LAHORE: A number of Pakistan’s top talent have crossed the border to act in Bollywood, however, relations between the countries took a negative turn last year and Pakistanis were loudly told that they and their acting prowess would not be welcomed in India.
After Fawad Khan’s massively successful turn in “Khoobsurat” and “Kapoor and Sons,” it seemed as though a new tide was turning with the sharing of talent from both sides of the border. Following the ban by the Indian Motion Picture Producers’ Association (IMPPA) on Pakistani actors, singers and technicians from working on Indian films, Pakistani actress Mahira Khan was famously not able to attend promotions for her debut in “Raees.” Sajal Aly and Adnan Siddiqui were also held back from their promotions for the critically-acclaimed “Mom” and Saba Qamar too was not able to be as hands on with her promotions for “Hindi Medium” as she would have liked.
Despite the controversy of asking Pakistani actors to vacate the premises, Qamar continued filming Hindi Medium, a film that went on to become a major box office success and was loved by critics with a tremendous amount of praise coming Qamar’s way for her role as a middle class woman wanting to keep up with the Jones’ and get her daughter into a posh school.
That praise, those box office numbers and the appreciation of fans on both sides of the Pakistan-India border all resulted in Qamar being the first Pakistani actress to score a Leading Actor nomination at India’s Filmfare Awards.
The recognition by the Filmfare Awards, held by the Times Group and in its 63rd year, is not a small one. Often dubbed as the Indian Oscars, the awards celebrate artistic and technical excellence across Bollywood’s booming film industry. For actors from Pakistan who head to India to make films, backlash has always been swift and quick.
Qamar, whose talents are largely undisputed in her home country, was not spared the fan hate for heading over and shooting her film. When the film was slated for release in Pakistan, few were expecting it to be worthy of her talent as Pakistani actors’ (particularly for female actors) roles in Bollywood have so far left little to be desired, but the film spoke for itself.
In addition to her nomination, the film itself received a total of five nominations at the Filmfare Awards, including Best Film, Irfan Khan for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Male), Saket Chaudhary for Best Director and Deepak Dobriyal for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Male). It was also announced that Hindi Medium was chosen by the Indian Embassy to be screened at the annual Festival of Indian films in Armenia.
Pakistani actress Saba Qamar breaks Bollywood
Pakistani actress Saba Qamar breaks Bollywood
Lebanese filmmaker turns archival footage into a love letter to Beirut
LONDON: Lebanese filmmaker Lana Daher’s debut feature “Do You Love Me” is a love letter of sorts to Beirut, composed entirely of archival material spanning seven decades across film, television, home videos and photography.
The film premiered at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival in September and has since traveled to several regional and international festivals.
With minimal dialogue, the film relies heavily on image and sound to reconstruct Lebanon’s fragmented history.
“By resisting voiceover and autobiography, I feel like I had to trust the image and the shared emotional landscape of these archives to carry the meaning,” Daher said.
She explained that in a city like Beirut “where trauma is rarely private,” the socio-political context becomes the atmosphere of the film, with personal memory expanding into a collective experience — “a shared terrain of emotional history.”
Daher said: “By using the accumulated visual representations of Beirut, I was, in a way, rewriting my own representation of home through images that already existed."
Daher, with editor Qutaiba Barhamji, steered clear of long sequences, preferring individual shots that allowed them to “reassemble meaning” while maintaining the integrity of their own work and respecting the original material, she explained.
The film does not feature a voice-over, an intentional decision that influenced the use of sound, music, and silence.
“By resisting the urge to fill every space with dialogue or score, we created room for discomfort,” Daher said, adding that silence allows the audience to sit with the image and enter its emotional space rather than being guided too explicitly.
The film was a labor of love, challenging Daher personally and professionally.
“When you draw from personal memory, you’re not just directing scenes, you’re revisiting parts of yourself and your childhood,” she said. “There’s vulnerability in that.”
