Afrah Jamal

Published in Daily Times / Saturday, March 31, 2012 / Under the Title of: And Then There Was One ...? Reviewed by Afrah Jamal To enter Panem, built atop the ashes of a civilization, one must walk past its impoverished 99% living under the spell of a shiny Capitol and remain unfazed at its fondness for teenage death matches. Suzanne Collins envisions a future that thrives on pageantry and the class divide, has ghoulish cravings and a weakness for heartrending reality TV. It summons young contestants or tributes, as they are called, from 12 starving districts to take part in games with ridiculously high stakes. For some, this is considered fun. Navigating this cold, comfortless terrain shrouded in gloom, one comes across a familiar soundtrack of hunger, violence, media circuses and rebellion from this era running unobtrusively in the background. Katniss Everdeen, a resourceful 16 year old, narrates her life of hardship in the coal mining district simply known as District 12, shar...

At Book signing with Irfan Husain- Author of Fatal Fault-lines Pakistan, Islam & the West Liberty Books at Beach Luxury Le Book Signing Irfan Husain with Moderator Zohra Yusuf Chairperson HR Commission Pakistan & an EXPRESS Tribune fotog Asif Noorani At Q/A Session (Below) What I was aiming for.. (From Sarah Haris's Album) All Images Copyright to Moi

First Published in Daily Times /Saturday, March 17, 2012 Elegiac laments for a fading film industry are interrupted midway with news that could give the documentary film medium at least a new lease of life . It owes its resurrection to a young filmmaker, who mined troubling sound-bytes overheard in theatres where war, injustice or social disparity reigns supreme. Clips aired at the third Karachi Literature Festival (KLF) held earlier this year provided glimpses of her work, including the internationally acclaimed ‘Saving Face’. At the time, she had an Emmy stacked away for one documentary and was just weeks away from winning an Academy Award for another. At the time, she had been relentlessly crusading to rid societies of those anachronistic practices (among other ills) that weigh them down in the modern world. And — despite these glittering credentials — her work was largely unknown amongst Pakistanis. The young Oscar nominee who took the stage that day would soon be the face o...