LAHORE: The three-day 7th Faiz Festival will be held for the literature, art and music enthusiasts from Feb 17 to 19 at Alhamra Art Center, The Mall featuring many sessions and personalities from literature, film, music and art, Faiz Foundation Trust trustee Moneeza Hashmi told Dawn.

She said the festival would be organised by the Faiz Foundation Trust in collaboration with the Lahore Arts Council (LAC).

“There will be a line-up of personalities, sessions and music at the festival,” she added.

The students of the Ghalib Road and Johar Town branches of the Lahore Grammar School (LGS) would also perform to the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz besides there would be an exhibition featuring a rare collection of photographs of the poet like the previous editions. There will be seven book launches during the festival.

Urdu translations of Ms Hashmi’s book, Conversations with My Father and Ali Madeeh Hashmi’s Love and Revolution: A Biography of Faiz would also be launched besides short fiction anthology, edited by Sehyr Mirza, Sarwat Mohyeddin’s book on Punjabi poetry and two books from Amritsar.

Zehra Nigah will be in conversation with Dr Arfa Sayeda Zehra about Faiz. Tributes would be paid to Nayyara Noor,

including a talk by Arshad Mehmood, Khawja Najam and Sheheryar Zaidi and performance by the singers from Karachi who would sing popular songs sung by Nayyara Noor, composed and directed by Arshad Mehmood.

There would also be a tribute to the PTV’s popular show Such Gup. The skits would be old with the same artistes, including Navid Shahzad, Salima Hashmi, Arshad Mehmood, Irfan Khoosat and Adeel Hashmi. She said there would be a tribute to Bushra Rehman.

Neelam Ahmad Bashir, Amna Mufti and Tanveer Anjum will talk about Bushra. A session on ‘Female Representation in Pakistani Cinema’ will have Sajal Ali, Samia Mumtaz, Sania Saeed and Simi Raheal as participants. There will also be a special session with Sarmad Khoosat discussing his development as a film director.

Ms Hashmi said there will be a novel line-up of performances, including those by Shafqat Amanat Ali, Laal Band and Rizwan Wali Muhammad, the son of late popular singer Wali Muhammad. Zia Mohyeddin will do readings and recite Faiz’ poetry. Farah Yasmin Sheikh is specially coming from San Francisco, USA, with her troupe to perform Kathak while classical dancer Adnan Jahangir and Yousaf Kerai from Karachi would also perform.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2023