Saying ‘thank you’: Here is your chance to find a hero and make some money

Short film contest on Pakistani heroes starts from September 1, while finalists will be short-listed in mid-November.

KARACHI:

If you have a person in your life you admire, now is your chance to say thanks to them - and earn some money along the way.

Green Card Capital and SoundView Broadcasting have started a short-film festival ‘Heroes of Pakistan’ to thank people - participants will submit original videos of up to five minutes of their heroes and the best films will win exciting prizes. “Whenever I would visit Pakistan, I would always plan to meet and thank the people here but I could not,” said Abbas Hashmi, the CEO of Green Card Capital investment firm and the person behind the idea. “It is just a platform to enable people to say ‘thank you’,” he explained at the launch on Tuesday.

The competition begins on September 1 and ends October 31. The finalists will be eligible for a $1,000, first prize, $500, second prize, $250, third prize.

In addition to the cash prizes, the contest winners will have the opportunity to view their films on channels both in the US and Pakistan. SoundView is also offering internship opportunities for the winners.

The submissions can be made via the official entry form on Green Card Capital website. Hashmi is quick to give credit to his wife. “I am just the face of it, my wife has been quite encouraging and supporting,” he said. His wife, Anne Chaudhry, director of SoundView Broadcasting, has collaborated with him even from a business point of view.

At the launch, Karachi Chambers of Commerce CEO Ateequr Rahman and School of Leadership CEO Shireen Naqvi endorsed the initiative. “It is great that we have non-resident Pakistanis wanting to invest and appreciate talent in Pakistan,” said Rahman.

Umme Kulsoom, an RJ working at FM107 appreciated the initiative by saying that it would make citizens-journalism mainstream in our society. She promised that she would market it on social media forums. A freelance journalist and media studies lecturer, Noureen Shams, called it a ‘golden opportunity’ that students must make use of by trying their luck at filmmaking via featuring the heroes of their life.

Abubakar Lakhani, an independent filmmaker, said that it was a great way of ‘expressing our patriotism’ in a creative way. Sharing his enthusiasm for the upcoming contest, the 21-year-old chairperson of a youth organisation ‘Lets build on’, Muntazir Mehdi, plans to feature seaside artists or other people ‘who make Pakistan a beautiful place to live in!’

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2013.