FiLUMS 2012 – driving a cinematic revival

FiLUMS 2012 was the 7th annual film-festival at LUMS. After receiving over 250 entries last year (out of which 150 were international) FiLUMS was set to create another high benchmark for itself this year. This year again, the festival was held in the freezing rain-ridden days of February – from the 10th to 12th of February at LUMS, much to the delight of film enthusiasts and aspiring film makers. The event was attended by youngsters interested in learning the art of film-making and documentary making as they were treated to a series of workshops by leading film-makers from all over the country. Short listed entries from the participants were screened throughout the three-day event. Not only that, but the event also had two premieres of upcoming films and then culminated in an Awards Night and Dinner on the 12th.
The first day of FiLUMS began with a concoction of screenings of short listed entries and ended with the premiere of the upcoming movie ‘Dusk’. The star-studded event was attended by the director of the venture Zeeshan Kazmi, producer Wajahat Kazmi and actress Zeb Rehman (who garnered fame for her role in Bol). The movie, based on the life of a young doctor who gets kidnapped and the trauma his wife consequently goes through, was well received by the interactive audience who later went on to participate actively in the Q and A session the ensued.
Day2 continued with the screenings but there were multiple workshops scheduled later for the day. The first workshop was by Samar Minallah, who is known for her documentaries like “Bibi Shireeney” and upcoming documentary on child labour, “I have a dream.” She showed clips from her work which left the audience almost in tears as they encompassed important issues like correct treatment of acid victims, eradication of swara. She talked to her audience about the importance of motivation and inspiration in a field such as that of documentary-making and also highlighted the fact that having a skilled technical crew is not imperative to make an effective documentary; even a mobile camera can be enough to render the job done. Later on that night Minallah’s latest documentary ‘I have a dream’ was premiered. Samar Minallah is not just a director; she is a humanistic story-teller and once again her work managed to touch the hearts of the audience and left them in contemplation. Another workshop was conducted by Sarah Tareen, who has worked alongside British Director Steve Moore to make the upcoming feature-length film Tamanna.
FiLUMS day3 had more workshops in store for the participants, so the participants would leave at the end with greater knowledge of the dynamics of film-makings by getting the information firsthand from professionals themselves. Apart from screenings of all the remaining short listed entries, as well as a special screening of Host Team’s choice entries, the highlights of the day were the two workshops. The first workshop was conducted by Bilal Lashari, who has not only gathered acclaim for his work in directing innovative music videos but is now creating a storm with his upcoming film “Waar” featuring Shaan. He talked to the participants about his film, as well as shared insightful tips with them and we too hope that many would follow his footsteps as we need the youngsters to step up and create waves with better work in all fields, especially film-making. We want FiLUMS to provide that spark which will drive the much-needed cinematic revival in Pakistan. Also, we had another great workshop by Veteran Director Syed Noor, with whom the participants had a very useful and memorable interaction. The event ended with Awards given out to best entries and a dinner afterwards.