I have the right to respectfully talk about things connected to religion: Sarmad Khoosat

The director maintains that with 'Zindagi Tamasha' the idea was never to stir a controversy.


Ather Ahmed January 13, 2020

The term political correctness has found new meaning in the past few years, perhaps a rather extreme one. As far as art is concerned, some would argue that the realm of acceptability has shrunk immensely.

In the West, content is often made the subject of controversy for not being inclusive enough. The most recent example is Todd Philips The Joker being touted as a film that promotes incel culture.

Meanwhile locally, the litmus test of acceptability for any piece of content relies on it's alignment with our value system, and so religion or religious beliefs remain at the forefront of the argument.

The common ground of both these worlds that seem to be on the opposite ends of the spectrum is that sentiment often thrives  at the cost of an artist honesty. Sometimes, here more so than in the West.

Sarmad Khoosat's much awaited social drama Zindagi Tamasha which is set to release later this month was made the subject of some controversy a few weeks ago. The film's trailer disappeared and subsequently reappeared with a few omissions.

Khoosat has since cleared the air regarding the situation, talking about how he respects the censor board's decision. "They were a certain people who got offended who thought I was pointing fingers at them. That wasn't the idea and  I was completely fine with re-editing the trailer." Khoosat told the Express Tribune.

The director highlighted that the the deletions in question were a few audio beeps in the film. "I wanted to keep the tone of the film very realistic and hence the dialogue and content is not written like a melodrama. In real life one does tend to use a lot of slang terminologies" he said.

However Khoosat does feel that generally the the term controversial is often thrown around.  "Anytime one picks out a theme which people are uncomfortable to talk about in public spaces or even in closed spaces I don't know why it has to be deemed controversial."

According to Khoosat, his upcoming film touches upon several themes but at the core of it is a 'personal story'. "Broadly speaking, its about this weird intolerance that has suddenly taken over in such odd forms. This really misplaced anger towards ideas that conflict with one’s own ideology," said Khoosat.

"At the same time we are talking about an intimate story about a small family that has been affected by something, focusing on the divergent reactions by all the members. The idea is to tell a story without pre-conceived judgments."

Khoosat admits that on a surface level Zindagi Tamasha's premise does have religion as it's back drop albeit in a way that does take into account it's sensitive nature.

"I would like to believe that I am a good enough believer that I have the right to respectfully talk about things that are connected to religion. For me the idea was never to make a controversy to get any form of hype through it" Khoosat added.

On the subject of pigeon holding mainstream cinema in Pakistan to a single genre, the Manto director noted that the situation primarily "boils down to numbers".

"Most of the movies that have managed to rake down numbers they are comedies I believe. People who are financing films tend to believe that these type of films (comedies) is a formula proven right" he said.

Adding on to this Khoosat dismissed the notion of comedy being the only genre that would come under the mainstream definition of 'entertainment'. "When people say they want to be entertained, it could be a variety of things why does it have to be just funny things?" he questioned.

In spite of the obvious shortfalls, the director acknowledged that the state of Pakistani cinema  presents a rare opportunity for indie filmmakers which even the West doesn't offer.

"People do not always find cinema space or theaters for smaller and indie films in the West. They are usually shown in selected theaters dedicated to experimental films. But in Pakistan there is almost a luxury, at the moment that since there isn't enough content, we do have that mainstream space to put films out there" he concluded.

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