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20-04-2023
PARIS: Pakistani cinema is returning to the French Riviera for a second consecutive year.
Canadian Pakistani filmmaker Zarrar Kahn’s debut feature film, In Flames, is set to have its world premiere next month at Quinzaine des Cineastes (Directors’ Fortnight), an independent selection that runs parallel to Festival de Cannes (Cannes Film Festival) in France.
Last year, Saim Sadiq’s Joyland became the first Pakistani film to have its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes Film Festival. It also won the Jury Prize and the Queer Palm award.
In Flames is among 20 feature films and 10 shorts featured in the parallel section that was launched in 1969 as Quinzaine des Realisateurs and is overseen by Societe des Réalisateurs de Films (French Directors’ Guild). The event will be held from May 16 to May 27.
According to Kahn, the first Pakistani film to play in the Directors’ Fortnight was Jamil Dehlavi’s The Blood of Hussain (1980). The film that touched upon the theme of state oppression was subsequently banned in Pakistan by then military ruler, General Zia ul-Haq.
In Flames marks the return of Pakistan to the Directors’ Fortnight after 43 years.
Zarrar Kahn is a pseudonym of the filmmaker previously known as Hamza Bangash. Often cited as one of the most exciting young filmmakers in Pakistan, his short films Dia (2018), 1978 (2020), Stray Dogs Come Out at Night (2020) and Bhai (2021) have won acclaim at several international film festivals.
According to Kahn, In Flames, a Canadian-Pakistani co-production is also the first South Asian “horror” film to have been picked by Directors’ Fortnight.
A personal favorite, he said he appreciates the genre for the “shared cathartic experience it can create in the audience”, and how it can champion feminism and give agency to female characters in hypermasculine contexts.
The filmmaker said he believes the genre can also be a powerful tool for South Asian filmmakers to explore their lived realities, mythologies and folklore.
In Flames finds him mixing real-life nightmares of patriarchy with phantasmal forces.
“Reality can be scarier than imagination,” says Kahn.
At the centre of the film is a mother and daughter (Fariha and Mariam), who are dealing with loss and grief after the death of the family head. It is about resilience and the spirit of survival in women and how they find strength in each other while battling malevolent forces surrounding them. (Int’l News Desk)
