Kapadia’s kaleidoscopic vision

T2F experience allowed Kapadia to display six short films that spoke volumes about observation, love for Pakistan.

KARACHI: The Second Floor (T2F) has been a launching platform for many upcoming artistes. On Wednesday T2F celebrated their patriotic spirit with Ali Kapadia. Kapadia has been a filmmaker residing in San Francisco, who comes to Pakistan time and again in search of inspiration to direct his next short film or documentary. Kapadia has worked on several short film projects and indulges in experimental mediums.

The T2F experience allowed Kapadia to display six short films that spoke volumes about his observation and love for Pakistan.  While Tim Juniverse is short animated feature that paints a partial product of Western ideas, other films remain primordially based on indigenous content. Kapadia reflects on his work saying, “It’s a wide spectrum of what I have worked on and it is about breaking boundaries in Pakistan.”

Kapadia’s lego stop-motion music video, “Maujo Mein” took the music industry by storm as it ranked in at the No. 6 spot on Indus Music’s best Pakistani music video list in 2005. Kapadia went on to earn recognition when he won the TEDxKarachi 2010 Film Competition with What Pakistan Needs Now: the film is a touching take on little girl who calls out to her country in need.

The filmmaker then went on to pay tribute a legendary poet of Pakistan with Tum Yeh Kehtay Ho. The documentary delved in to the deep thought of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s work and portrays the struggle and efforts of the Pakistani people.

Seerat is another project that Kapadia is currently working on, it incapacitates a detailed outlook on the dreams and aspirations of members of the community that remain inspired to make a difference in the country. “It is all about a diverse set of people, from different parts of Karachi, they are insightful in their thought process and how they do justice to the lives that they lead,” says Kapadia.

The critically acclaimed, Voices from Pakistan won the Judges Award at the Scary Cow Independent Film Festival 2010. The mini film is an observatory take on the controversial ban on Facebook that was imposed in Pakistan in May 2010.

Having had the privilege of working with director’s like Jamshed Mehmood, Kapadia looks at Pakistan as a dearth of thriving potential, “For indeed, this is a gold-mine for filmmakers,” says the hit maker himself.

WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM WWW.T2F.BIZ

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th,  2011.