ISPR hosts National Amateur Short Film Festival 2021

KARACHI: The Inter-Services Public Relation (ISPR) hosted the first  National Amateur Short Film Festival in Islamabad last weekend. The festival was held in an attempt to provide a platform to emerging talent especially within the youth. The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan also attended the ceremony.

Speaking to the participants, the DG ISPR Major General Babar Iftikhar put forward the hope that the platform would also encourage youth to portray a more positive image of the country through their work. The DG questioned, “why should we not give youth the responsibility of showing the real Pakistan?”

The festival’s award ceremony was attended by Federal Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain and many celebrities including Mahira Khan, Humayun Saeed, Iqra Aziz, Wahaj Ali, Ramsha Khan and Zara Noor Abbas, among others. Categories for films included students, professionals and mobile phones. The inclusion of mobile phones “was to provide opportunities to as many youngsters as possible.” The categories which were given out in November 2020 were designed in order to focus on the cultural and social elements of Pakistan and also worked to highlight the role women have to play in the country, the Indus Valley civilization and the various cultures in the different regions of the country.

Speaking to attendees, Prime Minister Imran Khan laid great emphasis on the need to produce original content. “The most important thing I want to say to young filmmakers is that according to my experience of the world, only originality sells — the copy has no value,” he said. Khan called copying other cultures a trodden path and said “no one excels on the trodden path.”

The premier went on to say “that our film industry was impressed by Bollywood and it caused promotion of another culture” and called that a mistake that needs to be corrected. He did, however, praise the dramas. Khan encouraged the emerging talent to not be afraid of breaking away from the set pattern in the industry. He said the “fear of failure and defeat is big impediment to [achieving] man’s [full] potential.”