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An anthology film is a feature film composed of vignettes or short films. Generally, the shorts have nothing to do with one another, but occasionally there is a theme, framing device, or plot running through the stories, connecting them together. Anthology movies are popular around the world. It is a popular format, especially on various OTT platforms. Different directors team up to depict raw human emotions, societal issues, mystery, thriller and romance to create diverse content.

Pakistan’s first anthology movie ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyaan’ (TMK) will be released on Eid-ul-Azha. With a stellar ensemble cast and a team of renowned writers and filmmakers, this movie holds interesting stories for filmgoers. Each story has been meticulously crafted to offer viewers a diverse range of emotions and engaging plotlines.

Produced by See Prime, an already established digital platform for short films, ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyan’ is an anthology of three different short films, written by four prolific writers - Ali Abbas Naqvi, Basit Naqvi, Vasay Chaudhry and Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar. ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyan’ includes; Jinn Mahal, directed by Nabeel Qureshi starring Hira Mani and Mani as lead; Aik Sau Taeswaan, directed by Nadeem Baig starring Mehwish Hayat and Wahaj Ali as lead; and Pasooori, directed by Marina Khan, starring Sheheryar Munawar and Ramsha Khan as leads.

To know more about the first of its kind of cinematic project in Pakistan, You! talks to Seemeen Naveed, founder and owner of See Prime and Imran Hussain, project head of TMK. According to Seemeen, “For me, ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyaan’ is a project that has brought many of the industry’s talents under one production.” Read on...

You! What was the thought behind ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyan’?

Seemeen Naveed: We actually started with a short film, Jinn Mahal by Nabeel Qureshi. But from the beginning, we observed that Nabeel was working on the project in a very cinematic way. So, we thought about making it into a short film. Then, we decided to make an ensemble of three to four short films in the form of an anthology. Nabeel shot his film almost six months back. Then we took the next three months to decide whether we should continue with the same topic/theme or go for a different genre for the rest of the films. So, we decided to explore more stories first. In our search we were told that Nadeem Baig had a script of a short film by Khalil-Ur-Rehman Qamar. Finally, Nadeem agreed to do the film with us. For the third film, Nadeem suggested us a script of a short film by Vasay Chaudhry, based on romance and lots of wedding sequences and we chose Marina Khan to direct this film. It is Marina’s debut on big screen as director. So, this is how we completed our anthology. Interestingly, all three films have totally different storylines. So it is like aik ticket main teen mazay.

You! How did you gather such an ensemble cast?

SN: Most of these stars already knew us, as we had already done commercials with them. So, it was a bit easier for us to get them. Hira and Mani were cast first. Nabeel Qureshi wanted to work with them. We even waited for a month for them to come back from the US. I believe they were the most appropriate choice for the story. We had a very difficult location for the shoot of Jinn Mahal. The house where we shot most of the film, was reopened after 80 years. It was full of dust, however, Nabeel wanted a place like that for shooting his film. Then we cast Wahaj Ali but it was not decided in which film he was working. He was later cast as lead for Aik Sau Taeswaan. Then, we approached Sheheryar Munawar and Ramsha Khan. In the beginning, we decided to cast Wahaj and Ramsha together as we had done a commercial with them. But later, we paired Sheheryar with Ramsha. Then when Mehwish came into our project, it was an obvious choice to cast her with Wahaj.

You! See Prime has an experience of making short films. How was the experience of transitioning from OTT platform to cinema screens?

SN: I believe every director or producer has a passion for working for the silver screen. Shooting for big screen is a different game altogether. ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyan’ has an advantage of three short films in one go. So if one gets into cinema, they will enjoy three different films with different genres.

Imran Hussain: People initially thought that it was easier to make three short films than to shoot a one full length feature film. But actually, it was difficult in a way that it had three directors, three writers, and a full ensemble cast for three different films. We shot all three films in 35 days. So, it was equivalent to one feature film. Everything was done in the manner of a feature film. It was not like just compiling three short films.

You! What is the story behind the name ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyan’ for the anthology?

IH: The word Kahaani not only sounds classy, but it is most suited to our anthology in which there are three different storylines. So, our first choice for the name was Kahaniyan but it had been used many times before so to give our product a different name, we prefixed it with Teri Meri, thus it became ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyan’. Then, we asked Shuja Haider to use his track by the same name to use as the title song of our film. We were sure as the song is already famous, it would register with the audience easily and an added advantage for our film. Moreover, though we have three different films with different names in this project, we are promoting them under one name ‘Teri Meri Kahaniyan’ to minimise the confusion for the viewers.

You! Do you have plans to make more films?

IH: We have two more big films in the pipeline. We want to give some solid entertaining movies to our audience.

Pictures courtesy: Seeme Productions