5 reasons to look out for Iram Parveen Bilal’s Wakhri

Hot on movie radar

Pakistani-US director Iram Parveen Bilal’s latest offering Wakhri has been the talk of the town these days. The director wrapped up the principal photography in November and it has now been in the post-production phase. Here we list down five reasons to look out for the movie.

It highlights issues like social media trolling & marginalization of women and minorities

Inspired by the stories of unapologetic and often perceptively controversial social media influencers like the slain Qandeel Baloch, the film highlights social media trolling and marginalizing of society’s misfits in modern-day Pakistan.

The storyline revolves around a character named Noor played by Faryal Mehmood who accidentally finds out about the power of social media when a video of hers accidentally becomes viral. Hence, her online identity "Wakhri" (one-of-a-kind) gets created and now begins the dance of keeping her two identities distinct and separate. She craftily uses her celebrity for socio-economic impact. The movie touches on the sensitive and relevant subjects of social media trolling, the marginalization of women and minorities, and the stigmatization of girls' education.

Meesha Shafi & Eva B give vocals for the movie

On the music front, the movie has an interesting mix of loud Punjabi-language club tracks and Urdu-language rap songs to dance and chant with. It features celebrated Pakistani talent including Meesha Shafi, rapper Eva B of Ms. Marvel fame and is being produced by award-winning musician Abdullah Siddiqui.

The Amazing cast

The movie stars Faryal Mehmood as a Math teacher. We last saw her in Hum TV’s Raqeeb Se and we loved her performance as an Independent young doctor. We are sure that here too she will do a fab job in taking us through the challenging journey of a young teacher who becomes a victim of social media trolling.

Joyland stylist and choreographer Gulshan Majeed has also expected to play an important role in the movie.

There are ‘big names’ behind the movie

The mastermind of several successful projects such as Kamli and Zindagi Tamasha, the visionary Kanwal Khoosat has headed the production design of the movie. Scared Games film editor, Aarti Bajaj is the editor of the project.

On the production front, we have big names including Abid Aziz Merchant of Sanat Initiative banner, Emmy-Award recipient and producer of Indian popular crime drama Delhi Crime, Apoorva Bakshi, and Awedacious Original’s producer Monisha Thyagarajan, Roman Paul from Razor Film Produktion and Iram Parveen Bilal.

The International hype

As reported by Variety, the film was a 2018 Locarno Open Doors selection, where it was one of two Pakistani project selections, the other one being what is now Saim Sadiq’s Oscar contender Joyland. It was subsequently invited to the 2019 Cannes Cinéfondation L'Atelier, becoming the first official selection of a project from Pakistan there. The project is also a Coalition of Asian Pacific in Entertainment (CAPE) and CAA Foundation Full Story Initiative grant recipient and recently participated at the Busan Asian Project Market.

RELATED POST

COMMENTS