KARACHI: It’s a Karachi we all know but seldom talk about; and to start the conversation is an 11-minute short film by Pakistani-Canadian director, Hamza Bangash, which has been selected for screening at the virtual edition of the renowned Palm Springs International Festival (PSIF) this year.

Bangash says it’s his attempt to share some of Karachi’s untold stories by night.

“Although fiction, the film is inspired by the stories I heard,” Bangash, 29, said in an exclusive interview with Arab News on Tuesday.

Titled Stray Dogs Come Out At Night (SDCOAN), the film revolves around a young masseur named Iqbal and his acceptance of life as an HIV-positive person. 

In addition to being screened at the PSIF 2020, which runs from June 16-22, the film has also been nominated in two of its award categories – Best Live Action Short, and Vimeo Staff Pick Award.

Bangash said the film’s name is a metaphor used to describe the plight of young men in the country who are “often brutalized and not given enough opportunities” and a “revolt against toxic masculinity” that is rampant in society.

“The lives of the maalishwalas (masseurs) as shown in the film are more or less similar to those of stray dogs, who are in every nook and corner of Karachi and come out at night,” he said.

Iqbal, played by Pakistani actor Mohammad Ali Hashmi, lives with his uncle, Khurram – veteran actor Adnan Shah Tipu – in a one-bedroom apartment of Karachi. 

Both are uneducated migrants from Punjab, miles away from their families, navigating a new life in an alien city.

Khurram is a masseur, too, but has over the years learnt the tricks of the trade and how to survive the abusive nature of the profession. 

Their only respite is a visit to the city’s Sea View Beach, and it’s during one such afternoon when Iqbal – weighed down by life’s tribulations – feels drawn to the sea in an unusual way.

Bangash said, through the film, he wanted to explore the reasons for the increasing incidents of suicide among young men in the country.

“Iqbal’s character embodies the most common traits behind those taking their lives in our country; young, poor, isolated – with limited education and even more limited opportunities for growth,” he said.

His observations are not unfounded.

According to a 2012 report by the World Health Organization (WHO), around 13,000 people had killed themselves in Pakistan that year, with a significant drop in the suicide rate four years later where more than 5,500 took their lives in 2016. 

There was no recent data available on the topic.

Bangash said, while the numbers have improved significantly, the problems remain, and despite SDCOAN taking two years to make, “it was all worth it.”

“I spent eight months in research and finally shot the film in October 2018 over 48 hours, on a tiny budget. Then, I spent over a year-and-a-half in post-production and completed it in December 2019,” he said.

The efforts finally paid off, and the film premiered at France’s Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival in February 2020. 

“After Clermont, the film was supposed to tour across Europe and North America, but coronavirus hit and festivals started to get canceled. I’m so grateful for our recent selection at Palm Springs. The festival programmer even called us one of the highlights of this year’s edition!” he said.

However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing from the start, with casting issues being one of his core problems, to begin with.

“We must have reached out to dozens of actors; no one was willing to come on board. We got really lucky with both Mohammad Ali Hashmi and Adnan Shah Tipu who is one of the few actors with international experience in art-house cinema,” he said.

Another issue was that film was entirely in Punjabi – a language that Bangash did not speak.

“It was really interesting to write a script in English, convert it to Urdu, and then work on the dialogues with my actors who speak in Punjabi. The experiences which both Hashmi and Tipu brought to the film, as native Punjabi-speakers, really helped mold the film into what it is today,” Bangash said.

He added that while he knew of Tipu due to the length and breadth of his performances in theater and film, he’d spotted Ali during one of his stage shows.

That was the first rung of the ladder, with Ali spending months in research to get into the skin of Iqbal’s character.

“After meeting up with many malishwalas during our research, we picked one for our character and I tried my best to adopt his mannerisms into my acting,” Ali, 26, told Arab News.

He added that the experience was emotionally draining and took him weeks to “get out of character.”

Ali narrates an incident when, during research, they were standing outside a restaurant “in their characters’ get up” and the management staff thought they were masseurs and pushed them away.

“At that point, I realized the humiliation, pain and agony that these people go through on a daily basis,” he said.

As for Bangash, he said he was happy that the film was being showcased on a distinguished platform, adding that winning the award was never a priority.

“It would be incredible to win, but it’s such an honor just to be competing in Palm Springs,” he said.