Pakistani students win international award for film on drones
The film The Other Side was awarded with Best Audience Award at National Film Festival For Talented Youth, Washington. The short film is written and directed by Danish Qasim along with five other team members.
The 20-minute film revolves around the idea of assessing social, psychological and economical affects of drones on the people in tribal areas of Pakistan.
The film identifies the problems faced by families who have become victims of drone missiles, and it unearths the line of action which terrorist groups adopt to use victimised families for their vested interests.
Despite being chosen for the award, the filmmakers were unable to attend the award ceremony as their visa applications were rejected twice.
“If we got the visa then it would have been easy for us to frame our point of view in front of the other selected youth filmmakers,” Qasim said.
“The film gained interest from the audience across the globe compelling festival administrators to give Audience Award to the film,” he added.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly named the director of the film as Danish Ali. This has been corrected.
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Congratulations! We need more hard working people like this, who're willing to place importance to such horrifying problems! Kudos!
"The 20-minute film revolves around the idea of assessing social, psychological and economical affects of drones on the people in tribal areas of Pakistan." You mean economic, not economical. The words have different meanings.
congrates every 1 who worked hard 4 making this un forgetable movie ..keep working hard like as u did ..proud of u guyzz cause u have made uss proudd.
Congrats!!! the Team of Other side Hats of,,, you guys really made us proud once again,,, Also IQRA University students great work :)
Where is the humanity it seems that we are forgetting something or may be running the world based on color or religon we have to repect the humanity to won the hearts of people one should respect and give love to have same in retrurn
Its pretty certain that evrey action has its reaction what we have to realize to respect humanity the world with war is nothing and will through humanity back to old age era we have to respect humanity apar of religom and natnality to won the heart of the people its the love not the drones
well dun gayz to show american's terrorist activity but in Pakistan many group of terrorist and they are said we are Taliban but reality is they are not Taliban they are agent of america and india
This is more important than the Chinoy Oscar that was won for a subject that was favored and promoted by the west. Really do not have anything against Ms Chinoy but the fact remains that the subject of drones is so "not favored and promoted" by the West that even the directors of this particular movie didnt get visas. Hence, in my book this award for the young guys from the university is NUMBER UNO. Great work guys.
IU Rocks! :) :) I'm proud to be a student of IU(Media Sciences department) and friend of THE OTHER SIDE team :)
Congrats once again :)
@Knotty: I did not speak about the visa issue. Did you fail to notice that because you are too modest to recognize your own genius (sarcasm intended, in case you don't notice that, too)!
People act like everywhere but the US gives Pakistanis visas easily these days.
@ G. Din
You are such a genius (sarcasm!) . I wish there were such geniuses in the US embassy, it would have made their visa possible! . Does that mean US is in favour of the extremist when it refuses visa to the makers of anti-terrorist film?
@Asim: While watching it here double click on YouTube in the video-pan and then you could watch it on YouTube.
Drones are the only mechanism to get rid of terrorists at present in Pakistan as courts won’t punish the terrorists. Some people do not want drone attacks, to protect terrorists from annihilation. Pakistan is indeed as safe a heaven as can be for terrorists in the current circumstances.
Hats Off! this is an example how can we use international media and platforms to rise our daily external issues. Don't just hope for a better Pakistan. WORK FOR IT!
The message is good but the video could be exponentially better. It looks like what high school students would make.
Great video. Congratulations to Danish Qasim and his team for such an awesome presentation. This is a big contribution in about 2 minutes video.
The Visa Officers of US Embassy or the Consulate did not wanted the youth of Pakistan who made the film "The Other Side" to go to US and make their point of view.
After all the film was against the actions of Obama Administration but the interesting point is that the "Best Audience Award" was awarded by the Washington based organisation.
The point to be noted is that people of the United States do not want that US should attack Pakistan through drones, but the policy of Obama Administration is to continue to attack Pakistan through drone strikes and kill the terrorists.
I don't have the data to put here that how many terrorists were killed by the US drones but I am confident that the drones killed more innocent people than the terrorists. For US, the loss of lives of innocent people is called as "collateral damage".
Despite the fact that the visas of the youth of Pakistan were rejected twice but despite rejecting the visas twice, the youth of Pakistan have made their point very clearly to US Authorities to say "NO MORE DRONE STRIKES".
I hope the government of Pakistan will also give special awards to the youths, as the point made by the youths could not be elaborated in the similar manner by the Government of Pakistan.
Well done youth of Pakistan.
May Al-Mighty Allah Bless You All.
good effort in highlighting US drone strike on our beloved innocent tribals. it has given our tribals immeasurable hurts .. drones should be stoped
How ironic is that !!
Few days back Shahzad Chaudhry wrote in his column that drones are a bonafide tool of war, and a brilliant one at that.
Concurred! Now let's look at the other side of the picture. There are huge gaps between this bonafide tool, its tactical usage and the horrendous outcome.
Nice effort, collegians.
Congratulations!!!
Those who exult here thinking that the film is against the use of drones should read the write-up carefully one more time and note the following: "...and it unearths the line of action which terrorist groups adopt to use victimised families for their vested interests." So, it is more a condemnation of "terrorist groups" for "their vested interests". The rest is a documentary of how families are victimized directly by the drones, brought on indirectly by the terrorist groups.
Very well done, seems like our educated youth is concerned about Pakistan and are actively involved to find a solution to curb these problems. The international award to talented Danish Qaseem's short film is a proud for Pakistani nation. We should try and show this "Other Side" again and again! Be heard!
USA wants visas for CIA and Blackwater terrorists from us and they don't gives visas to our students.
why they can be given any visa for attending the ceremony......it's US embassy calling shots and endorsing visas......
Something to be truly proud of! ............. not such a pitiful nation after all !!!!
Great Job. I find it easier to convince Westerners and Americans by showing of these sort of clips, now let's hope these students will make some other movies to show how many schools with kids, mosques with worshipers and markets with merchandisers have been destroyed by the locally produced terrorists. I urge these students to educate local people to stand up these rogues in the society.
Whether it will be rcecognised in the west or not but I'm sure The Other Side will gain much appreciation in Pakistan than Saving Face
Sharmeen Chinoy was awarded an oscar for the movie on a subject that was more welcomed by the US and on the other side filmmakers visa application was rejected twice because they made a film on drone attacks and dared to show the other side of the US to the world. Again an utter display of double standard by the US !!!
Its not at all shocking to see that they were not granted us visas. Just goes on to prove that the drones are something the americans are using as an act of war. Shame on them for killing innocent children and shame on our govt. for allowing them to do this! No wonder the world is a mess today. We muslims ought to get united.....
Liberals...Get a drift..!
The mystery of drone attacks http://707monty.blogspot.com/2012/05/mystery-of-drone-attacks.html
Will the film be shown in Pakistan?
Great IU Students!
Because they were talking about the " The other side" and that side is not welcome in American public discourse in general and corporate media in particular. But the fact that it was awarded by Washington based entity is admirable.
Plz somebody make film/Dacomentry on American/NATO terrorism in Afghanistan etc too ... or wait i will make inshaAllah after 25 :)
Congratulations ... good work... can we see it on youtube?
Finally! well done lads!
Moment of pride for Pakistan.