Who we are
About Freedunia
In Search of Freedom
The story
Freedunia began with a camera, a small personal budget, and a desire to learn about lives that rarely make it into mainstream media.
That curiosity led to six months of travel across Bangladesh, meeting people, listening to their stories, and documenting everyday life. Along the way, the project brought together stories from Hijra and Indigenous communities, nomadic fishing families, rural educators, and women in the Sundarbans living with the loss of their husbands to tiger attacks.
These conversations were about work, family, identity, hardship, and hopes for the future. They shaped Freedunia into an independent documentary and photography project that takes time to look beyond the first impression of a person or community.
The questions behind the stories
Making these films also raised questions. How much of someone’s life can a documentary really show? How do filming and editing decisions shape what an audience understands? And why might the same story mean different things to different people?
Those questions connect Freedunia with its founder’s work as a researcher. Md. Ariq’s current graduate research at Ohio University explores how Bangladeshi individuals living in the United States understand Hijra identity. Through interviews, an academic paper, and a research-based documentary, he examines how family, religion, culture, personal encounters, and media shape those understandings.
Research offers a way to stay with the questions that filming brings up: to listen more carefully, examine assumptions, and think about what a story might leave out.
Where Freedunia is headed
The goal is to keep making thoughtful films and photographs that help people understand lives and experiences beyond their own.
As Freedunia grows, that also means working more closely with the people featured in its projects: building relationships, making room for feedback, and involving them more in decisions about how their stories are shared.
Freedunia hopes to bring documentary, research, and community conversations together. The aim is for each story to leave people curious enough to ask another question, look more closely, or reconsider something they thought they understood.
- 20+Districts visited
- 35+Stories produced
- 2023Peace Film Festival Award
Founded by
Md. Ariq
Md. Ariq is a Bangladeshi documentary filmmaker, photographer, and researcher based in Athens, Ohio. He is pursuing an M.A. in Communication and Development Studies at Ohio University, where his research explores identity, culture, and representation. Freedunia grew from his travels across Bangladesh and continues to develop alongside his filmmaking and academic work.
Get in touch
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