Afrah Jamal

Published (sans my name) in Daily Times / Karachi pages 28 Sep 2014. Hope someone fixes the mistake in their online edition. Thank you Pheby Haroon for the invite. NY Times casts Afghanistan in a new role as the ‘Saudi Arabia of Lithium’. A spy thriller that views the discovery of mineral wealth as a double edged sword is coming soon. ‘O21’ reserves this backdrop, and envisions the regional implications from the resultant tug of war between powerbrokers / allies clamoring for their share. While the premise spawns endless conspiracy theories, espionage appears to be a logical extension of the counter-terrorism angle. The Af-Pak / US trinity becomes the perfect foil for those driven by a desire to put events on this side of Durand line in context. Before ‘O21’ makes its official debut, the press were invited to Nueplex Cinemas (Karachi) to meet the cast. Among them was Azaan Sami Khan – CEO, ‘One Motion Pictures’. It is his first undertaking as a producer. The mantle of execut...

Published in Economic Affairs / Nov 2013 One day an actress, a filmmaker, a director and a distributor gathered to talk shop over tea. Even though a regional film had won at the NY City International film festival, and another cleaned up the local box-office a few years ago, the obituary for the Pakistani cinema was delivered a while ago. It was to remain uncontested for a long time. Film buffs were left wondering why not a single award winning film (Seedlings) or documentary ( Saving Face) had been screened in the gleaming new cinemas; or where that little advertised indie horror flick disappeared to, moments after its debut. And do local movies even stand a chance against the distributor’s bottom line, or space unfairly reserved for the Indian blockbuster for that matter. Mandviwalla opened the gateway to neighbouring cinema and fielded objections of an uneven playing field with a shrug - good Pakistani movies need not fear any Indian invasion in his view. A few months pass. T...

First Published in Daily Times (Pakistan) / 11 May 2013 (Election Day) Published under the Title : Lights, Camera, Action, Vote "Let no man imagine that he has no influence. Whoever he may be and whereever he may be placed, the man who ‘thinks’ becomes a light and power” — Henry George . The city has been overrun by campaign slogans; the cinema, on the other hand, was adorned by Chambaili banners. Everyone knows this is not a real party. But it symbolises real change. Those who have been to the fictional land not that far away, with gateways guarded by giant statues of Pharaohs and where a man named Musa (Moses) is the face of its modern day resistance movement will understand the significance of Chambaili. Falakabad comes with a ruling class, a package deal of tyrants and their inept progenies, its institutions in need of immediate rebooting and the landscape marred by a dreadful state of status quo. The oppressed occupants of this Godforsaken land count the days when ...