KARACHI: To celebrate the start of the 6th KaraFilm Festival, titled, Tammanna ka chhatta qaddam – hundreds of invitees were treated to a grand affair at the Mohatta Palace Museum on Thursday. Despite chilling temperatures the crowd sat through the proceedings which began with a lavish dinner and ended on the musical notes rendered by the Mikaal Hasan Band.

To acquaint the guests on the screenings included in the current festival, medleys on each of the three categories of films were shown which included one on short films, on documentaries and one on feature films. This year a total of over 170 films are scheduled to be screened which include over 40 feature films, more than 30 documentaries and 95 shortfilms from 37 different countries.

Speaking on the occasion, Festival Director Hasan Zaidi – also the main protagonist responsible for creating the Festival – spoke on the present and future scope of the KaraFilm Society. He explained how the venture began on a much smaller scale six years ago, when the main agenda was to create a space for alternative cinema.

Informing the future plans of the Society which has grown immensely over the years and which has now become a filmmakers’ hub for private movie makers from Pakistan and elsewhere, he announced a road-map of sorts which would include a workshop based training academy for new filmmakers; a distribution network to facilitate the release of films by private entrepreneurs, plus a film club where activities such as are included during the KaraFilm Festival will continue.

The Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad, who was the chief guest at the occasion, taking Hasan’s ideas further, announced that the city government would go all out in facilitating the plans outlined by Zaidi and even offered the premises for the kind of cultural complex that the Kara society envisages for its screenings and other media-related activities throughout the year.

Sprinkling the evening’s programme with bits of humour were the speeches of some of the celebrities invited to speak on the occasion. Celebrated Indian filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who has been gracing the festival for the past successive years, acknowledged how the Kara festival has given alternative cinema a revival in Pakistan and even in South Asia.

He also praised the city of Karachi at length and told the audience how his love for Karachi has grown, a city which he finds exceptionally ‘glamorous’. Accompanying him to the festival is Gulshan Grover, another notable star of the Indian film industry.

It was Omar Sharif however, who brought on the laughs especially during his repartee with Mr Grover, who is known for his roles as a villain in Indian films. The many eminent media personalities who were in attendance during the inauguration ceremony of the highly anticipated ten-day event taking place from December 7 to 17 were than treated to the music performance of Mekaal Hasan Band who, with his deep study of music and the accompanying vocals of Riaz Ali Khan, Javed Bashir and Muhammad Ahsan on his flute has been consistently maintaining high standards in fusion music in Pakistan.—Staff Reporter