Bangladeshi filmmaker Abu Shahed Emon’s long-gestating feature A Foolish Man is moving closer to production after Taiwan’s Flash Forward Entertainment joined the project as an international co-production partner.

The film tells the story of Yakub, who escapes death row during the fall of a dictatorship and struggles to survive in a country where police are targeted and law has collapsed, according to Variety.

“A Foolish Man is not a film I chose to make — it’s a film that has lived inside me for over a decade,” Emon said. “Since writing the first draft in 2011, it has followed me like a quiet shadow, refusing to leave. What started as a simple story about a man mocked for his name has transformed into something much deeper: a meditation on legacy, shame, and the burden of identity within a broken system.”

The project first drew attention in 2011 when it won the Göteborg Film Festival Fund and received development backing from the Asian Cinema Fund. It was later presented at India’s Film Bazaar and Locarno’s Open Doors Lab, but production stalled as Emon focused on other work, including his debut Jalal’s Story (2014), which competed at Busan and was Bangladesh’s Oscar entry in 2016, reports Variety.

Emon said the story gained new relevance after political turmoil in Bangladesh in 2024. “I saw images that echoed the world I had imagined years ago — empty police stations, civilians maintaining order, chaos and silence in equal measure,” he said. “I realized then: A Foolish Man is not a past drama anymore. It is a contemporary tragedy.”

Flash Forward Entertainment producer Patrick Mao Huang said he was convinced after reading the script. “At first, I hesitated – I was already attached to several South Asian projects,” he said. “But once I read the script, I immediately understood why this story has stayed alive for so long.”

Huang added: “The shifting political and social landscape in Bangladesh – and in South Asia more broadly – has only made the story more resonant. At a time when questions of class, power, and justice dominate global discourse, this is exactly the kind of film that demands to be made.”

The film will be produced by Flash Forward alongside Bangladesh’s Golpo Rajjo Films and Batayan Productions, represented by Emon and producer Tahrima Khan. Financing has been partially secured, with the team seeking further partners to complete funding.