Andrew,
yeah, sounds like forcing ilmbase/openexr to be built in statically is way to go... 

The ilmbase IlmImf was still in the i386 AppImage and worked for Andrea because it is a virtual system (at least I think so), as opposed to Debian Bullseye (a real system) where the IlmImf so file still cause an immediate crash.  The only way I can get rid of it in the build is to manually edit configure.ac and comment it out.  On the configure line, I have tried adding --without-openexr --without-ilmbase but it does not get rid of it.  Also, tried --without-ilmBase and disable-ilmbase and I just keep getting illegal option.  But now I am side-tracked again.

Question:  before I check into GIT the following termux related mods in CONFIGURE.AC, does libbthread need ifdefs around it?  It is not causing a problem when I compile, but I don't know what will happen when all of the rest of the libbthread patches are added.

0007-configure.ac-change-for-non-x86-cflags.patch  ************randrik19/0005
0009-configure.ac-ifdef-for-mjpegtools-on-non-x86.patch  ********randrik19/0006
0012-add-termux-specific-include-path.patch            *****randrik19/0007
0013-configure.ac-add-liconv-for-termux.patch         *****randrik19/0008
0021-add-libbthread-to-configure.ac-termux-specific.patch  **************** Question?   *****randrik19/0015
0026-Add-support-for-conditional-Termux-related-libraries.patch   *****randrik19/0019

Also, I have to test on i386 tomorrow before checkin.
Also Also, I forgot to download randrik19 but did so just now.