The premiere of Jami’s long-awaited film, Moor, held on Monday night at the Atrium Cinema in Karachi, made for a beautiful night and attracted many of cinema’s finest minds, all of whom gathered under one roof for the sake of this particularly beautiful cinematic offering. Moor opens across Pakistan on Independence day (tomorrow).
By Maheen Sabeeh
First published in Instep, The News on August 2015
Samiya Mumtaz in Moor
The premiere of Jami’s long-awaited film, Moor, held on Monday night at the Atrium Cinema in Karachi, made for a beautiful night and attracted many of cinema’s finest minds, all of whom gathered under one roof for the sake of this particularly beautiful cinematic offering. Moor opens across Pakistan on Independence day (tomorrow).
The film is Jami’s love letter to Pakistan and is as lyrical as it is haunting. The film’s stellar cast, led by Hameed Sheikh, Samiya Mumtaz and Shaz Khan, will move you to tears. It’s a story of a family, of their fears and their heartbreak, but it’s also a story of corruption, greed and at times, hopelessness. The characters are real and reflect emotions that are universal. At its heart, Moor is the story of Pakistan and of loving a country that will never love you back. This story is one that Pakistanis, nay, human beings around the world will connect to because it sketches the silent grief that comes in the wake of losing a loved one with perfect precision and heart. Moor may not break box office records but it will go down in cinematic history as one of the finest films ever made in Pakistan, period.
To celebrate Jami’s vision and this film, industry experts including several filmmakers, actors, journalists and others showed up to the premiere. Hasan Zaidi, Maheen Zia, Shahbaz Sumar, Saqib Malik, Yasir Nawaz, Sohail Javed, Wajahat Rauf and Asad-ul-Haq, lawyer and activist Muhammad Jibran Nasir, actor/producer Humayun Saeed, musician-turned-actor Junaid Khan, Strings’ Faisal Kapadia and Bilal Maqsood, Anwar Maqsood, Sania Saeed, Zubeida Tariq, Nida Yasir and Adnan Saeed were just some of the prolific attendees who made their presence felt at the premiere.
Speaking to Instep, Asad ul Haq, the director of the upcoming film Dekh Magar Pyaar Say, which also opens on the same day as Moor, said that he was expecting a good cinematic experience. “My film is very different from Moor. It’s stylish and romantic. As filmmakers, we are all finding our own space.”
The man with the vision, Jami.
Hasan Zaidi astutely talked about Moor’s haunting quality and how it isn’t a typical masala film while Saqib Malik, the man behind several stunning music videos, spoke about his hope from Moor. “It should be an exceptional cinematic experience. Jami is trendsetting; his work has integrity, honesty and it appeals to our intellect.”
A still from Moor
“Jami is trendsetting; his work has integrity, honesty and it appeals to our intellect.” – Saqib Malik
Music’s child, Saad Shams, who plays in a band called Jumbo Jutt as well with indie artist Ali Suhail, who was handling PR for the film, thought the film was going to be “amazing”.
Lawyer and activist Muhammad Jibran Nasir, sporting a white shalwar kameez, spoke in his quintessential thoughtful manner and told Instep that he considered Jami a great patriot.
“I’m expecting Moor to be beautiful. And I am a grateful of Jami. We should be grateful to all our directors like Sohail Javed, Saqib Malik, Jami, Asim Reza, all of whom have given us quality music videos at a time when cinema was dying. Now, they’re making films and we should support their efforts.”
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