KARACHI: It was a star-studded event attended by a big number of members of the showbiz community and media at a local restaurant on Friday evening organised to announce a feature film titled Sorry — A Love Story written and directed by Sohail Javed.

The film has been produced by actor Faysal Qureshi, who, along with the other principal actors in the project –– Aamina Sheikh, Zahid Ahmed and Sonya Husain –– addressed the media and later answered their questions.

Responding to a question asked by the host for the evening Khalid Malik, Qureshi said he would be acting in a film after 18 years, and went down memory lane to contextualise his reappearance in the movie industry. When he was known as a movie actor, director (late) M. Javed Fazil offered him a part for a TV play. He asked him why should he do a television show when he was happy doing movies. Fazil replied that in the next 20 years digital media would take over, and the film industry would grow from Karachi. He was right.

Shedding light on the reason for accepting Sorry as a project, Qureshi said one day while he was in Javed’s car heading towards his home, the latter narrated to him a couple of stories and he liked and said ‘yes’ to the plot of Sorry. Answering a question put to him by a journalist, he said he would like to tell a story the way it used to be told in Pakistan when actors such as Nadeem Baig (who was in the audience) were active in the industry.

Sheikh claimed she’s blessed. She said it was a big deal for her that Qureshi had selected her for his first production. She added when Javed first read to her the story of the film she could not help crying profusely. “I’m looking forward to it [project].”

Ahmed said he received a call from Qureshi to discuss a script. He called himself extremely blessed and fortunate to be sharing the stage with such wonderful actors at the presser, and highlighted that the film was driven by its characters.

Husain said she was excited to act in the film. She also talked about a meeting of the cast with the director that took place the day before in which she read the script one more time and found it engaging.

Javed, who is known for his music videos, argued he didn’t like the divide between commercial and parallel cinemas. It’s all about telling a story. All he’s trying to do is to tell his story with honesty and a fair degree of risk.

Sorry, which has seven songs, is slated to release next year.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2018