Did you know: Pakistani student’s film shines at Raindance Film Festival

The festival is Europe’s leading independent film festival, which aims to develop and promote independent films.

Last Remarks, a short film directed by New York University film student Umar Riaz, has been selected for the 20th Raindance Film Festival and will be screened at the Picadilly Circus in UK on October 4, according to a press release.

The festival is Europe’s leading independent film festival, which aims to develop and promote independent films and film-makers from across the globe. 

Inspired by an Edgar Allen Poe story, this film is set in 1947 at the onset of partition and follows the final moments of Arastu Jan (played by Riaz himself) — an isolated butler to an ageing British colonialist. Produced by Alexis Gambis, Shruti Ganguly and Heather Jack, substantial portions of the film were shot in Lahore.


Last Remarks was announced as a finalist at the Student Academy Awards (selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences out of nearly a 1,000 college entries, from across the world) and was also premiered at the prestigious Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, earlier this year.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4th, 2012.

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