Dr. Zakir Hossain Raju is a Bangladeshi-Australian filmmaker scholar of Asian Cinema. He is Professor of Film Studies and Founding Director of the King Sejong Institute at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB). He serves as Co-Director of the International Bangla Film Festival of Australia. He is also an expert member of the Governing Board of Bangladesh Film Archive and recently served on the National Film Certification Board of Bangladesh (2024–2026).
Dr. Zakir was the first Bangladeshi scholar to earn a PhD in Cinema Studies, completing his doctorate in Melbourne in 2005. His book, Bangladesh Cinema and National Identity: In Search of the Modern? (London: Routledge, 2015), is recognised internationally as a foundational study of Bangladeshi cinema. His academic career includes appointments as Senior Lecturer at Monash University Malaysia (2008-10), Visiting Professor at the Korean National University of Arts (2013-14) and Waseda University, Japan (2022)—through which he has introduced pioneering film courses on Malay, Korean and Japanese cinemas in South Asia.
As a renowned screen expert, Raju served as Jury Chair for Asian Cinema at Venice and Rotterdam and as Jury Member at Melbourne, Hawaii, Vesoul (France), Tallinn Black Nights and Bucheon Fantastic Film Festival. He is a founding member of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC), an Advisor to the Red Lotus Asian Film Festival (Vienna), and former President of Bangladesh Short Film Forum.
Raju produced, directed and written 11 documentaries, shorts and feature films that have screened at major international festivals including Busan, Hawaii, Yamagata, Singapore, Edinburgh, San Francisco and AIDC Australia. His documentary Beyond the Borders received the Commendation of the Jury at the European Anthropological Film Festival in Romania. In 2026, his co-produced feature film King in the Land of the Princess, a Bangladesh-Australia co-production, was screened at the 48th Moscow International Film Festival.
