Zakia Bari Mamo, Afzal Hossain, Shohel Mondol and Siraj Sharif starrer web series titled 'Refugee' released on HoiChoi, directed by Imtiaz Hossain and produced under Sensemakers.
The story was written by Imtiaz Hossain and Adnan Habib along with Abdullah Mohammad Saad. The story revolves around in the year of 2007 at the Bihari camp, when the country was still in a dilemma about whether to provide citisenship to Biharis or not.
The series centres around a common drug dealer in the camp, Iqbal, who got involved with a notorious international terrorist named 'Carbon'. In the dark underbelly of crappy lives and crappier opportunities and with no end in sight, you understand Iqbal’s life choice.
It’s a crappy life choice, but he will literally have no choice in any matter around him – there’s not much choice there, to begin with. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Iqbal’s fate seems almost apparent.
The series takes its sweet time to let us know what exactly is going on in the Hoichoi’s Refugee world. It’s a bit confusing at first, with Iqbal and Wasim constantly getting into verbal spats and the former meeting a shadowy law enforcement officer who promises to help him out… if he does one more thing. However, there’s no end to these.
As Iqbal continues to play with fire on both sides and gets entangled in the worst ways possible, there’s an air of thrill missing from the situation.
Actress Zakia Bari Mamo, playing the character of Maria, who is the only interesting and somewhat lively character in this lukewarm show but isn’t enough to save it.
Meanwhile, Shohel Mondol, as our protagonist Iqbal, is also good at playing the role of someone desperate to go the extra mile to save his family. Unfortunately, the baddy of the show, who is supposed to be an international terrorist, has the scare meter of James P. Sullivan from Monsters Inc.
He only looks at young women sleazily and plays Jenga, and that’s about it.
Monir Khan Shimul, Shahed Ali, Jhuna Chowdhury, Aminur Rahman Mukul, Sakshi Shahid and many others are also among the cast members will be seen in the web series.