2024 is going to be a good year for Pakistani film and television, because never before 2023 had so many young, old, new, seasoned playwrights, directors, actors, producers, come up so prolifically on the same platforms. And we are excited about the fresh talent we have discovered in the last year, because it means we get to watch their portfolios unfold in front of us in the years to come.

Stars Are Born: Ramesha Nawal &
Omar Javaid

To say that both Nawal and Javaid hold that special something, that star quality, abundant talent, would all be understating how magical they are onscreen. Making their debuts with Zarrar Kahn’s In Flames late last year, Ramesha Nawal and Omar Javaid played the characters of two very regular kids who fall into the most irregular circumstances with such ease that one could be fooled into thinking neither of them is acting at all.

Determined To Dream: Iram Parveen Bilal

The first time Iram Parveen Bilal first clocked on our radars with Josh, which released in Pakistan in 2013. Though set in a very urban Karachi, the film took us to rural systems of governance in Pakistan. With Wakhri, Bilal still rages on in her mission to educate, empower, and where she can’t change what has already been done, rewrite the story to what she would have liked to see.

“As an engineer turned filmmaker belonging to a non-artsy middle class scientist family, It has been a very challenging, yet fulfilling 15 years in this industry for me, where growth of self and craft has been the main target and desire,” says Bilal. “I hope that the stories that I’ve been fortunate enough to tell will provoke thought, inspire us, and encourage us to be more empathic and actively engaged in the betterment of the world we live in. At the end of the day, if an audience member walks out of the theater moved to act and/or think about something that they have not thought about before, I feel my job as a storyteller is done.”

Styling Stars: Fizza Ejaz & Faiz Rohani

When we think of stylists, we will always think of the super-talented people behind red carpet looks, fashion shoots and catalogs. What we kind of never think of are the people styling for films and TV series. Faiz Rohani and Fizza Ejaz, who both went on to style for TV, commercials, and films after working in PR and finding they have a knack for dressing people up, often work together, and in the last couple of years have done some really fun projects.

They styled for the part-period Canadian film, The Queen Of My Dreams, and have worked on the Pakistani spell of a Netflix series. Rohani’s first styling gig was for a TV series, before moving on to his first film, Heer Maan Ja, and later, Khel Khel Mein. Ejaz mentions styling Asim Azhar and Hania Aamir for a commercial web series as well as Mahira Khan starrer Aik Hai Nigar, as projects that have stood out for her.