Pakistani film wins award at international festival

KARACHI: Pakistani filmmaker Jamil Dehlavi’s film “Infinite Justice” won the Best Feature Film award at the European Independent Film Festival in Paris on 18th March.

The film was shown in Karachi at the Kara Film Festival last December. Jamil Dehlavi was invited as a special guest at the festival where a retrospective of his films was shown.

“Infinite Justice” is loosely based on the Daniel Pearl story. It is an attempt to find out why 9/11 happened and explains how young Muslims in the West have been drawn towards extremism.

Jamil Dehlavi’s motivation for making this film was to expose the Western world’s victimisation of Muslims and denigration of Islam. The film is unbiased and presents the issue from multiple viewpoints. The intention of the film is to encourage a dialogue between Islam and the West.

Earlier, “Infinite Justice” won the Critic’s Prize at the Amiens Film Festival, France last October, and the Audience Award at the Florence River to River Festival, Italy. It has also been shown as an official selection at the international festivals of Dinard and Nantes in France, Mumbai, India and Bradford, UK.

Critics have acclaimed the film as a “bold and accessible consideration of the war on terror” and as “striking at the very heart of the international stand-off between West and East”. It has also been seen as a “hard-hitting intelligent contemplation on American world policy and the reaction to it by the Muslim world”. It is now going to be shown at the international festivals at Houston, the USA and Lisbon, Portugal, and at the Hollywood Digital Festival.

Source: Business Recorder

Date:3/27/2007