FILM and discussion with filmmaker: Zinda Bhaag

Please join us for a screening and discussion of Zinda Bhaag, followed by a discussion with filmmaker Meenu Gaur, moderated by Saadia Toor.

November 3, 2014

7:00-9:00PM

Room C198

Graduate Center, CUNY

New-Poster-clean


What makes a man step into a cargo container that is going to be sealed for days? Why does he step into a flimsy overloaded boat to face a stormy sea? Or dart across international borders dodging bullets? What are the compulsions faced by men in Pakistan, which make them take extreme risks to chase a mirage of a secure future in alien lands?

Set against the backdrop of the world of illegal immigration, Zinda Bhaag is a film about three young men trying to escape the reality of their everyday lives … and succeeding in ways they had least expected.

In Samnabad, a nondescript neighbourhood of Lahore, three friends are desperate to get on to the fast track to success. Khaldi, Taambi and Chitta, all in their early twenties, believe that the only way out … is to the West.

The journey that unfolds through the story of this film gives us a peep into what constitutes the everyday in the lives of many young men and women in Pakistan – a sense of entitlement that cannot be fulfilled, desperation to somehow prove themselves in the face of all legitimate doors being locked and an ennui from which they feel there is no getaway.

“Zinda Bhaag (Run for your life), Pakistan’s first official Oscar entry in 50 years is a surprisingly realistic slice-of- life depiction of life in Lahore. It is a discourse on a crucial global topic, illegal immigration and human trafficking and yet it is also a breath of fresh air with funky costumes, exaggerated yet marvellous acting, and sparkling comic dialogue. The film has won several awards in International film festivals and critics have called it “the best film to have come out of modern day Pakistani cinema”(The Express Tribune, Pakistan), “the new metaphor for Pakistani cinema”(The Hindu, India) and noted critic Robert Abele in the LA TIMES called the film “thoughtful”and said that the film “bode(d) well for the possibility of noteworthy Pakistani imports in years to come”.

(- http://www.silkscreenfestival.org/film-fest/zhinda-bhaag/#sthash.vXeqGi6U.dpuf).

 

Meenu Gaur, co-director and writer of Zinda Bhaag (Run for your life, 2013) completed her PhD in Film and Media Studies from the University of London in 2010. She is the co-editor of the book ‘Indian Mass Media and the Politics of Change’, published by Routledge 2011 and distributed by OUP Pakistan. She is also the co-director of the award winning documentary film, ‘Paradise On a River of Hell’.

Mazhar Zaidi, Producer of Zinda Bhaag (Run for your life, 2013) has been working as a journalist and filmmaker for over 20 years. As a journalist he has worked with BBC World Service in London and headed the department of documentaries and current affairs at Pakistan’s leading English language TV channel, Dawn news from 2008 to 2010. He has made several documentaries including, ‘Nar Narman,’ and ‘F E Choudhry’s Pakistan’ (2014).

Saadia Toor is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the College of Staten Island, CUNY.  Her scholarship revolves around issues of culture, nationalism, gender/sexuality, state formation, and international political economy. She is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled The State of Islam?: Culture and Cold War Politics in Pakistan.

 

This event is sponsored by the Center for Place, Culture and Politics

 

 

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