Where does one even begin to talk about what the KaraFilm Festival has been through over the last two years? In December 2006, during the 6th KaraFilm Festival, we were musing about the direction the Festival should take after finally getting the State of Pakistan to accept its legitimacy and having celebrated six consecutive years of its existence. We were discussing how to consolidate the gains the Festival had made – and there were many – and how to take the next step towards translating those achievements into a more viable film industry in the country. “How do we ensure that this first step does not remain the only bright light on Pakistan’s film scene,” we wrote in our catalogue, “but feeds into better trained and more thoughtful filmmakers, a more conducive environment for good cinema and, indeed, better films being made?”
So it was ironic that, even as some of the fruits of our endeavours began to bear fruit – cinema attendances began to see an upsurge and at least some of the films made in Pakistan set people talking about a nascent “revival” – the subsequent months threatened the very existence of the Festival itself. Two years of political and social turmoil and ever increasing security challenges forced us, despite our best efforts and to our dismay, to twice postpone the 7th KaraFilm Festival. Like the thousands of people who looked forward to the annual ‘Kara experience’, we were extremely disappointed; more so, because we had put in months and months of hard work preparing for it. For some people, who perhaps did not understand the dynamics of an international film festival and all the behind-the-scenes negotiations that go into putting together an event of this magnitude, the postponements were inexcusable. But if anyone understood how much potential damage this still tender sapling could suffer if it was deprived of the sunlight of an annual airing, it was us, those who had planted it and nurtured it against all the odds.
But as if we did not have enough issues to contend with, in the last few months we have also been hit by the double-whammy of rampant inflation in Pakistan and the global economic downturn, imperiling the Festival’s financial resources. The rising tensions with our neighbour India after the brutal terrorist attacks in Mumbai have also negatively impacted the relationships we had so carefully cultivated over the last six years. Of course, we are not the only ones to suffer in the cultural sphere. Music concerts, theatre performances, filmmaking and fashion shows, all have suffered in the same environment. But perhaps because of the scope and ambitions of the Festival, and perhaps because we had nurtured this space precisely to fight against the decades-long marginalization of cinema in Pakistan, the implications are more far-reaching. In a country where creativity and film is once again under attack from forces of extremism, and precious few institutions of art and culture exist, it is particularly galling to stand by and see all of one’s efforts to establish just such a credible institution endangered.
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(Submitted by Pritam Rohila)
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