Chalta Phirta Documentary Festival reaches Islamabad this weekend

ISLAMABAD: This weekend, starting Friday, 8th February, the Documentary Association of Pakistan (DAP) will bring to the nation’s capital the Chalta Phirta Documentary Festival in collaboration with the Nomad Art Gallery.
DAP is an initiative to promote the art of documentary films, to strengthen the community of documentary filmmakers, and to provide mentorship and training to documentary filmmakers working in Pakistan.
The organization is working toward popularizing the culture of documentary watching in Pakistan by arranging film screenings in public spaces across the country for free. One of those initiatives is the Chalta Phirta Documentary Festival.
“It’s a traveling documentary film festival that will go to Pakistani cities, such as Karachi, Hyderabad, Jamshoro, Lahore, Multan, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Islamabad, Quetta, Peshawar, and Gilgit,” DAP members Tazeen Bari and Anam Abbas told Arab News over email.
DAP aims “to broaden its audience and outreach to cities that are frequently ignored when it comes to the provision of thriving cultural and social events” through the festival.
Chalta Phirta will showcase a new set of documentary films in each of these cities on a biannual basis, hoping to spark important conversations through them on national level.
“Our primary goal was to reach varied and diverse audiences and the only way to do this is to bring documentaries to their doorstep,” Bari told Arab News.
“The festival also allows us to connect with filmmakers from outside our own circles and help this community grow. It also connects us to various arts and community spaces and actors in different cities, which will hopefully lead to continued engagement.”
To date, films have been screened in Quetta, Faisalabad, Jamshoro, Peshawar and Karachi with plans to head to Gilgit, Lahore and Multan next. This weekend the festival will be running simultaneously in both Islamabad and Hyderabad.
“It gives us great joy that we can have these films screened in two cities at the same time,” Said Abbas to Arab News.
In each city, films are being screened at small to medium scale local venues and organizations and educational institutes.
Have DAP faced censorship in their quest?
“We are working with small venues which are generally safe spaces. Censorship has not yet been an issue as it would be in cinema halls or state operated spaces. While we may be surveilled, we have not been stopped,” said Abbas.
The festival also includes “The Feeling of Being Watched,” by Arab-American filmmaker Assia Bendaoui, “Sindhustan” from India, and “The Judge,” an American film following the life of a female Palestinian judge. In total Chalta Phirta is taking 22 films to 11 cities.
So far, the ambitious festival has been met with warmth.
“In our first event in Gujranwala, the projectionist at the venue came up to DAP member Risham and thanked her for opening his eyes to what documentary films can do,” said Bari.
Additionally, the festival has been gaining interest.
“We have been receiving requests from cities outside our 11 city program, and we are working together with them to see how we can expand our journey,” said Abbas.
Asked what DAP hoped Chalta Phirta to achieve, Bari and Abbas said: “Divide and rule seems to be the modus operandi everywhere. It is important that we are able to reach and talk to each other and hear and watch each other’s stories without the mitigation of corporate media or paranoid rulers. Whether it is a story about a bomb disposal squad, or a transwoman in politics, young disaffected men trying to flee to a better life or feminist activists reforming their cities, this festival seeks to make space for a conversation about Pakistani identity and a Pakistani dream that is inclusive.”