.
   Born in Netrakona in 1978, Pintu did his MFA from the IFA in 2002. He participated in a number of group art exhibitions in the country. He has also won the 9th Berger Young Painters Art Competition Award 2004 and Experimental Best Award 2005 from the IFA.

Bangladesh Film Development Corporation and NTV have taken an initiative to find out the hidden actors from across the country.
   We will select 10 pairs of actors through the event tilted Super hero super heroine, said the organisers at a briefing at the Hotel Sonargaon on Friday.
   Participants with at least higher secondary certificate or equivalent degree will be eligible to compete at the competition, the organisers said.
   To register the name for the contest, one has to write his/her name, age and division and to send it to 2777 from any mobile operator.
   Information secretary Jamil Osman, BFDC managing director ANM Badrul Amin, NTV managing director Enayetur Rahman, were present, among others, at the briefing.
   The scenario of the tinsel town has changed a lot. This event will help the interested contestants to probe their talent in the field of acting, said the organisers.
   We have got many actors for the mini screen through many talent hunt programmes but we do not think for the film industry. Keeping in mind we have launched the programme, said the organisers.
   Market Excess will sponsor the event.
   After the press conference, a cultural function featuring music and dance was held where the prominent singers and artistes performed.

A sale of a painting by the late Indian painter Francis Newton Souza has set a record for an Indian work of art.
   Souza’s 1955 work, Birth, was sold for £1,273,250 ($2,519,762) at an auction of modern South Asian art at Christie’s earlier this week.
   It set a new ‘world auction record for the artist and for any Indian modern art and contemporary work of art,’ according to a Christie’s official.
   Souza, who died in 2002, was born in Goa and lived in London and New York.
   Known for his bold compositions, Souza is the only Indian artist to have a room dedicated to his works at Tate Britain.
   The painting was with a private collection in the United States.

Lebanese writer Rawi Hage has won the International Impac Dublin Literary Award, the world’s most lucrative literary prize.
   Hage won for his debut novel, De Niro’s Game, beating seven other authors to the 100,000 euros (£79,000) prize.
   ‘I am a fortunate man,’ he said after being handed the award.
   De Niro’s Game tells of two childhood friends growing up in war-torn Beirut who must choose between self-imposed exile or a life of crime at home.
   ‘After a long journey of war, displacement and separation, I feel that I am one of the few wanderers who is privileged enough to have been rewarded, and for that I am very grateful,’ Hage said.
   Hage, who lived through nine years of civil war in Beirut before emigrating to Canada, was chosen from 137 novelists nominated by 162 public libraries in 45 countries across the globe.
   Other finalists included Javier Cercas for The Speed Of Light, Yasmine Gooneratne for The Sweet And Simple Kind and Gail Jones for Dreams Of Speaking.
   Also shortlisted were Sayed Kashua for Let It Be Morning, Yasmina Khadra for The Attack, and Andrei Makine for The Woman Who Waited.

Audio CD of the film ‘Amar Achhe Jal’, scripted and directed by Humayun Ahmed, was released on Saturday at a ceremony at Star Cineplex in the city.
   Impress Telefilm managing director Faridur Reza Sagar, Lux-Channel-I superstar and also a protagonist of the film Mim, singer Habib, theatre personality Sara Zaker and Mohammad Monir of Fahim Music were present, among others, at the function. Faridur Reza Sagar said that with this film the audience would get Humayn Ahmed as a lyricist. ‘The songs are very melodious…the audience will be impressed if they listen to the songs separately,’ he hoped.
   Habib said that lyrics of the film were very enjoyable and they had tried to make them melodious.
   SI Tutul and Habib worked at the film as music director while Sabina Yasmin, Agun, Shaon, Kona, Sumon Barman and the music directors sang the playback songs in the film.
   The album includes the songs, ‘Amar ache jal’, ‘Chalo brishtite bhiji’, ‘Nadir nam Mayurakshi’, ‘Andhar raat chhilo’ and others. The album will be available at the music shops across the country.
   The organisers hoped that the film starring Shaon, Mim, Ferdous, Jahid Hasan, Pijush Bandapadhyaya, Saled Ahmed and Majnun Mijan would be released soon.