Being a Pakistani, when surrounded by a large group of people, I have a natural tendency to… explode through ideas of course. Last night at the Prime Cuts Film Festival, I made some comments on stage with regard to how the independent filmmakers I meet here seem to be so occupied with just… trying to be filmmakers. Where all they seem to be doing is getting themselves in to projects so that they get the high of feeling like a filmmaker, maybe by calling themselves a filmmaker and projecting themselves as the enigmatic brilliant masters of artistry. All this is fine until the point that they lose touch of the audience and leave them without any entertainment.

It seems like my comment on stage was taken more like as if I was saying “attention filmmakers, stop expressing yourselves and start making circus acrobat videos that are oozing with flashy entertainment”. None of my words indicated any such thing at all. I stated filmmakers I come across seem too obsessed with the idea of being a filmmaker and not having the primary concern be the audience or their time. I am not referring to any movie that played yesterday at all. This is not about yesterday’s screening. I am referring to a larger problem that we as audiences come across with independent filmmakers. Imagine this, if you were to tell your friend that you went on a vacation to mexico and it was great, but you can’t use any comprehensible language you and your friends share, you can only use your inner mind language of feelings and emotions, making weird sounds that make no sense and then consider your friend not smart enough for not “getting” the deep emotions you meant to convey. Is that fair to your friend? When someone from the audience doesn’t get the filmmaker’s work, the filmmaker may even fold their arms and consider the audience member ‘not smart enough’ to appreciate the masterpiece.

Many people think I say these things because I don’t understand their art. In reality, I actually used to make deep complicated experimental art films and artworks. I have seen all of this expressionism and I speak from what I have learned and how I have changed. Once I worked my ass off for 3 months after leaving my job to make a 2.5 minute film. Even though that project is still well received in the filmmakers circle and has a niche audience because of the poet I was covering, I found myself not connecting with the audience as intensely as I would like to. When it came to playing inside a theater, I could find audience members yawning. I want to do better for these audience members, I want to express myself without losing touch. I have learned and changed.

The belief I expressed on stage is that if your film is entirely You, you, you and your feelings and your expression to a point that you have negligible regard for the audience’s experience, you’re probably better off putting such a personal self-indulgent piece online. When I said this last part, one of the filmmakers sitting next to me, Anton added to the conversation “so confusing, so confusing”. Certainly, with very much respect, I understand that it is confusing. That is EXACTLY why I am asking: What is so confusing? Almost the entire theater audience got what I was saying, all while applauding in agreement. Doesn’t anyone find it strange that during the same applause, there were filmmakers in the same theater, who expect these same audiences to show up at their own films while still disagreeing with them.

The core of the problem in my opinion is at filmmakers focusing on being more and more intense “filmmakers” where it is actually an identity of sort. Its like a role they are playing in society of being some intellectual beacon of their own expression. Again, this is all fine to me until the point where the start loosing touch with the reality… the audience. Sometimes I feel like we as independent filmmakers are trying to be so different from Hollywood, that the word “entertainment” is like what the word “homosexuality” is to conservative societies. As if admitting to making a film for the sake of just entertaining is an act below morals. Entertainmophobes? Look… you can have the most interesting thing in the world to say in your movie as long as the “world” we are talking about is the one behind your two eyes. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying don’t share that interesting thing. I am saying as a filmmaker inviting people in to theaters, you have the responsibility to learn and work on making that interesting thing interesting for the world everyone else shares! Not just yours.

From my learning experiences, what I want to share with filmmakers is this message. Stop having exclusive one sided relationships with these lifeless film equipments. Yes these dollys, lenses, crains and editing softwares are the shiz! it’s great to own them and be able to use them, but don’t forget that their value is not even a lousy knock-off match compared the value of a single human being’s experience. That experience, my friends… is a greater love. If you want to love something, love that. Once you fall in love with the audience, you will find yourself developing special concerns about when your “love” is smiling, when they are getting bored. How much you want to make them excited and how you want them to have a good time. You are a human and they are too, therefore this connection is a far greater source of energy that drives you to work, that drives you to use these equipments not for the sake of using them with mastery but for the sake of using them as a means to engage the audience. You will feel energized to learn the technicalities because the light at the end of the tunnel is brighter now…

Stop trying to fall in love with filmmaking.
Start trying to fall in love with people.

Ali Kapadia

Synopsis:

This film is based on Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem, Tum Yeh Kehtay Ho Ab Koee. The poem refers to the state of mind in a time of struggle, which in my opinion reflects current times for the people of our country. The project was done in reaction to what we, as Pakistanis have been going through from the past several year.

The film contains non-animated miniature sculptures and landscape that we shot on film.

Production Details:

The pre-production + set building took about 3 months, shooting took approx 4 days in total, post took approx 2 and a half months. It was shot on 35mm and is my first project on the film format. Camera used was Arriflex 435 Xtreme. Model scale was 1/32, which means that each character’s full height in a standing pose was just a bit over 2.1 inches. The full set area was 8×8 ft, all of the shooting with a crew of 15 people, lights and set was done in a total working space of approx 16x25ft. Got pretty cramped up and overheated during shoots. This was actually an empty mezzanine office that we rented out for 3 months, located in a shady badar commercial alley in Karachi, where the whole set was built from scratch, and where i kind of lived throughout. The project was intended to be a big glob of technical challenges where almost everything was a problem to be solved. The appropriate lens for such a project would have been something like a T-Rex Superscope System or the Revolution Lens System which are not available in the country and besides, even if they were, they cost a fortune just for a single day (like $1K/day for real). However we tried to replace the need for those by having a much more controlled and planned environment, using various pre-tested lenses in combination with adapters at times, and took this more as an experiment than actually a film. A small version of a crain within the space was used at times, sometimes in combination with a track dolly. A metal rig was built from scratch in the iron market near lalu khet, for precision controlled low radius circular camera motion. Actually the biggest challenge was to get the relatively humongous and heavy 35mm camera to capture these tiny objects steadily and smoothly while moving thru the set as desired and without loosing any focus, and focus is a b**** at this scale. Focus made us do things we would never do in the decency of public. Basically, during the shoot, if we tenderly touched the camera with the tip of our finger, the captured footage imitated a 7.5 earthquake. I was working with probably the most radical forward minded film crew in the country (Azad Film), they put up with every crazy thing i asked from them for the sake of precision, especially Farhan Hafeez – Cinematographer, who really put all his soul into this.

Here are pictures from the shoot. You can also view these pictures with more informative annotations on flickr.

The set ground is clay, mountains have a plaster base. The landscape was sculptured over 2 separate pieces of standard 4×8 plywood, joined or split apart depending on shot requirement. fog is mostly from fog generators, coal+lubhan, and sometimes cigarette smoke when in a smaller setting. Some props were made by hand, some props including characters were bought from hobby collection stores online, however all of these had to be repainted or modified to get the desired look. The shrubs are plant roots from an ancient big plant pot we stole from a bungalow in phase 6 (roots from new plants in the market just weren’t working for me). The sky is a back lit print, originally in bright blue shades which allowed better control over sky intensity in post production.

Video Making of the Film:

Watch the completed film here

Credits:

Written by Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Voice by Zia Mohyeddin, Produced by Jami – Azad Film Company.

Ali Kapadia – Director, Set, Art Dir, Edit, CG/Composit
Farhan Hafeez – Cinematographer, The most hard working dp in the country!
Khurram Baig – Assistant Director
Sohail Abdullah – Landscape Artist/Sculpture Supervisor

..full Credits at the end of the film

Important: This is an Azad Film Production. It is a completely non-profit film, which was impossible without the open hearted support and endless contribution of Jami, nothing would have happened without his support. Im greatly thankful to him for believing in this throughout from start till the very end.

The international media has always shown the Pakistani people reacting and protesting on TV screens, where the opinions of these people are expressed in minimized headlines, skimmed and forgotten. Behind each of these headlines, are real people, with real issues and perspectives.

This documentary explores the diverse spectrum of perspectives among Pakistanis, up close and personal, detailing the conflicts of opinions between them over various issues, in particular, the Facebook related blasphemy incident (also known as Draw Muhammad Day) which resulted in Pakistan’s authorities blocking major websites. The documentary goes beyond just that incident and touches other international issues too that cause reactions within the country.

Voices From Pakistan was actually made for the international audience, especially for the Scary Cow Independent Film Festival, where it also won the Judges Award.

This ad text says:


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Pakistanis love cricket and they love making money. Sometimes they combine the two with a good old Pakistani Match Fix so that the Black Caps get to win a game and the Pakistanis get a big cheque from the TAB

Daryl Tuffey.
Genuine all-rounder for Moa Beer
(Daryl Tuffey's endorsing signature)
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My first response was a disgruntled… “why insult all Pakistanis?”

My further investigation in to the ad’s page code revealed what Moa Brewery’s marketing department has been calling their little ad campaign stunt.

Paki, are we?… my second response was.. “Bhaaennnnchooooood!!! why the fuck are they messing with Pakistanis??!!!”. Excuse my French in the rest of the post, you have been Warned. Its just that this subject happens to be very… French, to me. Let me be clear, if you know me in person, you know I control my temper extremely well, I keep myself pleasantly composed and peaceful at all times for the love of those around me. You can never tell when I am actually angry, however… sometimes… rarely.. I come across just the right mix of spice, nice and douchebagery. These a-hole retardosauruses, ladies and gentlemen, have met that gold standard. They have messed with my nationality and everyone from my country, ridiculed its ethics as if their own bigoted view is really what’s just inherent in every Pakistani. I quote them “Is it Ethical. No. Is It Pakistani. Yes!”. They didn’t refer to some Pakistani institution or team, they said “Pakistanis”, all of us, they’re talking about me (and very likely you). Every huge problem is once a small ignored issue… Let me take a composed intellectual moment here to really reflect what I am doing here. You know, back in the 5th century, around about 510 BC, there was a brilliant Chinese social philosopher and master wise-man named Confucius, who once said… “when someone disrupts your peace… go fuck them up!” (or something like that).

Very well Confucius. I started composing a documentary film structure, synopsis and possible subjects to touch on. Footage research going parallel. Contacted journalists for new material I will release to them. Human rights workers for the different levels of rights Moa Brewery has taken the liberty of abusing, and how far Moa Brewery and particularly their Marketing Manager can be taken. Upon further research, I discovered that Moa Brewery had been repeatedly bugged in the media for their marketing stunt at the expense of Pakistanis. Here is one of the many articles online: Brewery takes aim at Pakistanis. You can google to find more, in summary, they pretty much refuse to apologize. Great, nice starting plot. Frankly speaking, actually whats happening here is that these marketing cowboys have purposefully come up with a “shock marketing stunt” (they had done something else targeting LGBT earlier) and they think they’ll just get away with offending an entire nationality, they think they’ll leave Pakistanis just mumbling and just refuse to apologize.

I composed myself and composed a reasonable argument and emailed it to their marketing manager. Thats the guy I want. I need to know that these guys are really assholes to the core and are in no way willing to compromise the ad.

To make sure I am heard, I took to twitter, first by responding to the tweet I discovered the shenanigans from.

I did not receive any reply to my tweet. Dug and found the twitter account for Moa’s marketing manager and bugged him there too.

It was starting to feel like I will be ignored. That.. pisses me off even more!
Now… I wanted Anonymous on their ass!!

Interesting enough, right when I mentioned anonymous in my tweets, is around when I received a tweet reply back.

Ok. Reasonable enough. I’ll calm down and figure out the contexts for the documentary meanwhile. Their tweet was at around 10:30am New Zealand time.

Entire work day in New Zealand passes by. I emailed them around 6:30pm New Zealand time.

This is when I also started tweeting everyone who was mentioning/tagging/discussing the Moa brand on twitter and requesting them to ask Moa to stop specifically targeted racist ad campaign against my ethnicity, got them aware. I also tweeted the following to Moa and Mr. Sunil.

Finally got a reply an hour later.

Let me make something clear here. I have a fairly well understanding of freedom of expression. One of my documentaries touched the subject. All of my protest has its strength only because its simply unjustifiable to attack an entire nationality/race/ethnicity and its a strong case. These guys of course have their right (to make themselves look like bigots), however fighting over someone ridiculing the cricket team is not what I personally see as a fight worth the while. If they choose to ridicule the team, which is already a public entity, I can’t do much about it because I am not the Pakistani cricket team. I am a Pakistani, I was born one and its my inherent identity. A blanket insult to all Pakistanis is far worst that ridiculing a scandal any team members were involved in. As far as the ad campaign offending Pakistanis is concerned, I can fight it and take it all the way till the end when they HAVE to give up. As long as they offend me, call me Paki, or Unethical by default, they have a terrible case to defend in front of all authorities and potential documentary viewers (which will exist if they continue to be inconsiderate and mess things up for themselves).

I added the following, hinting what was “really” expected of him to prevent this from turning in to a snake in the neck of his career.

The last line in the email above is my “yeh bhooka nanga kis ko kaha hai?” moment.

I am thankful to Mr. Sunil, that he understood what I was talking about in the rest of that email, and thought about how ugly this will get if he stayed in denial. 7 hours later. Behold..

Appeased I am! Here you go, this is the link where their online presence “used to be”. Click it and enjoy the view: The Moa Pakistani Backhander. Beautiful.

And by the way, to all those who say click activism doesn’t work… fuck you too!

Hugs n Kisses
Ali Kapadia



Update – Sep 7th, 2011: I came across some incorrect news claiming that PCB had gotten this ad to shut down. I was once asked to give them partial credit. I am very happy to give ‘credit’ to anyone who wants it, I really don’t care. My concern has been the racial prejudice against Pakistanis. For sake of clarity, the earliest report of PCB taking any notice is from 4th of September, over 2 days after the ad was shut down. There is no report of PCB threatening to take any legal action against Moa what so ever. They’ve recently stated that they will Not take legal action since the ad has been pulled down, dated 6th of September. My blog post has been up here since the 1st of September, the emails posted here date back till the 31st of August. Facts aside, I am happy to credit anyone who cares to have it.

He explained how all the participants seen in the video were computer generated at Geo TV labs by dangerous makrani scientists. He added that those Karachiites who are claiming that they actually attended the national anthem event are munafiqs. When asked about the ‘sensitivity’ of the situation by one of the urdu news reporters, he said “…khe khe khe”

Mr. Aamir Liaquat broke this news at a coffee shop in Zamzama, which he later also declared as being fake, adding that the girl at the counter was dubbed. Upon receiving the coffee-bill, he told his private security guard that the bill was wajib-ul-qatal. The guard yelled “kaalaa qanoooon!” and this broke a chaotic one sided fire fight as the bill was drilled down with bullets and everyone else ran out. When asked by one of our senior reporters Abdul Saleem, how a paper bill can be wajib-ul-qatal, Saleem was told he looked like the “tayri topi wala adakar”. This was followed by a 30 minute awkward silence as Mr. Liaquat tried to recall the adakar’s name. (kaun tha??)

As for the national anthem event, he used complicated scientific terms like “editing machine” and “synchronization” which convinced his followers that it was all indeed, fake. When asked about his own educational qualification being fake instead, he resigned from the interview and walked out in disgust, but suddenly stopped at the door of his car, turned back with confusion on his face, he looked towards one of the reporters, paused, and asked “ghalib film dekhi hai aap ne?”

 
Pakistan’s Advisor to the Chief Minister, Sharmila Farooqi is an obnoxious piece of work, but her recent display of fascist acrobatics steps up the game. This time, she finds herself super hulk enraged in a landing airplane, harasses passengers and airline crew, then physically assaults a passenger whose mistake was to be a gentleman and give her way when she was getting out. She then proceeds to cause obstructions for all the passengers moving out of the plane.. but what could have possibly pissed her off so much, you ask?… she was asked to put on her seatbelt! Outrageous I Say!!! How dare they ask her highness to do such a peasant like act!! My sympathies are with Sharmila and as a gesture of support, here’s my bright idea for a new business venture she should look in to..
 

Miss Fruity… cool it!

Love n Peace to the passengers,
Ali Kapadia

You know I love you. Ever since our eyes interlocked, nothing shakes my hot steamy love… except… when we go out, can you just not wear slogans that embarrass me! Here’s what my friends interpret when they read your slogan..

Go America:
YES YOU CAN AMERICA!! Just a few more wars!.. You can do it! Go! Go! Go!

Go America:
Everyone! Get a U.S. Visa and go to America! ..Yipee!

Go America:
Let’s go do things the American way! *electric guitar solo*

Go America:
You’re so Awesome America, we want to make monkey love to your economy.

Go America:
Oay America, go get me a glass of water.

Honey babe… get your giant ass banners in shape before their pictures publish in about every frekkin’ international paper!

Hugs n Kisses.
Ali Kapadia

I recently finished my film “Voices From Pakistan”, a short 20 minute documentary. The film gathers perspectives from a group of Pakistanis on some international issues that create unrest within their society, especially the recent facebook related blasphemy incident which got the country’s authorities to block major websites.

It explores the wide spectrum of opinions among Pakistanis and their sentiments… sentiments, which never come across the news headlines with Pakistan’s name in them.

Here is the trailer…

There are some interesting and often conflicting perspectives offered by these 5 distinct and actively involved Pakistanis..

Dr. Meraj-ul-Huda Siddiqui
Ameer, Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi

Salman Abedin
Media Strategist

Jami (Jamshed Mahmood Raza)
Filmmaker

Dr. Awab Alvi
Political Blogger, Philanthropist

Sabeen Mahmud
Activist, Director of PeaceNiche: A Community Space for Liberal Arts

Seerat 2: Ambulance Driver – Sajid Hussain

Seerat 3: Target Killing Attempt Survivor – Hafiz M. Waqas

Seerat 4: Philanthropist – Abdul Sattar Edhi

Seerat 5: Flood Victims Educator – Yasmin Nigar

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