[Karachi, Wednesday 28th March 2018]: Pakistan International Film Festival (PiFF) reveals the lineup for the festival scheduled to take place in Karachi from the 29th of March to 1st of April 2018. The four-day festival will feature prominent filmmakers from different countries including India, Italy, Germany, Nepal and US to name a few.

The festival will screen different categories of films ranging from documentaries, short films and feature films submitted from 93 countries across the globe. For the entire festival, a total of 210 films have been selected from the categories of documentaries, short films and feature-length films. Detailed events information pertaining to the Pakistan International Film Festival was shared during a press conference held at Pearl Continental Karachi, organised by Karachi Film Society.

The press conference was attended by esteemed members of the press and, ‘The Spirit of Kolachi’ – a handcrafted trophy designed by renowned sculpture and painter Mr Abdul Jabbar Gull was also unveiled at the event.

This festival comprises panel discussions on the subjects of ‘Film Diplomacy & Cross-Border Collaboration’, ‘Innovation on Screen: Digital Dimensions’, ‘Genre Busters’, ‘From Script to Screen and Beyond’, ‘Films for Change: Socially Motivated content in South Asian Film Industry’ and ‘The Future of Music and Lyrics: How important is music in the subcontinental cinema’.

The participant lineup is diverse and includes prominent local and foreign speakers; Sultana Siddiqui, Asim Raza, Anjum Rajabali (celebrated Indian script/screenplay writer), Nandita Das (actor/director/producer of upcoming Indian movie Manto), Harsh Narayan (Indian filmmaker), Sajal Aly, Rashid Khwaja, Abrar Ali Khan, Farees Shah, Faizan Syed, Adnan Sarwar, Sana Tauseef, Atiqa Odho, S. Rajamouli (director of the mega blockbuster movie, Baahubali), Vinay Pathak (acclaimed Indian actor), Kamran Jawed, Amin Farooqui, Tahir Moosa, Zeenat Lakhani (writer of Saba Qamar starrer Hindi Medium),

Saket Chawdhari (director of Hindi Medium), Nishtha Jain (maker of documentary film Gulabi Gang), Haseena Moin, Jami, Subhash Kapoor (prominent Indian producer, screenplay writer and director, known for his work in Jolly LLB 1 and 2), Vishal Bhardwaj (Indian filmmaker), Hareem Farooq, Izzat Majid, Asif Noorani, Sultan Arshad, Rekha Bhardwaj (Indian playback singer), Dr Omer Adil, Nila Madhab Panda (director of Kadvi Hawa) and Mr Shobu (producer of mega blockbuster movie Baahubali).

There will be a total of eight movie premieres – Cake, The Valley, Lala Begum, Moomal Rano, Zaraab, The Song of Scorpions, Kuch Bheege Alfaaz and The Wishing Tree. The Wishing Tree features Shabana Azmi and Zaraab is the first Balochi language film to be premiered in Pakistan.

A special matinee show of the newly released animated movie Tick Tock will also be arranged for children at Nueplex Cinemas. Apart from the premieres, screenings of short films, documentaries and feature films are organised at various institutes throughout the city including Goethe Institut, Iqra Defence Valley, Iqra University North Nazimabad campus, Alliance Françoise and T2F.

The four-day event is supported by the Cultural Department of Sindh Government and Ministry of Information of the Federal Government of Pakistan, HUM TV, Nueplex Cinemas and Dawn Media Group. Commercial partners are Unilever and Khaadi.