KARACHI: Day three of the Pakistan International Film Festival featured some of the prominent film makers and names from the music and entertainment industry in packed sessions featuring the director of Gulabi Gang Nishtha Jain, Vishal Bhardwaj, Subhash Kapoor, Momina Duraid, Jami, Hareem Farooq for a session titled “Films for Change: Socially Motivated Content in South Asian Film”. The other session “The Future of Music & Lyrics: How important is music in the subcontinental cinema” featured Ali Zafar, Rekha Bhardwaj, Asif Noorani, Sultan Arshad, Arshad Mehmood and Dr. Omer Adil. The festival will conclude with an awards night gala closing ceremony tomorrow.
As a part of the festival premieres of Lala Begum, animated movie Tick Tock and Song of Scorpians were held at the Nueplex cinema. Lala Begum is directed by Mehreen Jabbar with Marina Khan, Humayun Saeed, Shehryar Zaidi as the lead cast. The song of Scorpians is directed by Anup Singh with Golshifteh Farahani, Irfan Khan, Waheeda Rehman as the lead cast.
This festival explored a diversity of subjects with panel discussions such as Diplomacy & Cross Border Collaboration’, ‘Innovation on Screen: Digital Dimensions’, ‘Genre Busters’, ‘From Script to Screen and Beyond’, ‘Films for Change: Socially Motivated content in South Asian Film Industry’ and ‘The Future of Music and Lyrics: How important is music in the subcontinental cinema’. The participant lineup featured prominent local and foreign speakers; Sultana Siddiqui, Asim Raza, Anjum Rajabali (celebrated Indian script/screenplay writer), Nandita Das (actor/director/producer of upcoming Indian movie Manto), Harsh Narayan (Indian filmmaker), Sajal Ali, Rashid Khwaja, Abrar Ali Khan, Farees Shah, Faizan Syed, Adnan Sarwar, Sana Tauseef, Atiqa Odho,S. S. Rajamouli (director of the mega blockbuster movie, Baahubali), Vinay Pathak (acclaimed Indian actor), Kamran Jawed, Amin Farooqui, Tahir Moosa, Zeenat Lakhani (writer of Saba Qamar starrer Hindi Medium), Saket Chaudhary (director of Hindi Medium), Nishtha Jain (maker of documentary film Gulabi Gang), Jami, Subhash Kapoor (prominent Indian producer, screenplay writer and director, known for his work in Jolly LLB 1 and 2), Vishal Bhardwaj (Indian filmmaker), Hareem Farooq, Izzat Majid, Asif Noorani, Sultan Arshad, Rekha Bhardwaj (Indian playback singer), Dr Omer Adil, Nila Madhab Panda (director of Kadvi Hawa) and Mr Shobu (producer of mega blockbuster movie Baahubali).
The four-day event is supported by the Cultural Department of Sindh Government and Ministry of Information of the Federal Government of Pakistan, HUM TV, Nueplex Cinemas and Dawn Media Group. Commercial partners are Unilever and Khaadi. News Desk
