KARACHI: The press conference on Tuesday evening at a local hotel for an upcoming film Money Back Guarantee,which will be released on Eidul Fitr, turned out to be a mixed bag. Most of the main actors who will be seen in the movie — Mikaal Zulfiqar, Shayan Khan, Mani, Kiran Malik, Ayesha Omer and Marhoom Ahmed Bilal — along with its writer and director Faisal Qureshi appeared on stage and a couple of them immediately started making comments that were meant to be funny. One of them tried to make a sarky remark on Fawad Khan’s arrogance after which Fawad Khan came on stage and joined his colleagues. It was all in jest.

Perhaps realising that more doses of funniness were required, mimic Shafaat Ali Khan emerged from the background to stand behind the podium in the role of former US president Donald Trump. One is still trying to figure out, since one hasn’t seen Money Back Guarantee, whether he was there to hint at a certain contextual component of the story or to crack jokes in general — because his jokes landed in no man’s land.

Responding to a question, Fawad Khan said he has a small role in the film. “In all honesty, I think this movie is a first of its kind, the first attempt at a political satire… Everyone at the censor board had a big laugh. Hope you guys will enjoy it.”

Mikaal Zulfiqar said the venture is “really entertaining” and that it’s on an interesting topic.

Shayan Khan said the project has an “ensemble cast”.

Ayesha Omer narrated her experience working in the film and mentioned that a few of her other movies will also see the light of day.

In reply to a query about the consequences of writing satire because politicians tend to mind such things, Faisal Qureshi said he felt that if he wrote the story in fear, it would turn out to be a half-hearted affair.

“If you want to write something, write it openly (khul ke). At the time [of writing] I thought if I were to censor myself, then people would not enjoy it. I kept writing and everything fell into place… And it’s not just about Pakistan. You’ll find such situations in many other countries where people will be able to relate to it,” he said.

Afterwards, the actors spoke about their memorable moments from the project. Fawad Khan said he ended up slicing up the tip of his thumb comparing in a non-competitive way the incident to Leonardo DiCaprio’s when the Hollywood star cut his hand during the filming of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and it made it into the final version of the movie; Khan’s didn’t.

The rest of the cast, among others, includes cricketer Wasim Akram and Javed Sheikh.

Published in Dawn, April 12th, 2023