THE last two years have been very rocky for the KaraFilm Festival. We were forced to postpone the 7th festival twice in 2007 and 2008 because of issues related to security, as well as to a continuing political upheaval in the country, that perhaps did not allow government officials to find time to address any of our concerns.

This was disappointing not only for all the tens of thousands of people who look forward to the festival each year but also for us, who had invested so much time and effort — all of it on a purely voluntary basis — in gathering films, making selections, securing venues, building linkages with filmmakers and institutions and preparing for the spectacle.

We have done it for the last eight years because we feel this is important, for arts and culture in Pakistan and for the city of Karachi. If there is one thing you can be sure of, it is that the festival not being held over the last two years was not due to a lack of effort or will on our part.

When we grudgingly rescheduled the festival for February this year, we knew in our hearts that this was our final chance to salvage it.

We understood perfectly that the prestige and credibility that we had worked so hard over the last eight years to attain for the festival could not survive another postponement.

Unfortunately, we have now been hit by the disaster that is the global economic recession. Most of our sponsors, including our title sponsor, have backed out of their commitment to support the festival, citing the economic downturn.

Even more unfortunately, this has been done at the very last minute, leaving us little time to raise the funds required.

So does this mean we are not going to have the festival? No. A thousand times no! We have seen what the festival is capable of achieving.

We have seen how it has revitalised a cinema culture in Pakistan, built bridges between Pakistani and international filmmakers, initiated an environment of debate and inter-cultural tolerance and encouraged creativity, especially among the youth. And we have given too much of our lives and have too many hopes for it to let it die.

We intend to go ahead on the scheduled dates (Feb 4-15) even if it means we have to drastically scale back the activities, cut down on venues and screenings and apologise to invited guests for being unable to bring them to Karachi.

We will have the festival regardless but how much of it we can pull off depends entirely on how much we can afford. We intend to carry on against all the odds.

We are putting in all the resources at our disposal to run a very barebones festival and are still coming up short. We still need to raise some Rs5 million. Simply put, we need all the financial help we can get at this time. I realise that these are not easy times for anyone but, perhaps, if all those thousands of people who support the festival and its aims were to contribute even as little as Rs1,000 each, we can raise enough to pull this off.

So if you would like to see this festival continue, I hope you will consider backing up your good intentions with a donation. All contributions will be utilised only for the costs of the 7th KaraFilm Festival and will be acknowledged and accounted for. And that we will continue the fight.

For details karafilm.festival@gmail.com

HASAN ZAIDI

Director, KaraFilm Festival Karachi