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Pakistani filmmaker launches ‘central hub’ for local films at Cannes Film Festival

Pakistani filmmaker launches ‘central hub’ for local films at Cannes Film Festival
An undated file photo of Pakistani filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi. (Photo courtesy: mo_naqvi/Instagram)
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Updated 13 May 2024
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Pakistani filmmaker launches ‘central hub’ for local films at Cannes Film Festival

Pakistani filmmaker launches ‘central hub’ for local films at Cannes Film Festival
  • Pakistan Crescent Collective will represent Pakistan’s official presence at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival 
  • PCC will serve as “central hub” at week-long event at Cannes from May 14-20, promote Pakistani and diaspora films
Updated 13 May 2024
Arab News Pakistan
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Three-time Emmy-nominated filmmaker and Pakistani Academy Selection Committee Chairman Mohammed Ali Naqvi has launched the Pakistan Crescent Collective (PCC), representing Pakistan’s official presence at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival and marking the first time the country will have a central hub at the global event, a press release said on Monday. 

The PCC will serve as a “central hub” in a week-long event at Cannes from May 14-20 “to discover and nurture the next generation of talent, preserve films and promote Pakistani and diaspora films globally, thereby advancing Pakistan’s visual culture.”

“As one of the only countries without a central hub at Cannes, it’s imperative to launch initiatives like The Crescent Collective,” Naqvi was quoted as saying in a press release by Modoxy Media. “We are dedicated to championing Pakistani cinema and talent, both at home and abroad. It’s time to celebrate our own.”

Pakistan has made a significant impact at Cannes in recent years through the films Joyland in 2022 and last year’s In Flames, which were the country’s official submissions to the Academy Awards.

The Legend of Maula Jatt became the highest-grossing Pakistani film ever while Hollywood has also seen increased Pakistani representation, with Naqvi co-executive producing two seasons of the Netflix top ten hit, Turning Point: The Bomb & The Cold War and directing The Accused: Damned or Devoted?- the first Pakistani film nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. 

Ms. Marvel, the first Muslim-American superhero series, also showcased Pakistani-American talent, while Iram Parveen Bilal’s Wakhiri and Fawzia Mirza’s Queen of My Dreams have also been well received recently. 

“The Pakistan Crescent Collective aims to build on this momentum by launching a robust and comprehensive program for the 77th Cannes Film Festival which includes a filmmaker panel discussion and event following the preview screening for the highly anticipated ‘The Glassworker’,” the statement said, referring to Pakistan first 2D hand-painted traditional film.

The PCC will also be co-hosting the inauguration and reception for the world’s first South Asian Film Market, launched by the Oscar-qualifying Tasveer Film Festival. 

As part of the launch, Tasveer and the Pakistan Crescent Collective will co-host an exclusive speed networking event on the American Pavilion Terrace. Selected filmmaking teams will meet with established film financiers and funders to pitch their next project during a rapid round of networking, followed by a cocktail sundowner reception for all participants. This event is part of American Pavilion’s Global Lens Day.

Topics: Pakistani filmmaker Mohammed Ali Naqvi Pakistan Crescent Collective

Karachi’s iconic clock towers keep time and heritage alive for over a century

Karachi’s iconic clock towers keep time and heritage alive for over a century
Updated 6 sec ago
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Karachi’s iconic clock towers keep time and heritage alive for over a century

Karachi’s iconic clock towers keep time and heritage alive for over a century
  • Clocktowers were first introduced in the Indian Subcontinent during an exhibition by Bennett and Co. in Agra in 1867, researcher says
  • Most of the over a dozen clock towers scattered across Karachi have ceased functioning but serve as visual reminders of British colonial era
Updated 6 sec ago
NAIMAT KHAN

KARACHI: As the southern Pakistani city of Karachi evolves into a sprawling metropolis, one constant has stood the test of time: the rhythmic chime of its historic clock towers — relics of the British colonial era that serve not only as timekeepers but as enduring symbols of the rich history of the seaside metropolis. 
With over a dozen of these monuments scattered across the city, the clock towers remind residents of an era when punctuality and precision were highly valued. At the heart of this legacy lies the iconic clock tower atop the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) building. Built in 1935 to commemorate King George V’s Silver Jubilee, the historic timekeeper remains the only one still functioning on its original mechanics.
Each day, technician Saleem Ahmed Khan Zubairi climbs the five-story structure of the KMC building to maintain the clock’s intricate machinery. With a simple turn of a key, he sets the mechanism in motion and the clock’s chimes ring out through the bustling streets below.
“It’s been operating for nearly 90 years and is still in almost in perfect original condition,” 55-year-old Zubairi, who has been working at the clock tower for the last 15 years, told Arab News.
Most of the other 13 clocktowers documented by Arab News in Karachi have ceased functioning, now only serving as visual reminders of a bygone era.
“Only two [of Karachi’s clock towers] are in working condition. One of them, as you can see at the KMC Head Office, it is in 100 percent genuine condition,” Zubairi said. “The others, like Merewether Tower, are no longer genuine because electronic machines have been installed in it.”
The clock towers were more than just functional structures but also were symbolic of the value placed on time during the British colonial era, according to Shaheen Nauman, a researcher specializing in Karachi’s heritage buildings.
“These clock towers were built to instill a sense of time and its value in the local population,” Nauman explained, standing outside the Edulji Dinshaw Charitable Dispensary, the oldest clock tower in Karachi, built in 1882. “They [the British] not only valued it, but they also tried to inculcate this value in the natives of Karachi.”
Clock towers were first introduced in the Indian Subcontinent during an exhibition by Bennett and Co. in Agra in 1867, according to Nauman, referring to a company owned by Sir John Bennett (1814-1897), a clock and watch maker. Over the decades, they continued to help residents tell time before wristwatches and household clocks became commonplace.
“The first person who purchased the clock was Lala Sohan Lal and he gave it to his municipality in Mirzapur,” she said, referring to the famous Punjabi historiographer who died in 1852.
“FALL INTO DESPAIR”
The clock towers of Karachi, like much of the city’s colonial architecture, are diverse in their design. Many were constructed with Gizri stone but the KMC clock tower is unique, built using red sandstone imported from Jodhpur.
The towers were strategically placed in busy marketplaces or public spaces, ensuring that the sound of their chimes would reach far and wide. Some of them include Merewether Tower (1884), Trinity Church Cathedral (1885), Denso Hall & Library (1886), Empress Market (1889), Poonabai Mamaiya (1889), Jaffer Fuddoo Dispensary (1904), Sydenham Passenger Pavilion at Keamari (1913), Lakshmi Building (1924), and Lea Market (1927).
“They were built in a crowded area, especially the market area, like the Empress Market or the KMC building, so that people could not only hear it, they can, because it was an hour bell and a quarter bell, quarter-hour bell, the time can visually be seen.,” Nauman said. 
Yasmeen Lari, a pioneering Pakistani architect and historian, writes in her book, “The Dual City: Karachi During the Raj,” that the native agrarian society had continued to subsist in the pre-industrialized, colonized Subcontinent, unaware of the greater importance attached to time by industrialized Britain.
“The fascination [of the British] with clocks was reflected by their placement on prominent buildings such as the Edulji Dinshaw charitable dispensary and Empress Market in Karachi,” she wrote.
Today, while the clock towers may no longer serve as vital timekeepers in Karachi, they still stand as “silent witnesses to the passage of time” and as symbols of a “city that has not forgotten its heritage,” Zubairi, at the KMC Clock Tower, said. 
A proposal was once floated to automate the tower’s winding process through electric motors, but it was abandoned to preserve the originality of the clock, Zubairi said. 
The mayor’s office has recently developed a plan to restore the dysfunctional timekeepers, starting with one at Empress Market.
“We will soon bring it back to working condition,” Zubairi said, as the KMC clock tower struck four in the evening behind him.

Topics: Karachi Karachi Clock Tower

Pakistani-American aide says majority of Muslim electorate supports Trump for stance on Gaza

Pakistani-American aide says majority of Muslim electorate supports Trump for stance on Gaza
Updated 7 min 42 sec ago
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Pakistani-American aide says majority of Muslim electorate supports Trump for stance on Gaza

Pakistani-American aide says majority of Muslim electorate supports Trump for stance on Gaza
  • Trump is facing Democratic nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election due to be held on November 5
  • Both candidates are struggling to get maximum support of all communities, including Pakistani and Muslim diaspora, ahead of polls
Updated 7 min 42 sec ago
Aamir Saeed

ISLAMABAD: Sajid Tarar, a Pakistani-American businessman and close aide to former president Donald Trump, said on Friday that a majority of Muslim population in the United States (US) supported the Republican nominee in the upcoming presidential election, following the failure of President Joe Biden’s administration to have a ceasefire in Gaza.
Trump is facing Democratic nominee and US Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election due to be held on November 5, with both candidates struggling to get maximum support of all communities, including Pakistani and Muslim diaspora, in the upcoming elections.
Tarar, who lives in Maryland and met Trump through his lawyer in 2016, is one of 136 members of Trump’s finance team and is believed to be instrumental in raising funds and organizing election campaigns for the former president across the US.
Speaking to Arab News, the Pakistani-American aide said Trump had repeatedly criticized the Biden administration’s “weak foreign policy” that led to Gaza and Ukraine wars and promised that he would stop both wars, if elected to power.
“The majority of Muslim voters, including the Pakistani diaspora in the US, has been aligning with Trump after the Biden administration’s failure to manage a ceasefire in Gaza,” said Tarar, who moved to the US from Pakistan’s Mandi Bahauddin district to study law some 36 years ago.
The US presidential election campaign is at its peak now and both candidates are struggling to woo voters, promising different reforms and policies, according to Tarar. Some 17 percent Muslims voted for Trump in the previous election, but this is going to be more than 50 precent in this election.
Tarar is currently in California for Trump’s fundraising and has been mobilizing Muslim communities, including 0.7 million Pakistanis, in the US. He believes Pakistan-US diplomatic and defense relations would improve under the Trump administration, which will bring peace and stability to the region and the world.
“Majority of Pakistani diaspora will vote for Trump for his stance on Gaza war and overall policies to foster peace across the globe,” the aide said. “Pakistan being next to China and Afghanistan cannot be ignored at all [by the US] as the Trump administration will be fully focusing on terrorism eradication and stability in the region.”
About the notion that Trump could push Pakistan to release former prime minister Imran Khan from jail if he was elected, Tarar said the Pakistani diaspora was divided over their party affiliations back home and its influence in the US presidential election was “minimal.”
“Even if Trump wins, obviously, he won’t be interfering in Pakistan’s judicial system to get Imran Khan released,” he said. “Some Pakistani-Americans have been pedaling this thing on social media, but there is no truth to it that President Trump would interfere in local Pakistani politics.”
Tarar said a few Pakistani-Americans had tried to discuss Khan’s imprisonment and local Pakistani politics with Trump at a fundraiser, but the US presidential nominee “did not pay any heed to it.”
He expressed his hope that Trump would win the election on the basis of his “vibrant and dynamic” campaign. “If the US presidential election is free, fair and legal, there is no doubt Donald Trump will win the polls with a thumping majority,” Tarar added.

Topics: Donald Trump US elections 2024

Pakistan PM praises Saudi Arabia, UAE and China for helping with $7 billion IMF loan

Pakistan PM praises Saudi Arabia, UAE and China for helping with $7 billion IMF loan
Updated 18 min 17 sec ago
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Pakistan PM praises Saudi Arabia, UAE and China for helping with $7 billion IMF loan

Pakistan PM praises Saudi Arabia, UAE and China for helping with $7 billion IMF loan
  • Pakistan’s key allies helped with external financing gap, debt reprofiling after the staff-level agreement
  • The prime minister says he wants the new IMF loan program to be the last one the country ever needs
Updated 18 min 17 sec ago
Aamir Saeed

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday praised Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and China for playing a crucial role in helping Pakistan with the $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, which is expected to be finalized when the global lending agency’s executive board meets on September 25.
Pakistan reached a staff-level agreement with the IMF for a fresh loan program in July to keep its fragile economy afloat, with Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb expressing hopes of sealing the deal by the end of August.
However, the delay was caused by an external financing gap, prompting Pakistan to seek commitments from key allies and request debt reprofiling.
The prime minister, speaking to a group of young parliamentarians from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party in Islamabad, shared background details of the efforts to secure the loan.
“Once again, Saudi Arabia, which is our very dear brotherly country, China, which is Pakistan’s trusted partner, and the UAE, which is also a brotherly state [assisted Pakistan],” he said. “If these three countries had not contributed and played their role in this IMF program, it would not have been possible to secure it.”
Sharif also highlighted improvements in the country’s macroeconomic indicators, noting that inflation had decreased and remittances from overseas Pakistanis were on the rise.
He acknowledged the need to expand the tax net, recognizing the financial burden on the salaried classes, but expressed optimism that the situation would stabilize as Pakistan made economic progress.
The prime minister further emphasized that Pakistan needed to break its reliance on borrowing, expressing hope that this would be the last IMF program the country would ever need.

Topics: Pakistan IMF Talks Pakistan Saudi Ties Pakistan UAE ties IMF bailout

Pakistan lock horns with India today in Asian Hockey Champions Trophy

Pakistan lock horns with India today in Asian Hockey Champions Trophy
Updated 23 min 55 sec ago
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Pakistan lock horns with India today in Asian Hockey Champions Trophy

Pakistan lock horns with India today in Asian Hockey Champions Trophy
  • Pakistan, who have remained unbeaten, won 5-1 against China on Thursday
  • The Pakistani team has already qualified for the semifinal of the tournament
Updated 23 min 55 sec ago
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will face India today, Saturday, in their last pool match of the Asian Hockey Champions Trophy at the Moqi Hockey Training Base in Hulunbuir, China.
The much-anticipated match will begin at 12:45pm Pakistan Standard Time, with the Pakistan side having already qualified for the semifinal of the tournament.
Pakistan, who have remained unbeaten, registered a 5-1 win against hosts China on Thursday and moved to the second spot on the points table.
“It is a collective team effort, we are learning by each match,” Hannan Shahid, who was named “hero” of Thursday’s match, said after the win.
Shahid said his side conceded too many cards in the start of the tournament, but had overcome it.
“Hero of the team award is a result of my team’s effort, they created chances for me to score and I am happy how we have progressed in the tournament,” he added.
Others who scored goals for Pakistan included Rehman Abdul and Ahmad Nadeem, while Jiesheng Gao scored the only goal for China.

Topics: Pakistan Hockey

Authorities forecast more rains in upper parts of Pakistan after monsoon kills nearly 350

Authorities forecast more rains in upper parts of Pakistan after monsoon kills nearly 350
Updated 28 min 16 sec ago
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Authorities forecast more rains in upper parts of Pakistan after monsoon kills nearly 350

Authorities forecast more rains in upper parts of Pakistan after monsoon kills nearly 350
  • Rain-windstorms expected in upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad, Pothohar region, northeast Punjab and Kashmir
  • The South Asian country has seen erratic weather changes in recent months which have been blamed on climate change
Updated 28 min 16 sec ago
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Weather authorities have forecast more rains in upper parts of Pakistan today, Saturday, Pakistani state media reported, after monsoon killed nearly 350 people in the South Asian country.
Monsoon rains are crucial for Pakistan’s agricultural economy, providing essential water for crops and replenishing water reservoirs. However, the country has lately been experiencing increasingly erratic weather patterns, including harsh rains, heatwaves, droughts and floods.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said this month that at least 347 people had been killed and 648 injured in incidents relating to downpours and floods throughout the country since the monsoon season began in July.
“Rain-windstorm/thundershower is expected in upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad, Pothohar region, northeast/upper Punjab and Kashmir during the next twelve hours,” the Radio Pakistan broadcaster reported, citing weather authorities.
“Partly cloudy weather with rain-windstorm and thundershower may also occur at isolated places in lower Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, north Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan.”
The weather is likely to remain hot and dry in other parts of the country, according to the report.
Pakistan has seen erratic changes in its weather patterns in recent years that scientists have blamed on climate change. This year, the South Asian country recorded its “wettest April since 1961,” with 59.3 millimeters of rainfall, while some areas of the country faced deadly heat waves in May and June.
In 2022, unusually heavy rains triggered floods in many parts of the country, killing over 1,700 people, inflicting economic losses of around $30 billion, and affecting at least 30 million people.

Topics: Monsoon in Pakistan Pakistan Floods

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