Mahde Hasan is an introspective and visually distinctive filmmaker from Bangladesh, currently based in Scotland. Sand City, Mahde’s debut feature, premiered at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it won the Proxima Grand Prix. The film has since been selected for the Busan International Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival, Hainan Island International Film Festival, CAMERIMAGE, and several others.
Mahde’s short films I Am Time and Death of a Reader were presented at the 69th and 71st Locarno Film Festival, while Where Is the Friend’s Home won first place in the “movieofmylife” digital competition at the 70th edition. The short film A Boring Film was selected for the Pardi di Domani section at the Locarno Film Festival in 2020.
In 2018, Mahde participated in the Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors Hub and received the CNC development grant for the debut feature Sand City. The project was later selected for Nantes Produire au Sud (2018) and La Fabrique Cinéma de l’Institut français (2019) at Cannes. In 2021, Sand City received a production grant from the Swiss fund Visions sud est.
Mahde has also taken part in two international film residencies: a two-month residency in Switzerland (2018) and a five-week residency in Los Angeles (2023), organized by Film Independent.