Pakistan Calling film festival showcasing independent, student filmmakers

KARACHI: The Pakistan Calling Film Festival, a collaboration between the University of Karachi and the VM Art Gallery is going to showcase 35 films comprising works of fiction, animation and documentary shorts as well as two feature documentaries.

For aspiring filmmakers the festival offers panel discussions with leading industry experts giving the opportunity to learn how to navigate through the hurdles.

Geo.tv caught up with the festival director of Pakistan Calling, Mallika Rangoonwala as she inaugurated an exhibition showcasing and celebrating the history of Pakistani cinema at the ZVMG Rangoonwala Community Centre.

Pakistan Calling “is about giving a platform to the independent and student filmmakers to showcase their work and also where their talent is not only celebrated but also enabled,” Mallika said, before adding, “what we are trying to do here is not just put up a screen and show films, we want to create a community of filmmakers so that whatever, however we are trying to define our cinematic culture for the future, they will be nurtured and taken forward to define that.”

Pakistan Calling Film Festival from Pakistan Calling on Vimeo.

The Chief Guest at the inauguration was none other than Javed Jabbar who has been involved in media and production ventures for the last four decades, credited with writing, producing and directing Pakistan’s first English language feature film in 1976 (Beyond the last mountain) and also wrote the award winning Ramchand Pakistani which won multiple international awards.

Jabbar extended his felicitations to the team behind the festival before highlighting that cinema is the ultimate collaborative art in the world where a different person contributes to every aspect of it.

He pointed out that there are challenges that remain for the revival of Pakistani cinema.

“First, good original, exiting scripts need to be written,” he said, before highlighting that we “need to have enough investors with the courage to invest and take risks and if there are no single investors or groups… crowd funding.”

Jabbar pointed out the most important challenge, which is the support from the Pakistani people.

“The people of Pakistan owe it to themselves and to these filmmakers and artists, not to be addicted to Bollywood cinema. We’ve got excellent multiplexes and it would be shameful that merely because there is a temporary ban on Indian movies, you allow cinema theaters to wither.”

With documentary features such as These Birds Walk and Without Shepherds on offer, Pakistan Calling will also host panel discussion with Jami Mahmood and Jamil Dehlavi.