Shamol Shishir

Shamol Shishir is a filmmaker and independent researcher from Bangladesh whose work explores the intersections of folk culture, gender, and audiovisual storytelling. His practice integrates documentary filmmaking, ethnographic fieldwork, and critical writing to examine vernacular forms of cultural expression within rural South Asian communities.

He has written and directed several television dramas broadcast on major Bangladeshi networks, including NTV, Maasranga TV, Bangla Vision, and BTV. Alongside his filmmaking practice, he regularly publishes essays on traditional wedding songs (biye’r geet) in leading national newspapers of Bangladesh, contributing to ongoing public and scholarly discourse on women’s oral traditions and intangible cultural heritage.

His current research-creation project, “Wedding Songs: The Unseen Artistry of Women,” investigates wedding songs as a significant yet under-recognized form of women’s creative expression in rural Bangladesh. Through field-based ethnographic research and audiovisual documentation, the project foregrounds the emotional, social, and political dimensions embedded in these oral traditions, particularly as performed by rural women and third-gender communities. The project is being developed under the informal academic mentorship of folklorist and cultural historian Graham Seal, Emeritus Professor at Curtin University, whose scholarship on folklore, myth, and cultural identity has informed the project’s theoretical framework.

His work has gained international recognition, including an invitation to present at the 49th ICTMD World Conference in Santiago, Chile. He has also participated in a heritage preservation workshop organized by the British Council.

Grounded in ethnographic sensibility and community engagement, his work seeks to bridge artistic practice and academic inquiry, contributing to global conversations on cultural memory, gendered creativity, and alternative archives from the Global South.