In an interview with The Quint, the director talks about his debut film at length.
Asim Abbasi’s 2018 film Cake, starring Sanam Saeed, Aamina Sheikh, Adnan Malik and many others, has won unanimous acclaim. But it looks like the days of acclaim are not over just yet.
According to a recent article in The Quint, “Cake is to Pakistan what Piku is to India”. It also adds “Stripping the narrative of melodrama, it aims for realism ala Piku.”
The article notes, “Pakistan may have banned Veere di Wedding but its censors passed a film like Cake teeming with subversions. Not only does it make you rethink how you look at the citizens of the neighbouring country but also makes a case for how it’s possible to criticise the policies of the country, while commending its art and its people. Cinema does transcend borders.”
The appreciation is followed by an interview with director Asim Abbasi, who bagged the Best Director award at the UK Asian Film Festival in London earlier this year for Cake.
Asim revealed that his mission, when directing a film, is not “putting my audiences in fits of laughter or drowning them with social messages – it is merely to touch their souls.”
When asked how such a film managed to get past censors, Asim explained: “There are rarely any burqas in Pakistani films. In fact ‘item songs’ are a pretty standard inclusion for the masses driven film, just like in India. And that sort of titillating content usually passes censors without an issue. However, you are right, the subversive elements, and there are plenty of them in Cake, are usually harder to digest for the gatekeepers. I think we pushed the boundaries but just enough and luckily got away with it. I think the context of “haraami” (banter between an elderly couple) made it non-contentious and the interfaith relationship was played out relatively subtly. So at the end, smoking got an obvious disclaimer, and the f-bombs got muted for domestic release, but everything else stayed in like we had hoped!”
In an answer about the female actors in the film and whether they were apprehensive about taking up the roles, the director said, “Not at all! Or not that I know of! I think they were perhaps apprehensive about working with a first time filmmaker, I guess all established actors would be when faced with an unknown director, but certainly not apprehensive about the empowered characters that they were going to play. Film across the subcontinent continues to be predominantly a hero’s medium, so female actors rarely get a chance to drive a narrative in this way. Both Aamina (Sheikh) and Sanam (Saeed) felt deeply connected with the layered, complex characters of Zareen and Zara, and with the project as a whole.”
In another question about funding and whether it is difficult for producers to finance a film like Cake in Pakistan, Asim told The Quint: “One does have to look harder. Any film that goes against the tried-and-tested is inherently riskier, and most producers tend to be risk averse. There is a checklist (melodramatic larger than life narrative, hero centric film, fair skinned heroines, brightly lit cinematography, colourful art direction, etc.) that makes most producers/financiers happy! It is their comfort zone. And Cake deliberately (and hopefully effectively) breaks away from that entire checklist. I have been lucky with my producer Zulfi Bukhari who believed in the project.”
In a question about cross-border collaboration, Asim noted, “I am all for artistic collaborations across borders, and for filmmakers everywhere to be ‘global’ filmmakers but political climate doesn’t really allow for Pakistani talent or filmmakers to be currently working in India. I do hope that in the near future this changes, that Pakistani films can get a release in India and there is a more active creative exchange. For now, Pakistan and the UK, the two places I call home, remain my focus.”
– With information from The Quint.com
