The director of the two hard-hitting Pakistani films ‘Khuda Ke Liye’ and ‘Bol’, which left a deep impact on both sides of the border, is all set to make his third film. This time he moves out of his home territory to focus on a much wider issue. The thorny Indo-Pak relations.Mansoor’s two feature-films so far have dealt with the socio-cultural, religious and political malaise in Pakistan. He has been seriously threatened for raising his voice against Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan. He is now ready to do his third feature film. It would be a love story set during the 1947 Partition of India into two nations. Speaking from his home, Mansoor said, “I’ve been deeply troubled by the deteriorating relations between the two countries. For too long now we’ve been blaming extraneous forces and a third party for the decline in friendship between the two nations. Why not look within ourselves for reasons why the bonding across the border has taken such a beating?” Since the release of the widely-acclaimed ‘Bol’ in 2011 Mansoor has been putting finishing touches to his long-in-the-writing screenplay for his Indo-Pak love story. Now he’s ready to tell his story. “It cannot be a superficial boy-meets-girl-across-the-barbed-wire-fence story. Cinema in both countries needs to go deeper to pin down the reasons for the rapidly deteriorating relations between India and Pakistan,” says Mansoor.
