Ten years after making Partition drama 'Khamosh Pani', Pakistani director Sabiha Sumar is back with her second film 'Good Morning Karachi', a coming-of-age story about an aspiring billboard model as she navigates her way through tradition and modernity in the country.
Sumar said it took her close to a decade to make her second feature film because it was hard raising funds in Pakistan as an independent filmmaker. The director, however, says cinemas are opening up and it is an exciting time for artistes in Pakistan.
"This is the year that things are opening up in Pakistan but I have been working on the script and trying to raise funds for a long time. We only finished the final cut this year but the film was made earlier. It was hard to raise funds. All the money on this film has come from outside," Sumar said in an interview on the sidelines of Mumbai Film Festival where she screened the film in the 'Film India Worldwide' section, curated by Uma Da Cunha.
"I remember, when I made 'Khamosh Pani', it was a time when cinemas were razed to the ground. Palace cinema where I watched films like 'All the President's Men' and 'Blow-up' was no longer there when I came back from the university," she added.
The director believes Pakistan paid a price for putting down "the arts in such a harsh way".
"We paid a horrendous price for it and we hope that we have learnt from that. I hope cinema will be used to do good because that's what it should be doing. It should be a vehicle to give more progressive ideas for us to grow and understand how we can influence the way we see the world sees us," she said.
