It was only early this year when discussions at literature festivals and on television bemoaned the decline of Pakistani cinema and questioned whether it will rise again. At the same time, noises were made by industry insiders about projects in the pipelines. Those promises seem to be materialising. Quite a few films have been recently released, some of which have done well at the box office.

Several sessions at the Khayaal Festival were dominated by the cinema. They either discussed the newly-released films or talked about the upcoming ones. Excited writers, directors and producers gave further details about their projects on the sidelines of the festival.

In a session devoted to readings of Saadat Hasan Manto’s work, Sarmad Khoosat showed a 20-minute presentation on his upcoming film, Main Manto, scripted by Shahid Nadeem. Expected to be released early next year, the film is a TV-star heavy take on the writer’s life with Khoosat playing the lead role and Sania Saeed playing Manto’s wife Safia. Watching the clips, one experienced a rollercoaster of emotions — confusion, shock, delight, repulsion and heartache, an experience similar to that of reading Manto’s works. Particularly interesting was the interweaving of Manto’s short stories, essays and radio plays into the biographical narrative.

The session ‘Lights, Camera, Action’, with the production teams and actors of Waar and Main Hoon Shahid Afridi, drew one of the biggest crowds at the festival. It was moderated by Shehnaz Sheikh, the star of drama serials Ankahi and Tanhaiyyan, who came across as a gushing fan of the films and asked simplistic questions. Luckily there were some challenging ones put forth by the audience members that led to a spirited debate. One audience member berated Bilal Lashari for making a film that did not challenge the popular narrative of conspiracy theories and showcased patriotism based on the hatred for another country. Another person criticised the liberal use of curse words in the film. At this, some Waar fans stood up to defend the movie, calling it a “strong film” and “a film that makes us proud”.

The hangover from Waar carried into the talk with Zeba Bakhtiar who said that it was the film-makers decision to make a film in whatever language they prefer — be it English (Waar) or Punjabi (Zinda Bhaag). She also pointed towards the lack of scriptwriters and urged young people to venture into scriptwriting.

At the sidelines of the festival, Bakhtiar shared details of the upcoming film that is being produced by her and her son, Azaan Sami Khan. Scripted by Summer Nicks (writer of the film Seedlings/Lamha) and co-directed by Nicks and Jami, Operation 021’s cast includes Shaan, Aamina Sheikh, Shamoon Abbasi and Gohar Rasheed. It looks at the supply of provisions for Nato through Pakistan and the recruitment of Pakistanis by the CIA. The plan is to release it early next year.

At yet another cinema-focused discussion, ‘Pakistani Cinema Today,’ one was confounded by some of the patronising questions and inaccurate facts put forth by seasoned TV journalist Abdur Rauf (host of ‘Pachaas Minute’) to the team of Zinda Bhaag. Meenu Gaur, the co-director, was asked if, as an Indian, she could compare Indian and Pakistani cinemas. Her sensible reply was that it would be “unfair to compare the two industries as they have separate trajectories. The Pakistani film industry has been affected largely by government policies and politics of the country. At the moment Pakistan is going through a resurgence of cinema with the public returning to cinemas and Pakistanis with foreign film degrees returning home to utilise their education.”

The film-makers were also queried about Zinda Bhaag’s Oscar “nomination”. They clarified that while it had been submitted for consideration in the foreign film category, to promote it they would have to hire a publicist to lobby it to the academy members, a route they were reluctant to take as it’s an independent film and they are happy with the support that have received from their fraternity. Behind-the-scenes footage of Zinda Bhaag was also shown, including a short interview of Yaqoob Atif Bulbula, the actual singer of the folk song ‘Pani Da Bulbula’. The translator of the song in English, Arif Waqar, was sitting among the audience and received generous applause.

Although the session ‘The Love Song of Pakistan,’ with ghazal royalty Farida Khanum and Ghulam Ali and wonderfully moderated by Ali Sethi, was as such not directly related to film, Sethi said after the session that he has been working on a documentary on Farida Khanum for the last five years and archiving her music. Given that Sethi did such a good job drawing out ghazal secrets from both Farida Khanum and Ghulam Ali and explaining the genre for the general public, this documentary is going to be worth watching.