‘Only the rich can bear this heat’: how Dhaka is battling extreme weather

‘Dhaka has always been hot but now the dangers posed by heatwaves are much more acute,’ says Bushra Afreen, heat officer of Dhaka North, Bangladesh. Photograph: Noor Alam/Guardian

Set in post-apocalyptic Dhaka, Nuhash Humayun’s Moshari became the first Bangladeshi film to qualify for the Oscars last year. The spine-tingling thriller follows two sisters and their fight for survival, but for the film’s co-producer, Bushra Afreen, the horror fiction felt closer to reality.

“There was so much that resonated with my own experiences,” says Afreen, who grew up in Bangladesh, which has long been on the frontline of the climate crisis. “Our film was about many things, including a metaphor for how climate change can rob women and girls of their childhood and innocence, and push them into survival mode.”