Film screening: Kuchee Talkies brings the best of South Asian cinema to Pakistan
Matteela Films and ‘I Am Karachi’ join hands to revive the culture of mobile screens.
Kuchee Talkies showed Lucia, the first crowd-funded Kannada film, at its sixth screening at Napa on Friday in an attempt to promote the culture of travelling cinemas. PHOTO: COURTESY KUCHEE TALKIES FACEBOOK PAGE
KARACHI:
The new cinemas in town may have restored this lost activity in Karachi's social life, there are some people who wish to take this change to a whole new level.
The husband-wife duo behind Zinda Bhaag, Mazhar Zaidi and Meenu Gaur, have set up Kuchee Talkies — a series of film screenings that aims to promote the concept of mobile screens in Pakistan.
The collapse of Pakistani film industry has replaced cinema houses with shopping malls and parking lots. Kuchee Talkies wants to fill this void by promoting the culture of travelling cinema across Karachi and to bolster the culture of collective film-watching.
The project, in collaboration with 'I Am Karachi' and Matteela Films, organised its sixth screening at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) on Friday in which they screened Lucia and Zakhmi Foundation. Critically acclaimed Lucia is the first crowd-funded Kannada film, which heralded a new direction for Kannada cinema. On the other hand, Zakhmi Foundation is a thesis film by the students of Karachi University's visual studies department.
After the screening of Lucia, a question-and-answer session was organised with Pawan Kumar, the director of Lucia, through Skype. "Drug is just used like a medium to say things which are a lot deeper," said Kumar. "The real idea of this movie revolves around the imagination of a celebrity to lead life like an average man." Kumar urged that piracy is an escalating issue that must be handled seriously by our governments.
The second aim of Kuchee Talkies is to bring the finest movies of modern South Asian cinema to the people of Karachi. This effort is evident in the movies that have been screened so far. Kuchee Talkies kicked off its first screening with Ankhon Dekhi, a whimsical yet unexceptional Indian movie, at the Arts Council of Pakistan on February 27. The screening was followed by a Skype question-and-answer session with director Rajat Kapoor. The first screening also included a short film Masters of the Sky.
The second session of Kuchee Talkies was organised at Habib University on March 6 when Zaidi screened his first production venture Zinda Bhaag, along with Jamilur Rehman Alvi’s debut Run.
Third session of Kuchee Talkies brought an array of diversity by screening the award-winning Sri Lankan film Ini Avan [Him, Here, After] and a Pakistani short film Love Sick. This session was organised at the Indus Valley School on March 16. Ini Avan is the first film since the end of Sri Lanka's civil war to deal with intricate sociocultural problems that plagued the country for 26 years.
The movement of diversity was further strengthened in the fourth session of Kuchee Talkies held at the Arts Council of Pakistan on March 21. The session screened Fandry, a slow burner Indian Marathi language movie that flares brilliantly at the very end, and Faasla Rakhen, a thesis film made by the students of Karachi University's visual studies department.
The fifth session of Kuchee Talkies screened multiple awards-winning Pakistani documentaries, such as These Birds Walk, at Karachi University on April 9. "In the face of so much misery, These Birds Walk is an improbably hopeful experience," said Peter Rainer, a film critic at The Christian Science Monitor. "The resilience of these boys, and of their protectors, is revivifying to behold."
Deliciously seasoned with piquant movies involving the hollowness of caste systems, the bitterness of the middle class, the candidness of people who never seem to be satisfied and the psychological entrapments of all relationships, Kuchee Talkies is rife with everyday tragedy.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th, 2015.
The new cinemas in town may have restored this lost activity in Karachi's social life, there are some people who wish to take this change to a whole new level.
The husband-wife duo behind Zinda Bhaag, Mazhar Zaidi and Meenu Gaur, have set up Kuchee Talkies — a series of film screenings that aims to promote the concept of mobile screens in Pakistan.
The collapse of Pakistani film industry has replaced cinema houses with shopping malls and parking lots. Kuchee Talkies wants to fill this void by promoting the culture of travelling cinema across Karachi and to bolster the culture of collective film-watching.
The project, in collaboration with 'I Am Karachi' and Matteela Films, organised its sixth screening at the National Academy of Performing Arts (Napa) on Friday in which they screened Lucia and Zakhmi Foundation. Critically acclaimed Lucia is the first crowd-funded Kannada film, which heralded a new direction for Kannada cinema. On the other hand, Zakhmi Foundation is a thesis film by the students of Karachi University's visual studies department.
After the screening of Lucia, a question-and-answer session was organised with Pawan Kumar, the director of Lucia, through Skype. "Drug is just used like a medium to say things which are a lot deeper," said Kumar. "The real idea of this movie revolves around the imagination of a celebrity to lead life like an average man." Kumar urged that piracy is an escalating issue that must be handled seriously by our governments.
The second aim of Kuchee Talkies is to bring the finest movies of modern South Asian cinema to the people of Karachi. This effort is evident in the movies that have been screened so far. Kuchee Talkies kicked off its first screening with Ankhon Dekhi, a whimsical yet unexceptional Indian movie, at the Arts Council of Pakistan on February 27. The screening was followed by a Skype question-and-answer session with director Rajat Kapoor. The first screening also included a short film Masters of the Sky.
The second session of Kuchee Talkies was organised at Habib University on March 6 when Zaidi screened his first production venture Zinda Bhaag, along with Jamilur Rehman Alvi’s debut Run.
Third session of Kuchee Talkies brought an array of diversity by screening the award-winning Sri Lankan film Ini Avan [Him, Here, After] and a Pakistani short film Love Sick. This session was organised at the Indus Valley School on March 16. Ini Avan is the first film since the end of Sri Lanka's civil war to deal with intricate sociocultural problems that plagued the country for 26 years.
The movement of diversity was further strengthened in the fourth session of Kuchee Talkies held at the Arts Council of Pakistan on March 21. The session screened Fandry, a slow burner Indian Marathi language movie that flares brilliantly at the very end, and Faasla Rakhen, a thesis film made by the students of Karachi University's visual studies department.
The fifth session of Kuchee Talkies screened multiple awards-winning Pakistani documentaries, such as These Birds Walk, at Karachi University on April 9. "In the face of so much misery, These Birds Walk is an improbably hopeful experience," said Peter Rainer, a film critic at The Christian Science Monitor. "The resilience of these boys, and of their protectors, is revivifying to behold."
Deliciously seasoned with piquant movies involving the hollowness of caste systems, the bitterness of the middle class, the candidness of people who never seem to be satisfied and the psychological entrapments of all relationships, Kuchee Talkies is rife with everyday tragedy.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th, 2015.