‘Jalaibee’ director Yasir Jaswal’s next film to go on the floors soon

Film will not be a comedy, he insists

KARACHI: While the sheer number of motion picture releases in one calendar year provides weightage to the clichéd phrase “Revival of Pakistani cinema”, there’s no denying that 2015 was a landmark year for the Pakistani film industry. Most notably, we saw several film-makers break away from producing run-of-the-mill comedy films. And, one of those was Yasir Jaswal’s crime-caper, Jalaibee. Although the project went onto receive flailing reviews on both sides of the spectrum, it performed reasonably well at the box office.



Interestingly, it didn’t take long for Yasir to take the leap to his next venture. Unwilling to divulge too many details, Yasir told The Express Tribune he has almost completed writing the story, while the  scripting process is slated to begin in July. However, he plans on handing over the reins of writing the script to someone else. “I don’t want to give out the genre so early on. But what I can tell you is that it is going to be unlike the stuff that audiences saw in Jalaibee,” he remarked. “It’ll be something completely different.”

Keeping minute details about his next film tightly under wraps, the former Irtash singer assured that the project was in fact happening and he had already conducted a few meetings with production crews and personnel abroad. “We’ve had meetings and discussions with several producers in Bangkok and London. We just want to get an idea about whether the sequences that we have in mind can be executed or not,” shared Yasir. The untitled movie will mark Yasir’s second directorial project.

Yasir’s decision to not pen the script might have stemmed from his previous stint in directing and writing Jalaibee. Despite being praised for its visual treatment, the movie attracted a lot of heat for its lack of a proper narrative. Nevertheless, describing his debut film as a “crash course in film-making” the director said he learnt a lot from working on the film. “Prior to Jalaibee I had no experience working in films. So basically, I was just implementing what I had learnt from my time making advertisements and music videos,” he added.

Despite mixed responses to Jalaibee, there was no shortage of offers coming Yasir’s way. “People approached me with scripts for comedies and romantic movies but I was adamant on doing my own thing.”

To a question about whether fans of the Jaswal brothers can expect him to team up with his younger siblings, Umair and Uzair, for the upcoming project, the director replied that it was still early to say anything. “It is great that both of their acting and singing careers are on the rise but I wouldn’t cast them just for the sake of it,” he responded. “When I collaborated with them on Jalaibee I gave it a hard thought because I remember Uzair didn’t want to make his acting debut with such a minor role but I requested him to do so, and he agreed. On the other hand, I took Umair’s song [Jee Raha] because it bonded well with our movie’s soundtrack.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 21^st, 2016.

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