Cinematography: Maheen Zia
Editing: Talha Mansoor Ahmed
Music: Athar Saeed
Script: Ehteshamuddin, Tehmina Ahmed, Maheen Zia
Producers: Tehmina Ahmed, Newsline Films
Directed by: Maheen Zia

SYNOPSIS
What is the story behind the phenomenal growth of the madressa network in Pakistan in recent years? Are the madressas ‘nurseries for jihad’ or do they have a positive contribution to make in a state that has all but abdicated its responsibilities?

These are some of the questions “The Battle for Pakistan” sets out to explore. The mesh of global politics and the human story behind the Pakistani madressa emerges in a film shot on locations ranging from the NWFP to the city of Karachi.

THE FILMMAKER
Maheen Zia graduated in Journalism & Mass Communication from Drake University, USA, in 1996. She returned to Pakistan in 1997 to join a post-production facility as editor. In the following year she left regular employment to pursue her own projects and has since directed several short films and documentaries, including the shorts “Baba Snooker” (2001), “Doctor” (2003), and “Eclipse” (2005), and the documentaries “The People vs Lyari Expressway” (2002), “Gwadar - Between Golden Acres and the Deep Blue Sea” (2006), and “Aaj Bazaar Mein” (2006). She is a founding member of the KaraFilm Society and has served as a jury member on several international film festivals.

Editing: Adrian Begon
Produced and Directed by: Jeremy Gilley

SYNOPSIS
“The Day After Peace” charts the remarkable 10-year long world journey taken by award winning filmmaker Jeremy Gilley to establish a day of day of Peace on September 21st.

After the official motion is unanimously adopted in the UN, Gilleys persistence was rewarded when UNICEF, the World Health Organisation and local affected communities decided to try and use the day to carry out a mass vaccination against polio in Afghanistan, one of the toughest conflict areas in the world.

Jeremy also convinced actor Jude Law to accompany him to Afghanistan in order to persuade the government and insurgents to ratify Peace Day. The task may seem impossible, but pure human spirit in a country exhausted with conflict, may just win through.

THE FILMMAKER
In the late 1990s, Jeremy Gilley, an actor turned filmmaker, became preoccupied with questions about the fundamental nature of humanity and the issues of peace. He decided to explore these through the medium of film and created the highly successful documentary “Peace One Day”, winner of the best documentary at the Adelaide Film Festival.

“Peace One Day” has been licensed for broadcast in 14 territories internationally and has played at 30 international film festivals.

SYNOPSIS
“The Halfmoon Files” is an experimental documentary on sound recordings of so-called ‘colonial soldiers,’ whose voices have been recorded by German scientists in a POW camp in Germany during World War I.

THE FILMMAKER
Philip Scheffner was born in 1966 and lives in Berlin. He is a documentary filmmaker and a sound artist.

Produced and Directed by: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Robin Barnwell

SYNOPSIS
In post-Apartheid South Africa illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe and other African states are flooding in and racism and xenophobic violence is on the rise. Reporter Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy begins the film on the Zimbabwean border with a group of Zimbabweans as they begin a long journey to Johannesburg. The South African police stop them but let them go in exchange, it is claimed, for a bribe, which the people smugglers claim is routine. The Zimbabweans say they are fleeing a collapsing state, where President Mugabe’s policies have driven the economy into crisis and where earning enough to feed their families is impossible. However, the South Africans blame them for a crime wave and accuse them of causing unemployment.

THE FILMMAKER
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a multi-award-winning documentary film reporter and director. She has filmed in over six countries and her work has been screened all over the world.

Narration: Sanjna Kapoor
Cinematography: Sara Singh
Editing and Sound: Sara Singh
Script: Sara Singh
Produced and
Directed by: Sara Singh

SYNOPSIS
In 1947, the partition of the northwest region of the Indian subcontinent resulted in a legacy of suspicion and a profound inability to reconcile this political divide. This feature documentary explores some of the ground realities of this divide, and asks if reconciliation is possible after 60 years of strained relations and the ever present, unresolved crisis in Kashmir.

THE FILMMAKER
Sara Singh is a painter, photographer, writer and filmmaker. She was born in India and has spent much of her life in the United States. Singh has exhibited her work both in India and the U.S. Her writing has been published by a major daily in India.

Cinematography: Lalit Malik
Editing: Mukesh Saini
Sound: Lalit Malik
Script: Spandan Banerjee
Produced and Directed by: Spandan Banerjee

SYNOPSIS
“Livelihood” is the answer that Rajiv, Monu and Sagar would give to the question posed by the film “Thekey Pe Kya Karte Ho?” Their homes are in the nearby Jagdamba Camp, located right behind the Sheikh Sarai Market, New Delhi. This is the same place these children spend the formative years of their childhood opening beer bottles for the never-ending customers at the local wine and beer shop.

THE FILMMAKER
Spandan Banerjee joined the advertising business in 1996 in Calcutta, India, after graduating from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta. After that he has lived in several cities, working with IB&W, BBDO and McCann Erickson among others. He left his job to start Overdose, an ‘idea house’ with a strong alternative bent. For three years, Overdose has been producing shorts, documentaries, and advertising commercials.

Narration: Arshad Khan
Cinematography: Arshad Khan, Vanadana Sharma, Riaz Mahmood
Edited: Oliver Millar
Sound: Louis Dionne
Music: Peter Hudston
Script: Arshad Khan
Produced and Directed by: Arshad Khan

SYNOPSIS
In the summer of 2003, 23 Pakistanis and one Indian man were arrested by Canadian Police and Immigration under project thread, a purported anti-terror investigation. The charges crumbled under scrutiny and the men were quietly deported. “Threadbare” is the story of how these seemingly harmless and unremarkable men spent between two and five months in a maximum security prison outside Toronto and became the focus of Canada’s notorious post-9/11 terror case.

THE FILMMAKER
Arshad Khan was born in Pakistan in 1975. Growing up in a creative and artistic family, Arshad took keen interest in visual arts and making home movies. At sixteen Arshad migrated to Canada with his family. His artistic interests expanded from painting to acting, directing, writing, journalism and he pursued a degree in architecture. Arshad worked as the art editor of Raj Palta, an insightful and political South Asian youth magazine catering to the massive South Asian population of the greater Toronto area.
In 1998 Arshad began a career in the travel industry while still at architecture school. Travelling around the world gave him the opportunity to open his mind and heart and appreciate global diversity.

Cinematography: Rubyz
Editing and Sound: Akash Gaur
Script: Akash Gaur
Producer: National Institute of Design, India
Directed by: Akash Gaur

SYNOPSIS
“Timescape” explores the way different experiences of time and space change our perceptions of using or discarding an object.

THE FILMMAKER
Akash Gaur, 27, is a student at the National Institute of Design. He is a post-graduate in film and video communication, having graduated in fine arts and sculpture. The documentary “Timescape” is his second video project during the course.

Script: Shalalae Jamil
Edited, Sound, Produced and Directed by: Shalalae Jamil

SYNOPSIS
“Tumhara Zikar” is an experimental, non-fictional narrative about a young Pakistani woman and her relationships with her family, her city and her God. The film is structured as a series of ellipses in which revelations can take the form of personal anecdotes, private living room conversations, sufi poetry or qawwali. As with an evening of sama’a, the end goal of the work is to achieve intimacy. In each segment, the filmmaker seeks closeness with the Beloved, with the city and with its people by exploring commonality and difference, longing and belonging.

THE FILMMAKER
Shalalae Jamil is a Pakistani artist and educator. She received her art education first at Bennington College and then at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, concentrating on photography, film and video. While in the U.S, Shalalae curated screenings and exhibitions that focused primarily on the South Asian diasporic experience.
Her work often uses autobiography as a tool to address the ambiguities of cultural belonging. She is currently involved in exhibiting her work and teaching and collaborating with various organizations working on long term cultural projects.

Cinematography: Zhenchen Liu
Editing: Zhenchen Liu, Baptiste Evrard
Sound: Zhenyi Zhu
Script: Zhenchen Liu
Producers: Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains
Directed by: Zhenchen Liu

SYNOPSIS
Owing to Shanghai’s regeneration scheme, old buildings are being demolished, and consequently almost 100,000 families are being forced to move each year. “Under Construction” explores the human implications of the Shanghai planning office and its property developers’ operations.

THE FILMMAKER
Zhenchen Liu was born in 1976 in Shanghai. He graduated from Ecole Nationale Superieur de la Villa Arson and the Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary Art in France. He works mostly on themes of urbanisation and modernisation, as well as problems with the development of China. Recently, Liu participated in the “Panorama 8” at Le Fresnoy, the Locarno International Film Festival, the Festival de Clermont-Ferrand and the Oberhausen International Film Festival. He currently works as a freelance artist in France and China.

Cinematography: Alba Sotorro Clua
Editing: Gerard Gill
Sound: Alba Sotorro
Musical score: Xavi Macaya
Script: Alba Sotorro
Producers: Alba Sotorro, Pepe Corso
Directed by: Alba Sotorro

SYNOPSIS
Alba Sotorro hitchhiked from Tarragona to Pakistan and filmed the stories of five Muslim women who have chosen to express themselves through the creative mediums of theatre, cinema, music, dance and poetry. These stories are meant to serve as a counterpoint to the stereotypical impressions of Muslim women. The film was shot in Bosnia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

THE FILMMAKER
Alba Sotorro Clua was born on the 22nd of May, 1980 in Barcelona, Spain. She has completed her masters on Mediterranean cultural studies from the University Rovira I Virgili, in Tarragona and completed her B.A. in audiovisual communication, from the University Complutense of Madrid and University of Puerto Rico. She has lived and worked in Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Cuba, England, Bosnia, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan.