THE FILM: "Daira"
PAKISTAN / 2002 / 156 MIN / URDU
Cast: Shahzad Nawaz, Adnan Siddiqui, Ayeshah Alam, Aijaz Aslam, Amir Abbas.
Director of Photography: Altaf Amin
Editing: Irfan Kheiri
Music: Ather Saeed and Iyzak
Executive Producer: Halofly Entertainment Consortium
Producer: Shahzad Nawaz, Uzma Shehzad
Story: Mohsin Hamid
Adaptation: Shahzad Nawaz
Screenplay: Azfar Ali
Directed by: Azfar Ali and Shahzad Nawaz

SYNOPSIS: Based on the international bestseller "Moth Smoke" by Mohsin Hamid, Daira is a dark story of love, lust and longing set in the city of Lahore . Dara is a young man on a fast downward social spiral even as he attempts to hang out with the upwardly mobile crowd. Unemployed and increasingly drawn to the sanctuary of drugs, he struggles with using social ladders to get ahead in life. What keeps him grounded are a rickshaw driver who befriends him and his best friend's beautiful and intelligent wife with whom he has an affair. When he witnesses his best friend running away after killing a pedestrian with his car, Dara must choose between loyalty and morality as well as his future. This is a film about success, solace, solitude, and the solubility of the social divide.

THE FILMMAKERS: Azfar Ali is a design graduate from the UK . He is known for his directorial skills on television, having achieved fame with the hit sitcom "Sub Set Hai" in which he also acted. From short dramas, telefilms, and sitcoms to music videos, Azfar has been there and done that. As the lead director Azfar was responsible for the screenplay and the shoot of "Daira."

Shahzad Nawaz has degrees in marketing, design and advertising and is currently Creative Director at Geo TV. This is Shehzad Nawaz's first film. As the concept director, Shahzad was responsible for adaptation the book for the screen, co-writing the dialogues, art direction, editing of the film, scoring and soundtrack, song writing, subtitling translations and the marketing and packaging of "Daira."

THE FILM: "Genius"
USA / 2002 / 80 MIN / ENGLISH
Cast: Kelly Walters, Diogerlin Linares, Keynan Isaiah Lourie, Asad Mahdi
Director of Photography: Jonathan Belinski
Editing: Babar Ahmed
Music: Kathy Haggerty
Executive Producer: Ali Javed
Producer: Tauqir Khan, Kris Khan, Riaz Iqbal, Zeenat Ahmad.
Written and Directed by: Babar Ahmad

SYNOPSIS: "Genius" is the moving story of a young black student, Mike, with a heart as big as the world. Mike has a learning disability, though, so everyone thinks he is 'dumb'. He has a hopeless crush on the most beautiful girl in his class, but she only dates smart guys. Mike is desperate to win her affection, so he turns to his snotty and obnoxious economics teacher to help him raise his IQ.

THE FILMMAKER: Babar Ahmed directed the award winning short film "Mother & Son" and co-directed the short film "Bittersweet Mangos." He studied filmmaking at New York University and the New York Film Academy.

THE FILM: "Ghar Ki Talaash" (In Search of A House)
PAKISTAN / 2003 / 84 MIN / URDU
Cast: Savera Nadeem, Saleem Iqbal, Sharjeel Baloch, Akber Khan, Hassan Dars, Ramzan Memon, Mahvash Faruqi, Khalid Ahmad, Riaz Chughtai Arif Hasan
Camera:
Editing:
Music:
Adaptation and Screenplay: Khalid Ahmed
Directed by: Khalid Ahmed

SYNOPSIS: Adapted from Rajinder Singh Bedi's "Naql-e-Makani", "Ghar Ki Talaash" revolves around Nafees, an ordinary clerk in a government office, and his wife Azra. They are under great stress to find a new house on rent after they are given an eviction notice from the small apartment they had been living in till then. All the houses that they see are beyond their means. With great difficulty they manage to find a place in the old part of the city which they can afford and they promptly move in. But soon they realise that the place was given to them cheap because it used to be the abode of a 'singing woman', Shado Bai, who conducted her business from here. They are perturbed since living in a place like this is against all norms of "respectability". But they have no choice. The neighbourhood thinks that Azra is the new prostitute living in that house. The couple is harassed and approached with propositions. The film is about the struggle of the couple to prove their respectability to the world.

THE FILMMAKER: Trained originally as an electrical engineer, Khalid Ahmad has been involved in the theatre (and of late in television productions) since the last 20 years. Formally trained in theatre at the London Academy of Dramatic Art (LAMDA), Khalid has written, directed and acted for theatre and television and has many a memorable production to his credit. His film "Aakhri Tasveer" (The Last Picture) was shown at the 2 nd KaraFilm Festival to critical acclaim.

THE FILM: "In This World"
UNITED KINGDOM / 2002 / 88 MIN / PASHTO-FARSI-ENGLISH
Cast: Jamal Uddin Torabi, Enayatullah.
Cinematography: Marcel Zyskind
Editing: Peter Christelis
Music: Dario Marianelli
Executive Producers: Chris Auty, David M. Thompson.
Producers: Andrew Eaton, Anita Overland
Screenplay: Tony Grisoni
Directed by: Michael Winterbottom.

SYNOPSIS: Jamal and Inayatullah are cousins, young Afghanis who live in the in the sprawling Shamshatoo refugee camp near Peshawar . Jamal, an orphan, scrapes by a living in a brick factory, his cousin works on his family market stall. To give him the opportunity of a better life, it is decided that Inayatullah will be sent to England . Jamal persuades the family that he should be sent along too. The pair join the ranks of the one million refuges per year who place their lives in the hands of people smugglers. Their journey is overland: longer, more tedious, and more hazardous than traveling by air, but crucially, much cheaper. Their route takes them from Pakistan through Iran and Turkey and Italy . The terrible cost of such travel arrangements becomes clear as the journey progresses in ever more difficult circumstances. The journey is a distillation of the experiences of a multitude of real life asylum seekers and migrants - courageous and resourceful people seeking a better life, whose stories so often end in tragedy.

THE FILMMAKER: Born in Blackburn , Lancashire , on March 29, 1961 , Winterbottom earned a degree at Oxford and received film training in Bristol and London . After beginning his professional career as a film editor for Thames Television, he directed two documentaries about Ingmar Bergman and a few television series, most notably the acclaimed BBC drama "Family" (1994). He first earned recognition with "Butterfly Kisses" (1995), a somewhat controversial revision of the buddy/road genre that told the story of a pair of lesbians who go on a killing spree across Great Britain . His other well known works include the Thomas Hardy adaptation "Jude" with Kate Winslet and "Welcome To Sarajevo" (1997), the first major Western film to take place in the former Yugoslavia . He is known for making intense, passionate films that explore the demands of human relationships and emotional commitment.

THE FILM: "Kal"
PAKISTAN / 2003 / 86 MIN / URDU
Cast: Faisal Rehman, Savera Nadeem, Ali Tahir, Simi Raheel, Tahira Imam, Tipu Sultan, Zahid Chaudhry, Anmol Chaudhry, Hira Chaudhry, Fahd, Zara, Arsalaan
Cinematography: Arshad Altaf
Editing: Noman Anver
Music: Shajar and Fakhr
Music Direction: Moushumi Bhowmik
Executive Producer: Raheel Rao
Producers: Savera Nadeem, Erum Binte Shahid
Screenplay: Suraj Baba
Directed by: Savera Nadeem

SYNOPSIS: The story explores the ever developing friendship of three people who have grown up together. Faisal has always loved Feryal but has never been able to tell her and the moment passes him by when Shehreyar makes the first move . . . only to discover his worst nightmares come true. Sometimes our first choices are not the right ones, especially in choosing a life partner. Kal is about patience, faith, and acceptance of friends as individuals. The film's most important aspect, however, is the concept of the completely selfless devotion of Motherhood. Every woman is a potential mother and the gift of maternal love she gives in turn makes her a good mother. Kal is a film of sentiment and sorrow of the cruelty of fate; but it is also a story of romance, courage, silly jokes, and childhood friendships. A journey through memories.

THE FILMMAKER: Savera has been acting for the stage and television since 1993. She produced her first dramatic serial (Pankh) for PTV last year and directed the film 'Kal' for Geo TV. Her most recent project - a 13-episode dramatic serial entitled 'Qurbaton Ke Silsilay' is currently on air from PTV 1. She is also directing short plays and telefilms for various private channels.

THE FILM: "Khamosh Pani" (Silent Waters)
PAKISTAN / 2002 / 99 MIN / URDU
Cast: Kirron Kher, Aamir Malik, Arshad Mahmud, Salman Shahid, Shilpa Shukla, Sarfaraz Ansari, Shazim Ashraf, Navtej Johar, Fariha Jabeen, Adnan Shah, Rehan Sheikh
Cinematography: Ralph Netzer
Editing: Bettina Bohler
Music: Madan Gopal Singh, Arshad Mahmod, Arjun Sen
Producer: Sachithanandam Sathananthan, Philipps Avril, Helge Albers, Claudia Tronnier.
Story: Sabiha Sumar
Screenplay: Paromita Vohra
Directed by: Sabiha Sumar.

SYNOPSIS: Ayesha is a seemingly well-adjusted middle-aged woman whose life centres around her son Saleem - a gentle, dreamy 18-year-old, in love with Zubeida. They live in the village of Charkhi in Pakistani Punjab. Ayesha's husband is dead and she manages a living from his pension and by giving Quran lessons to young girls. The story begins in 1979, in a Pakistan under President General Zia-ul-Haq's martial law. The country has embarked on the road to Islamicization. Saleem becomes intensely involved with a group of Islamic fundamentalists and leaves Zubeida. Ayesha is saddened to see her son change radically.
Events escalate when Sikh pilgrims from India pour into the village. Later, a pilgrim looks for his sister Veero who was abducted in 1947. This awakens heart-rending memories .

THE FILMMAKER: Born in Karachi in 1961, Sabiha Sumar studied filmmaking and political science at Sarah Laurence College in New York from 1980 to 1983. She is well known for her documentaries, including "Who Will Cast The First Stone?", co-directed with Ahmed A. Jamal, about the impact of the Hudood Laws. She has used her documentaries, produced for various European television channels, to raise pressing social concerns and sensitize people to women's lives. "Silent Waters" is her first feature film.

(RETROSPECTIVE) THE FILM: "Koyaanisqatsi"
USA / 1983 / 91 MIN /
Director of Photography: Ron Fricke
Editing: Alton Walpole, Ron Fricke
Music: Philip Glass
Concept: Godfrey Reggio
Produced and Directed by: Godfrey Reggio

SYNOPSIS: "Koyaanisqatsi", Godfrey Reggio's debut as a film director and producer, is the first film of the "Qatsi" trilogy. The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance." Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds - urban life and technology versus the environment. The musical score was composed by Philip Glass. "Koyaanisqatsi" attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast! We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. In our world the "original" is the proliferation of the standardized. Copies are copies of copies. There seems to be no ability to see beyond, to see that we have encased ourselves in an artificial environment that has remarkably replaced the original, nature itself. We do not live with nature any longer; we live above it, off of it as it were. Nature has become the resource to keep this artificial or new nature alive.

THE FILMMAKER: Born in New Orleans in 1940 and raised in southwest Louisiana , Reggio entered a Roman Catholic pontifical order at age 14. He spent 14 years of his adolescence and early adulthood in fasting, silence, and prayer. Based in New Mexico during the sixties, Reggio taught grade school, secondary school and college. During this period he helped set up a community organization project that aided juvenile street gangs as well as a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe. In 1972, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe , a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization and research. In 1974 and 1975, Reggio co-organized a multi-media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior. He then began to develop the idea for a nonverbal film formed from a non-stop collage of images from real life which resulted in the critically acclaimed Qatsi trilogy. In 1993, he also helped develop a new school of exploration and production in the arts, technology, and mass media which opened in May, 1995, in Treviso , Italy . Reggio is a frequent lecturer on philosophy, technology and film. He resides in Santa Fe , New Mexico.

THE FILM: "Laaj"
PAKISTAN / 2003 / XX MIN / URDU
Cast: Zara Sheikh, Imran Khan, Talat Hussain, Resham, Rashid Mehmood, Nirma, Usman Mughal, Afshan Quershi, Nayyar Ejaz, Fleur, James Kavaz, Pat Kilman
Cinematography: Waqar Bukhari
Editing: Z.A Zulfi
Music: Amjad Bobby
Producers:
Written and Directed by: Rauf Khalid

SYNOPSIS: Ignorant of the fact that the world was preparing for a brutal war, a young girl fell in love with a young man in British-ruled India . This is the story of true love, bravery and sacrifice, and the reality of a clash of norms and beliefs. This is also the history of the people who gave their lives to protect their honour.

THE FILMMAKER: Rauf Khalid shot to prominence as a filmmaker with the 1995 super-hit serial "Angaarwadi" on Pakistan Television which portrayed the struggle for rights and human dignity in the disputed region of Kashmir . Co-produced and co-directed by Khalid, the success of "Angaarwadi" allowed the new filmmaker to direct and produce another epic drama for television set in Kashmir , starring Zeba Bakhtiar. "Laaj" is his debut on the silver screen.

THE FILM: "Leela"
USA-INDIA / 2002 / 129 MIN / ENGLISH
Cast: Dimple Kapadia, Amol Mhatre, Vinod Khanna, Deepti Naval, Gulshan Grover
Director of Photography: Steven Douglas Smith
Editing: Suresh Pai
Music: Jagjit Singh
Producers: Kavita Munjal, Anjalika Mathur
Written and Directed by: Somnath Sen

SYNOPSIS: Watching the dying embers of her mother's funeral pyre, Leela questions her life, setting in motion events that change her irrevocably. She travels to America as a visiting professor, leaving her 'perfect' life behind, and thrives in the university environment. Kris, a young Indian-American uncomfortable in his own skin, takes Leela's South Asian history class and forms a bond of friendship with his teacher. Even as Leela and Kris help each other to question their identities, Leela begins to scrutinize afresh her crumbling marriage to renowned poet Nashaad. Things come to a head when Nashaad, realizing Leela's growing disenchantment, tries to reconnect with her. He fights to keep his love - unleashing a storm that turns everyone's lives upside down.

THE FILMMAKER: Somnath Sen began his career in the visual medium in 1987 as an Assistant Director in TV Serials in New Delhi . Since then, he has worked as Director, Director of Photography, Editor, Screenwriter and in production oriented activities in over one hundred productions including feature films, documentaries, music videos, television series and commercials. Somnath has worked extensively in the film industry in the United States and India . After his training in the Masters program in Film Directing from the prestigious USC School of Cinema-Television, Somnath moved to Mumbai, India and worked in mainstream Hindi films such as "Raja Hindustani", "Judwaa", "Ajay", "Kachche Dhage", "Janam Samjha Karo" and "Kareeb" - many of them blockbusters. Somnath's first script, "67 Down" written while he was a student at the USC film school was accepted by the National Film Development corporation. Later, also in Mumbai, Somnath formed Lemon Tree Films and produced and directed commercials and corporate films. Now settled in Los Angeles , Somnath is dividing his time between his career as a Freelance Director and as the Creative Head of Lemon Tree Films. In between Somnath also acquired an MS in Computer Aided Design and worked as a software engineer for several years, both at McDonnell Douglas and Electronic Data Systems. Somnath has written and directed Leela and heads the creative side of the project.

THE FILM: "Let's Talk"
INDIA / 2002 / 95 MIN / ENGLISH
Cast: Maia Katrak, Boman Irani, Anahita Uberoi
Camera: Sumantra Ghosal
Editing: Amit Karia
Music: Ram Sampath
Executive Producer: Vinod Iyer
Produced by: Shift Focus
Screenplay: Maia Katrak, Boman Irani, Ram Madhvani, Sanjay Sipahimalani
Directed by: Ram Madhvani

SYNOPSIS: Radhika Sareen is pregnant. The baby is not her husband's. If she tells her husband, how will he react? What will he do? The film unspools from Radhika's mind as she imagines her husband's possible reactions to her predicament. The structure of alternative realities borrows from a traditional musical form, the thumri , where a single thought is expressed in a multiplicity of moods. While the setting is urban contemporary Mumbai, its exploration of love is based on the enduring myths of Lord Krishna, the eternal lover and his beloved Radha, who represents the eternal seeker.

THE FILMMAKER: Over ten years in the professions and among India 's most respected advertising filmmakers, Ram Madhvani added a Bronze Lion at the 2000 Cannes Advertising Festival to his numerous awards. He makes his feature film debut in "Let's Talk" with a style and theme that is novel and startlingly pertinent to our emotionally adrift times.

THE FILM: "Mad Dogs"
UNITED KINGDOM / 2001 / 91 MINS / ENGLISH
Cast: Iain Fraser, Indira Varma, Paul Barber, Campbell Morrison, Clive Russel, Bhaskar Patel, William Marsh, Bradley Lavelle, Joe Montana, Saeed Jaffrey, Jonathan Pryce
Director of Photography: Jonathan Smith
Editing: Hussein Younis
Music: Zeus B. Held
Producers: Poonam Sharma, Carl Proctor
Screenplay: Simon Louvish
Directed by: Ahmed A. Jamal

SYNOPSIS: London , one year from today. The dogs of England are dying of Mad Dog Disease and Robbie Burns, young drifter and certified schizophrenic, is hearing voices again - on Underground trains, over supermarket tannoys and on his own TV. He has 30 hours, a last weekend, to save the world from itself, before "Supreme Being" himself loses patience and starts over, with a new species.

THE FILMMAKER: With a master's degree from the London Film School , Ahmed Allauddin Jamal has been managing and running First Take Limited, an independent production company which has produced programmes for both the BBC and Channel 4 for over 14 years. First Take has made some of the most thought-provoking and ground-breaking documentaries shown on British television such as: "Dead Man Talking", "The Dancing Girls of Lahore", " Iran - the Other Story" and "The Fundamental Question." His first feature film as director, "Majdhar", came out in 1983. "Mad Dogs" is his second feature.

THE FILM: "Matir Moina" (The Clay Bird)
BANGLADESH-FRANCE / 2002 / 98 MIN / BENGALI
Cast: Nurul Islam Bablu, Russell Farazi, Jayanto Chattopadhyay, Rokeya Prachy
Cinematography: Sudheer Palsane
Editing: Catherine Masud.
Music Direction: Moushumi Bhowmik
Art Direction & Set Design: Kazi Rakib, Sylvain Nahmias
Executive Producer: Nathalie Kreuther
Producer: Catherine Masud
Screenplay: Tareque and Catherine Masud.
Directed by: Tareque Masud

SYNOPSIS: Set against the backdrop of the turbulent period in the late 1960s leading up to Bangladesh 's independence from Pakistan , "Matir Moina" (The Clay Bird) tells the story of a family torn by religion and war. A young boy, Anu, is sent off to a strict Islamic school, or madrassa, by his deeply religious father Kazi. As the political divisions in the country intensify, an increasing split develops between the moderate and extremist forces within the madrassa, mirroring a growing divide between the stubborn but confused Kazi and his increasingly independent wife. Touching upon the themes of religious tolerance, cultural diversity, and the complexity of Islam, "Matir Moina" has universal relevance in a strife-ridden world.

THE FILMMAKER: Tareque Masud spent most of his childhood in a Madrassa (Islamic seminary school) in Bangaladesh. The war of independence from Pakistan in 1971 put an abrupt end to his religious studies and after the war he entered general education. He started his first film, a documentary on the Bangladesh painter S.M Sultan in late 1982. Since then, he and his American wife Catherine have made a number of short, documentary and animated films under the banner of their production company Audiovision. In 2002 his first feature film "Matir Moina" (The Clay Bird) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the International Critics Prize. For many years he has been active in the short film movement, and in 1988 served as the Coordinator of the First International Short Film Festival Dhaka under the chairmanship of Alamgir Kabir.

THE FILM: "Mohobbat Ki Pehli Kahani" (The First Story of Love)
PAKISTAN / 2003 / 125 MIN / URDU
Cast: Salman Shahid, Sa nia Saeed, Mona Lisa, Akbar Subhani, Faisal Qureishi, Rehan Sheikh, Nadya Hussain, Shehla Qureishi and Humanyun Naz
Director of Photography: Altaf Amin
Editing:
Music: Faisal Baig
Executive Producer: Arshad Khan, Savera Sheikh
Producers: Rehan Sheikh, Arshad Khan and Savera Sheikh
Written and Directed by: Rehan Sheikh

SYNOPSIS: A romantic comedy set in contemporary Karachi about a struggling writer who has to write a love story in one week. Suffering from writer's block he seeks the advice of his best friend, Hina, who suggests that to write about love you have to fall in love. In one week he manages to fall in love and gets unblocked and writes a love story. But not before a series of comic misadventures where he also deals with ghosts from his past.

THE FILMMAKER: Rehan Shiekh is a well known actor who has worked in numerous television productions and British theatrical productions. He majored in drama from the University of Surrey and wrote three fringe plays in London . This is his directorial debut.

(RETROSPECTIVE) THE FILM: "Naqoyqatsi"
USA / 2003 / 89 MIN /
Director of Photography: Russell Lee Fine
Editing and Visual Design: John Kane
Music: Philip Glass
Producer: Joe Beirne, Godfrey Reggio, Lawrence Taub
Written and Directed by: Godfrey Reggio

SYNOPSIS: More important than empires, more powerful than world religions, more decisive than great battles, more impactful than cataclysmic earth changes, "Naqoyqatsi"chronicles the most significant event of the last 5,000 years: the transition from the natural milieu, old nature, to the "new" nature, the technological milieu. Nature has held earthly unity through the mystery of diversity. New nature achieves this unity through the awesome power of technological homogenization. "Naqoyqatsi" is a reflection on this singular event, where our subject is the medium itself, the wonderland of technology. The medium is our story. In this scenario human beings do not use technology as a tool (the popular point-of-view), but rather we live technology as a way of life. Technology is the big force and like oxygen it is always there, a necessity that we cannot live without. Because its appetite is seemly infinite, it is consuming the finite world of nature. Na-qoy-qatsi: (nah koy' kahtsee) N. From the Hopi Language. 1. A life of killing each other 2. War as a way of life. 3. (Interpreted) Civilized violence.

THE FILMMAKER: Born in New Orleans in 1940 and raised in southwest Louisiana , Reggio entered a Roman Catholic pontifical order at age 14. He spent 14 years of his adolescence and early adulthood in fasting, silence, and prayer. Based in New Mexico during the sixties, Reggio taught grade school, secondary school and college. During this period he helped set up a community organization project that aided juvenile street gangs as well as a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe. In 1972, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe , a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization and research. In 1974 and 1975, Reggio co-organized a multi-media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior. He then began to develop the idea for a nonverbal film formed from a non-stop collage of images from real life which resulted in the critically acclaimed Qatsi trilogy. In 1993, he also helped develop a new school of exploration and production in the arts, technology, and mass media which opened in May, 1995, in Treviso , Italy . Reggio is a frequent lecturer on philosophy, technology and film. He resides in Santa Fe , New Mexico.

(OUT OF COMPETITION) THE FILM: "Paap" (Sin)
INDIA / 2003 / XX MIN / HINDI
Cast: John Abraham, Udita Goswami, Gulshan Grover, Mohan Agashe, Sandeep Mehta, Denzil Smith, Anupam Shyam, Anahita Uberoi, Mukesh Bhatt
Cinematograpy: Anshuman Mahaley
Editing:
Music: Anu Malik, Ali Azmat and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan
Producers: Pooja Bhatt and Sujit Kuman Singh
Screenplay: Mahesh Bhatt, Niranjan Iyengar
Directed by: Pooja Bhatt

SYNOPSIS: When the Rimpoche - the religious head from a serene monastery in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh - gets a vision about his Master's reincarnation in New Delhi as a six-year-old boy, it is left to a young, educated girl from the town Kaya to bring the six-year-old child Llahmo back to the monastery. Brought up in the quiet but disciplined environment of Spiti and conditioned by her stern father to believe that denial is the only route to higher truth, Kaya's heart nevertheless wanders into territories common for a girl her age. She yearns for love and waits for its arrival during her private moments. When Llahmo becomes a key witness in the murder of a key police officer in New Delhi , she comes face to face with the righteous police officer Shiven. Although Kaya resents his philosophy of life which is at variance with her, she also finds herself strangely drawn to him. As the danger from the city threatens to engulf her idyllic Spiti, Kaya must choose between following her upbringing of denial and her heart.

THE FILMMAKER: Pooja Bhatt began her acting career with an unconventional debut in "Daddy" (1991) directed by her father Mahesh Bhatt. A moving film on a father-daughter relationship, "Daddy" was the beginning of a journey that culminated in her mature role in "Zakhm" (1999), also directed by Mahesh Bhatt. Meanwhile, Pooja graduated from being a spunky, outspoken star to a mature and non-conformist producer who chose unconventional subjects close to her heart and projected them on screen. She became the youngest woman-producer in India with the bold Tamanna (1997), which won the National Award for the best Film on Social Issues. Although Pooja has given acclaimed performances in films like "Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahin" (1991), "Tamanna" and "Zakhm", amongst many others, she has decided to let acting take a backseat and has focused all her efforts on producing and in nurturing her company, Fisheye Network. Her first feature film under this banner was "Sur" (2001), whose music became the largest selling album of the year. "Jism", the company's most recent project, released in January 2003, was the first success story of the year for Bollywood. "Paap" is her directorial debut.

(RETROSPECTIVE) THE FILM: "Powaqqatsi"
USA / 1987 / 87 MIN /
Directors of Photography: Graham Berry, Leonidas Zourdoumis
Editing: Iris Cahn, Alton Walpole
Music: Philip Glass
Producer: Mel Lawrence, Godfrey Reggio, Lawrence Taub
Screenplay: Godfrey Reggio, Ken Richards
Directed by: Godfrey Reggio

SYNOPSIS: "Powaqqatsi"s overall focus is on natives of the Third World - the emerging, land-based cultures of Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East and South America - and how they express themselves through work and traditions. Where "Koyaanisqatsi" dealt with the imbalance between nature and modern society, "Powaqqatsi" is a celebration of the human-scale endeavour - the craftsmanship, spiritual worship, labour and creativity that defines a particular culture. It's also a celebration of rareness - the delicate beauty in the eyes of an Indian child, the richness of a tapestry woven in Kathmandu - and yet an observation of how these societies move to a universal drumbeat. "Powaqqatsi" is also about contrasting ways of life, and in part how the lure of mechanization and technology and the growth of mega-cities are having a negative effect on small-scale cultures. The title 'Powaqqatsi' is a Hopi Indian conjunctive - the word 'Powaqa', which refers to a negative sorcerer who lives at the expense of others, and 'Qatsi', i.e. life.

THE FILMMAKER: Born in New Orleans in 1940 and raised in southwest Louisiana , Reggio entered a Roman Catholic pontifical order at age 14. He spent 14 years of his adolescence and early adulthood in fasting, silence, and prayer. Based in New Mexico during the sixties, Reggio taught grade school, secondary school and college. During this period he helped set up a community organization project that aided juvenile street gangs as well as a facility that provided medical care to 12,000 community members in Santa Fe. In 1972, he co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe , a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization and research. In 1974 and 1975, Reggio co-organized a multi-media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior. He then began to develop the idea for a nonverbal film formed from a non-stop collage of images from real life which resulted in the critically acclaimed Qatsi trilogy. In 1993, he also helped develop a new school of exploration and production in the arts, technology, and mass media which opened in May, 1995, in Treviso , Italy . Reggio is a frequent lecturer on philosophy, technology and film. He resides in Santa Fe , New Mexico.

(RETROSPECTIVE) THE FILM: "Zakhm" (Wound)
INDIA / 1998 / XX MIN / HINDI
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Pooja Bhatt, Sonali Bendre, Kunal Kemmy,
Nagarjuna Akkineni
Cinematography: Nirmal Jani
Editing: Sanjay Sankla
Music: M.M. Kreem
Producers: Pooja Bhatt, Mukesh Bhatt
Screenplay: Mahesh Bhatt, Tanuja Chandra, Girish Dhameja
Directed by: Mahesh Bhatt

SYNOPSIS: The day Ajay Desai's mother is burnt alive by a mob during the 1993 communal riots in Mumbai, he is forced to come face to face with his explosive past. As the Christian hospital where the police bring his mother in a semi-conscious state, becomes a battleground between Hindu-Muslim forces, Ajay recalls his mother's anguish. She was an unmarried Muslim woman whose love for a Hindu man was thwarted by the fierce opposition from the man's mother. Ajay had spent all his childhood being shunned socially and yearning to bring his parents together but was ultimately foiled when his father died in an accident even as he was coming to see his newly born son, Ajay's baby brother. His mother had kept the truth of her Muslim origins a closely guarded secret and even after his father's death, only Ajay was her confidante. She had made her son promise her that when she died, he would quietly bury her as a Muslim and in that way she was sure to meet her husband in heaven. This promise Ajay fights too keep, even as Hindu fundamentalists, with whom his younger brother now keeps company, pressure him to conceal the fact.

THE FILMMAKER: Born in 1949 in Bombay , Mahesh Bhatt is one of the most well known and most successful film directors and producers in India . He began his career as an assistant to director Raj Khosla and has directed over 45 films since the 1970s and has also written the screenplays for 12 films. Many of his films - such as "Daddy" (1989), "Aashiqui" (1990), "Dil Hai Ke Maanta Nahin"(1991) and "Sarak" (1991) have been blockbuster hits while films such as "Arth" (1982) and "Zakhm" have received widespread critical acclaim. Bhatt's films show an unusual engagement with the psychological damage arising from infringement of social norms. "Zakhm", his last feature directorial effort, was returned to the censor board because of right-wing pressure critical of its references to the Mumbai riots of 1993. Bhatt now concentrates on his work as a producer and as a documentarian.

(RETROSPECTIVE) THE FILM: "Zinda Laash" (The Living Corpse)
PAKISTAN / 1967 / 103 MIN / URDU
Cast: Rehan, Yasmeen, Habib, Deeba, Allauddin, Nasreen, Asad, Talish, Rangeela, Nazar, Munawar Zarif, Baby Najmi, Cham Cham, Sabira Sultana, Shirin, Sheela
Cinematography: Raza Mir, Nabi Ahmad, Irshad
Editing: Asghar
Music: Murad
Producer: Abdul Baqi
Screenplay: Naseem Rizwana
Directed by: Khawaja Sarfaraz

SYNOPSIS: This is basically a Lollywood version of the classic Dracula story by Bram Stoker and it remains fairly faithful to the original source but has been given the "desi" treatment and story changed to suit local audiences. The Dracula theme has been slightly merged with a sort of Mad Scientist / Jeckyl and Hyde scenario with the end result being one of the most impressive genre films ever to have been made in the sub-continent. There is an emphasis on creating atmosphere and an eeriness through camerawork and cinematography - two outstanding features of the film. It was the first film ever to be awarded an Adults Only certificate in Pakistan - something which probably helped it become the box office success that it was.

THE FILMMAKER: Khwaja Sarfaraz directed several commercial Lollywood films during the '60s and '70s - most of them fairly unmemorable material that didn't differ from the formula fare churned out by everyone else. "Zinda Laash" is the glowing feather in his cap as it is a work that dared to break from the norm in a huge way. Sadly, Sarfaraz wasn't to enjoy much success after this film and his career has faded away since the '70s.