As a young and aspiring filmmaker in Pakistan, who is neither a part of showbiz royalty nor has the money to anchor a project singlehandedly, it’s easy to be screwed to the ground. Investors are hard to find in this cost-effective era and the unconscious (or conscious) bias underlying the industry dynamics can be rather grueling.
It took a year for Hamza Bangash to start the shoot of his ambitious film project and nearly three days to complete it.
DIRECTOR’SCUT
Filmmaker and playwright Hamza Bangash talks about his upcoming short film and the challenges he faced in making it.
As a young and aspiring filmmaker in Pakistan, who is neither a part of showbiz royalty nor has the money to anchor a project singlehandedly, it’s easy to be screwed to the ground. Investors are hard to find in this cost-effective era and the unconscious (or conscious) bias underlying the industry dynamics can be rather grueling. Yet once in a while a young artist manages to pierce through the barriers set to bring him down and makes his presence felt with nothing but honest ambition driving him. One such filmmaker is Hamza Bangash – known for his short film Badal that revolves around Pakistani youth and its struggle against gender politics and was screened at the Cannes Court Metrage at Cannes Film Festival 2014. In Karachi, however, he is more popular for his socially-conscious stage plays like Baraf Paani and Suno! that intertwined psychological problems with the city’s growing bitterness and life’s unpredictable complexities. Three months down the line Bangash is back but this time he’s behind the camera, and has yet another hard-hitting, norms-defying story in store for us, Rang Raaz.
Described as the story of “a Hindu-Muslim couple who make a bold decision to elope but soon realize the consequences” they will have to face thanks to “the black-and-white expectations of a restrictive society” like ours, Rang Raaz isn’t the usual Hindu-Muslim love saga that we come across in mainstream cinema time and again.
“Most of the mainstream films end up in tragedy and are extremely melodramatic. This is not that film,” Bangash said while speaking to Instep. “The boy and the girl grew up together and have been with each other their whole lives but it’s only when they are 19 that the issue starts coming up that the guy is a Hindu even though they belong to that part of the society that pretends to be quite liberal and open-minded. When the time is to get them married, they face some real challenges, especially the female protagonist. The film gives the woman a voice; it shows a strong woman who will stand by her man and a man who would go to any ends. It shows a positive viewpoint that they deserve a happy ending.”
At a time when minorities in Pakistan are facing the brunt of growing extremism and are struggling through each passing day with their existence constantly under threat, it is quite daring of Bangash to nosedive into such a controversial topic and take a stance that many refrain from taking. “Though a love story, the film does talk about the white in our flag and that though this country was made for Muslims, everyone should be allowed to practice their religion without fear,” Bangash added. “A lot of the inspiration for the film came from the Hindu marriage bill and the fact that it was only passed four months ago which means that for 69 years all the Hindus in Pakistan could not legally wed, which also resulted in so many atrocious acts being committed. I really hope that we’ve managed to tackle it and bring the issue out in a way that it gets the recognition it deserves.”
Of course, brave attempts come with a fair share of challenges and so Bangash’ journey of bringing this film to life wasn’t free of them either – funding being on the top of the list. While the team has managed to complete the film and has released its official trailer on their own, the project has now been uploaded on Kickstarter for further refining and post-production processes.
“It’s been extremely challenging from day one. The film has been in pre-production for a year now,” the director shared. “We started it last summer after I had written the first draft of the script, which I sent out to a lot of people in the industry here including Asad Farooqui, Saadia Khatri of Girls at Dhaba and others whose opinion I respected. After I heard back from them I was sure that I have a project that could go all the way; that could play at festivals and create a narrative that is not only positive but touches upon some crucial topics. But then it was really hard to get funding because not only was it a short film, it was a short film about a topic that people don’t really like talking about; people aren’t comfortable about speaking on a situation where a Muslim girl and a Hindu guy fall in love. We approached a lot of people in the Hindu community for funding but they all felt so unsafe. They said we would like to contribute to the project but we don’t want our names to be on this and be targeted. So I ended up self-financing.”
“We shot the film over three consecutive days and shooting 13 pages of content in three days is actually ridiculous,” he continued. “That’s too many pages for three days and it requires a certain level of dedication, craftsmanship and professionalism. We had never tried to pull off a project this ambitious before. But we managed and the footage came out great. We’ve been receiving such good feedback these past few days. One of my biggest mentors is Sabiha Sumar and it felt great when she saw the trailer and said ‘it looks amazing and I am going to contribute for it’. I am like ‘what?! you do know your film Khamosh Pani is the reason why I am shooting in Pakistan right now’. We are now in post production and through Kickstarter we are hoping to raise enough funds to get the film as polished as it needs to be in order to play in the international circuit. I want it to be screened in a competitive category and be seen by as many eyeballs as possible.”
While it seems that Bangash has almost succeeded in his cause he admits it wasn’t a walk in the park. Like any industry, the Pakistani entertainment industry isn’t free of biases, leg-pulling and politics either. But what’s unfortunately a recurring feature is unprofessionalism and Bangash has been a victim. “You’d like to think that people are supportive but they are not. Everybody is out to get the client and land the project. It’s a tough industry,” Bangash shared. “I am lucky to have found some really amazing collaborators and people who share a similar vision with me but I came here after having some really bad experiences. Even with this short film, our initial producer who had worked on the film for three months randomly decided to drop out of the film one day without notice. I was shaken and I didn’t know that this could happen. But then it’s a learning journey.”
After Rang Raaz manages to achieve what it has set out for, Bangash has bigger plans. The young filmmaker was recently part of the Qalambaaz fellowship, set up by Iram Bilal Parveen, the writer director of Josh, and managed to write a feature film screenplay that got immense praise from the mentors on board. Bangash plans to turn the piece of writing, which once again touches upon a number of social issues like class and politics, into a feature film; it will soon go on floors and one hopes that Rang Raaz propels audiences enough to take interest in his next project.
