The Express Tribune Magazine - March 1

MARCH 1-7 2015

FINDING

FATIMA In conversation with the latest Bhutto to bring Democracy to Pakistan

MARCH 1-7 2015

Travel

Following Hemingway

Cover Story

Finding Fatima

Taking a tour of Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban haunts

Fatima Bhutto talks about her latest book Democracy, writing and remaining positive COVER PHOTO CREDIT: AMEAN J

26 Feature

Natural selection The 2015 Berlin Film Festival casts a spotlight on female directors and actors

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54 Regulars

6 People & Parties: Out and 70

about with beautiful people 66 Reviews: Movies Tech: An app that helps the visually impaired ‘see’

Magazine Editor: Sarah Munir and Senior Subeditors: Dilaira Dubash and Sanam Maher Creative Team: Essa Malik, Jamal Khurshid, Mohsin Alam, Omer Asim, Aamir Khan, Sanober Ahmed & Talha Ahmed Khan Publisher: Bilal A Lakhani. Editor: Kamal Siddiqi For feedback and submissions: magazine@tribune.com.pk Twitter: @ETribuneMag & Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ETribuneMag Printed: uniprint@unigraph.com

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Amber Liaqat

Aden Rehan and Fatima Saif

Amara and Shireen

6 MARCH 1-7 2015

Mona Faisal and Farnaz Haider

Amna Kardar

Fatima and Kanwal Ilyas

PHOTOS COURTESY FAISAL FAROOQUI AND HIS TEAM AT DRAGONFLY

L’Oréal Paris launches its collection of matte red lipsticks in Lahore

Mehreen Syed

Rubia Moghees

Mehek Rizvi

Zahra Khan Zarmina

Mariam Mushtaq

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Sadaf Zarrar and Hassan Sheheryar Yasin

Maryam Khalid

PHOTOS COURTESY FAISAL FAROOQUI AND HIS TEAM AT DRAGONFLY

PEOPLE & PARTIES

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Saliha, Atif and Sam Ali Dada

Shammal Qureishi and Redah Misbah

Depilex Men launches ‘The Lounge’ in Lahore

Nazish and Shadab

Ayaz Sharif and Farhad

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Musarat Misbah and Syed Noor

Rabia, Hina and Anum

Sonia and Xille Huma

PHOTOS COURTESY BILAL MUKHTAR EVENTS & PR

Faiza and Sarah

Farah and Rehan

Farooq Hassan and Farzeen Malik

Gillian and David

Sadaf and Yousuf

Nazim Shahzad and Yasmin Nazim

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Taimoor

Hina Ijaz and Rizi Omer

PHOTOS COURTESY BILAL MUKHTAR EVENTS & PR

PEOPLE & PARTIES

PEOPLE & PARTIES

Rommana and Ayesha

Sanayah, Momina and Zainab Mrs Anza Waseem

Mustafa Zafar, Irshad, Waleed Zahid and Fareeha

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Anushay and Mrs Hassan

PHOTOS COURTESY PINHOLE STUDIO

The Citizens Archive of Pakistan holds an exhibition on the successful completion of its ‘Exchange for Change’ 2013-2015 project in Lahore

PEOPLE & PARTIES Close Up partners with Exito Productions to host a musical evening in Karachi

Imran Shaikh and Azmeen Merchant

Muhammad Umer, Zara Arshad Khan and Shahzeb Jafri

Sidra Ali and Pareesa Naeem

Liam Anthony and Nick Sheldon

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Shamin Ahmad, Ali Pasha and Abdul Haye

Mahvash Akbar, Sufyan Khan and Areeba Aziz

TRAVEL There are tourists pouring into the lobby of the Hotel Ambos Mundos in Havana. I watch them arrive as I sit at the bar; they are from all over the world and speak different languages but they all appear the same. A DSLR camera hangs from their necks and their faces are buried in guide books. I hear Japanese, German and French.

There is English, but spoken with American, Canadian and British accents and the air is scented with sweet rum and cigars. All these tourists are here to visit Room 511. More accurately, they are here because of Room 511’s most famous occupant: Ernest Hemingway.

Following Hemingway

On the trail of the Nobel prize-winning author’s Cuban haunts

BY KHAVER SIDDIQI

The hotel lobby is a shrine to the author. There are pictures on every inch of the walls: Hemingway on a boat, shaking hands with Castro, writing and laughing — Hemingway doing everything. One of them, a particularly striking close-up of the author kissing one of his four wives, Martha Gellhorn, catches my eye. It is the least Hemingway-esque photograph among the collection, and stirs a quote from the author in my mind, “The best writing is certainly when you are in love.”

Ernest Hemingway and Cuban leader Fidel Castro first met in 1960 at a

26 fishing contest held in the author’s honour. PHOTO: AP MARCH 1-7 2015

Hotel Ambos Mundos, where Hemingway lived as he began Old Havana. PHOTO CREDIT: KHAVER SIDDIQI

Ernest Hemingway’s typewriter, as displayed in Hotel Ambos Mundos’ Room 511. PHOTO CREDIT: KHAVER SIDDIQI Hemingway’s love for Cuba began in the early 1930s. It was in 1932 that he discovered the hotel and took up residence in Room 511. This would be his writing space for the next seven years and the place where he started work on For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The hotel building has a pinkish hue, reminiscent of 1940s and 1950s art-deco style. It is located in the heart of Old Havana or Havana Vieja as it is known in Spanish. Not far from the hotel, there are hundreds, if not thousands of books for sale in tiny stalls on the Plaza de Armas town square.

I take the slow hotel elevator up five floors to Room 511. As I get out on the fifth floor, I’m greeted by yet another picture of Hemingway: the writer meeting Castro. A guide informs me that only four people are allowed in Room 511 at a time and so I wait while a German tour group goes before me. Twenty minutes later, the group emerges from the room. I don’t speak

work on For Whom the Bell Tolls, is located in the heart of

A telegram informing Hemingway that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Old Man and the Sea in 1954. PHOTO CREDIT: KHAVER SIDDIQI 27 MARCH 1-7 2015

TRAVEL German but I can tell the tourists are unimpressed. Then the guide motions me into this hotel room which has been turned into a mini-museum.

The room is triangular in shape and the corner is covered by windows that look out onto the rooftops of Old Havana through to Castillo Morro Fort on the other side of the harbour.

The breeze brings with it sounds of the streets below and the not-so-distant smell of the ocean.

In front of the window, in the centre of the room, is a small table and chair and upon the table, ensconced in a glass box, lies Hemingway’s typewriter. I thought the view from the windows had taken my breath away but the sight of the typewriter makes my heart stop. It is magnificent. A writer’s weapon has never before been so gloriously displayed.

Across the typewriter is a small, single bed and next to it are Hemingway’s fishing rods. While Hemingway stayed at the hotel, he used his boat, named the Pilar, to fish in Havana’s harbour. On the wall, mounted in a glass case, is the original telegram Hemingway received (not at the hotel) in 1954, announcing that he had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. It bears his handwritten notes.

Just an hour away from Hotel Ambos Mundos, in the small village of San Francisco de Paula, there is a farm. Finca Vigía (Lookout Farm) is no ordinary farm. One of the things that

Photographs of the author and a framed copy of his signature are displayed in the lobby of Hotel Ambos Mundos.

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PHOTO CREDIT: KHAVER SIDDIQI MARCH 1-7 2015

A view of Hemingway’s living room in his farmhouse, located in the small you immediately notice here, besides the animal heads on the walls and a half burnt cigar in an ash tray in the living room, is that there are books everywhere.

Almost every room — even the bathroom — has a bookshelf.

I spot many classics here — T S Eliot’s Collected Poems, Charles A Beard’s The Republic and Alden Brooks’s Shakespeare and the Dyer’s Hand to name a few. But there are no books in the dining room.

Either Hemingway subscribed to the thought that reading whilst eating was rude or his passion for writing was only surpassed by his passion for food. I’d like to think it was the latter.

Like Hotel Ambos Mundos, there are tour guides here too but this place is more special than room 511. This is the place almost all Hemingway enthusiasts visit; they crowd around his boat and walk around his empty swimming pool — the writer famously swam half a mile every day — and look at the graves of Hemingway’s beloved cats right across the pool.

Four tombstones bear their names: Black, Negrita, Linda and Neron.

The centre piece of this location is the tower that stands in the middle of the farm, watching over all of it. Hemingway had the tower built once he moved here and it is the perfect retreat within a retreat. The tower is only three or four stories high but once you’re up there and see La Habana in the distance, you realise you are far away from everything and everyone.

Hemingway often said that it was the characters in his stories that would drive him up here and force him to write. He wrote in seclusion and famously said, “The telephone and visitors are the work destroyers.”

Cuban village of San Francisco de Paula. PHOTO CREDIT: KHAVER SIDDIQI

Finca Vigía (Lookout Farm) is no ordinary farm. One of the things that you immediately notice here, besides the animal heads on the walls and a half burnt cigar in an ash tray in the living room, is that there are books everywhere

The author’s single bed in Room 511 of Hotel Ambos Mundos.

PHOTO CREDIT: KHAVER SIDDIQI

Although I was standing in the shadow of the tower, I could feel Hemingway’s weighty shadow despite him being here a lifetime ago. And with his presence came a realisation: what was left in his room and the farm was a reenactment of how the writer’s life may have appeared. Nobody knows how Hemingway filled these spaces.

All of this staging was a flame to draw an eclipse of moths — the tourists. But not all tourists are writers or aspiring to be one, and for them, Room 511 is a simple room with a typewriter, some fishing rods and an average Cuban view.

But for an aspiring writer, everything about that room is intoxicating. The tourists followed Hemingway to find an empty room and a barren farm, while I followed Hemingway and found a writer’s spirit. It was as if he was showing me: this is how a writer lives and writes.

Khaver Siddiqi is a social media consultant living in Chennai, India.

He tweets @thekarachikid

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Fatima and her mother Ghinwa in Damascus.

PHOTO COURTESY: FATIMA BHUTTO

FINDING

FATIMA

In conversation with the latest Bhutto to bring Democracy to Pakistan BY SANAM MAHER DESIGN BY EESHA AZAM I first met Fatima Bhutto the day a small heartshaped icon blinked on my phone’s screen, informing me that ‘fbhutto’ had liked one of my photographs on Instagram. And then on February 13th, a few hours before her latest work, a short story called Democracy, was released online, Fatima invited me to her home.

It felt impossible that we would not talk about politics.

On the way to 70 Clifton, I drove past graffiti that pleaded, “Fatima, you are our only hope”, and as I walked into the house, I expected to see the faces of generations of Bhuttos looking down at me. Yes, they were all there, but so were some unexpected visitors: dozens of children from nearby Neelum Colony, who come to the house to seek refuge from the streets, do their homework, or join art classes with Fatima’s mother Ghinwa.

I decided then that I wouldn’t interview Fatima the Bhutto but Fatima the writer: the woman who spent a night in the kitchens of London’s storied Delaunay restaurant so she could learn to make croissants, who seemed to have a weak

spot for beautiful shoes and who gives all her books away as a rule. It seemed fitting to take the conversation out of 70 Clifton and back online, where we first met. And so, for one week, Fatima and I emailed each other.

Even when I tried to avoid it, discussions of politics inevitably crept into the conversation. After all, Democracy takes the reader back to October 1999, when it took Pakistan’s military just 17 hours to overthrow Nawaz Sharif’s government.

Much of our conversation was coloured by stories of loss.

One day, I told Fatima about a journalist who had covered Operation Clean-Up and the violence in Karachi in the 1990s. “He said there were days when he would drive to Seaview, stand on the shore and scream and scream at the waves. It was the only way he could make sense, the only way he could communicate what he had seen and felt,” I wrote to her. “In that case, I wondered, why did he do this job? And you could do anything you wanted to, so why write?”

She replied,“Writing is my way of screaming at the waves.” 39 MARCH 1-7 2015

COVER STORY

Let’s start?

FEBRUARY 14

Dear Fatima, I raced through Democracy. I couldn’t put it down. I didn’t want the story to end but at the same time I appreciated the brevity; the writing is watertight and the characters fully realised.

Is the short story format tricky for you?

There isn’t much fanfare around the release of Democracy; no book parties and perhaps very few interviews. Do you prefer that?

Hi Sanam, Thank you for your note and for these questions, which I never ever get asked.

Yes, let’s start.

Short stories are new for me, I’ve only published three so far but I find them really enjoyable to do as you have to get right to the pulse of the story. Yes it’s harder to do, much harder.

We’re a country bursting with stories and with this format you can look at such a wide range of things without having to explain too much. A short story doesn’t have to be an ‘insight’ into a place or a people but just a moment or a small observation.

Doing book tours and press is such a strange experience. As a writer you’re supposed to sit alone and work, that’s what you do. It’s solitary work, lonely sometimes, but that’s good.

You want that. You want to be able to spend your hours in this way, I do at least.

And then when you finish, you have to go out and do interviews and answer questions and explain. It’s voyeuristic and it’s not always comfortable. But what I do like doing is readings, especially with students. The younger they are the less self-censoring. That said, this is the first interview I’m doing for Democracy (and the first time I’m doing only digital) so I’m not sure what the process will be this time around.

Fatima and her father Mir Murtaza Bhutto in Damascus.

PHOTO COURTESY: FATIMA BHUTTO

Tell me how this story came to be.

Democracy started with the idea of the brigadier. He came first and the rest of the story was built around him — the chaos of a coup, the absurdity of a media and a judiciary playing along with the abrogation of a Constitution (which of course they’ve done plenty of times) and how it is that we all implicitly agree not to talk about it afterwards. But we have to talk about dictatorships and how fully they shadow our history.

Democracy is totally absent in this country, it has been during my lifetime certainly, and yet we use the word to excuse all kinds of criminality. So that’s where the title came from.

Did you celebrate the book’s launch today?

I finished writing Democracy maybe a year ago. But I was working on it till two weeks before Penguin released it. I kept going back and looking at it and changing things around. I think most writers are like this, no? I’m suspi40 cious of people who don’t do as many drafts as possible.

MARCH 1-7 2015

I got my copy of Democracy this morning, which was nice.

We were discussing the cover till yesterday morning so it really was new to me. But otherwise it was a normal day. I spent the afternoon with my dogs and my brother who has a science test and dragged me into helping him study for it.

Does this job of yours feel extraordinary?

FEBRUARY 15

It seems as though writing feels so normal to you, so ordinary, that it is odd to talk about it.

Did you always want to be a writer or did you come upon this craft because it enables you to do something you want? Is being of service important, particularly when you have such great privilege?

My father loved to read and he passed that on to me.

It was a space that was always peaceful for me. I loved books and as soon as I could write I knew that’s what I wanted to do.

It was a space where I could, unlike in life, move freely Author of Democracy Fatima Bhutto

Fatima with her mother Ghinwa at a political rally in 1997. Fatima’s raised fist is the symbol of her father’s party. PHOTO: REUTERS

I always loved words and stories. Growing up it was journalists and writers who were my heroes. There was a lot of movement when I was small, a lot of uncertainty and worry. We were in exile, which I was reminded of constantly by my father’s homesickness for Pakistan. “Don’t get used to it here, this isn’t your home, your home is Karachi,” he would say. But then of course we couldn’t be at home. And there was this violence that was always close behind because of my grandfather and uncle’s murders.

My father loved to read and he passed that on to me and from the start it was a space that was always peaceful for me.

I loved books and then as soon as I could write I knew that’s what I wanted to do. It was a space where I could, unlike in life, move freely. I am quieter about it because I don’t quite understand it. It’s, as you said, something that I’ve always felt and wanted to know more about but the discovery is so personal in many ways I wouldn’t know how to articulate it.

I know very much what you mean about being ‘of service’ because writing is a service. It’s a record; it’s reckoning and bearing witness. For me, a writer has only one duty: to convey truth. Any writer with a fidelity to that principle is contributing to their community, to their environment.

MARCH 1-7 2015

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COVER STORY

Making meaning

On writing

FEBRUARY 16

FEBRUARY 17

But are there days when you feel this job of writing and recording doesn’t mean nearly enough? For instance, the day the Army Public School was attacked in Peshawar.

I read this earlier today: Interviewer: Where do you get your ideas?

Arthur Miller: I wish I knew; I’d go there more often.

Where do you go for inspiration?

Peshawar was a brutal shock to the spirit. In a country that constantly devours its own, that almost anaesthetises you to violence because it’s so present and so constant.

Peshawar was so cruel and so unfathomable.

I cried for a week. I cried because I couldn’t imagine such a thing could happen in my country. And when it did, I could not understand how we would recover from it. Writing doesn’t soothe that kind of pain or confusion but it connects us to others who, at that moment, feel the same grief. And that is something.

Writing has always helped me understand what I feel, it’s helped me when I’ve been lost or scared. But I don’t think of it as control because writing for me is the opposite function — it’s freedom.

That’s a great line!

Inspiration comes from travelling, seeing new things, reading far and wide and observing things around us.

When I went to Iran, every encounter was inspiring because it was all unknown to me. At other times I’ll be in the car on a street I’ve driven down a hundred times and something catches my eye for the first time and I’m struck. Was this always here or have I missed it all this time?

I was at Seaview the other day in the evening and these men were pulling nets out of the sea, walking barefoot on the sand and rifling through the fish they had literally just dragged out of the shallow water. There were no boats, just these young men. I was standing there with my brother and I noticed these small boys, ten or twelve year olds, picking up all the small fish the fishermen had no use for and flicking them into the sea. I’m sure this happens every day, but I stood there at that moment and wondered how long I had missed it for.

Shahnawaz and Murtaza Bhutto (centre) at a rally in London to protest the imprisonment of their father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in 1979. PHOTO COURTESY: DAUGHTER OF THE EAST: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

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Positive Pakistan FEBRUARY 18

I was speaking with a friend about Democracy and her first response was: Why does Fatima Bhutto always write about the terrible parts of Pakistan?

I leave it to the supporters of the state to write positive stories.

But that is a complaint that comes up routinely with anyone who presents their work outside of Pakistan.

Writers, filmmakers and activists are asked why they don’t put Pakistan’s ‘best face’ forward. It does sometimes frustrate me that Pakistanis are usually represented by the polar opposites in their nature — it’s either the literary festivals and fashionistas or the Taliban. Have you ever felt that these are the narratives that sell the best?

As a writer, filmmaker or an artist it’s your duty to write/ paint/film what needs to be said — what is urgent, what is buried, what is hidden, what is unsaid. In my mind that has nothing to do with sales or audience but with observation and truth.

The Bhutto family in July 1978. To Zulfikar Ali’s left is his daughter Benazir. To his right are son, Shahnawaz and wife Nusrat. In front of him are son Murtaza and daughter Sanam.

PHOTO: AP

I’m not an apologist. I point out what disturbs me and let the regime point out what it does well. About putting one’s best face forward, I think its hypocritical to smile when what you see in your country on an daily basis is unjust, unfair and, too often, brutal.

The ‘Bhutto’ brand FEBRUARY 19

Does your surname ever feel like something you are bound to? It is the frame of reference used to talk about what you do. Do you wish it were not so?

My name or my family doesn’t bind me more than anyone else’s binds them. We belong not only to our presents but to our pasts and carry so much of our ancestors. As a people we live very connected lives with our families, friends and each other.

I was raised to believe that what I do that matters, not who I am. I was lucky to grow up in Damascus where my

name didn’t mean what it does here so I enjoyed a good part of my life not feeling that the name was how people judged me.

My brother Zulfikar and I chose different paths than I think many expected of us but there’s no doubt in our minds that what we do is political. This is just our way of expressing it.

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COVER STORY

The things that matter Why do you give all your books away?

I have to say, it’s one of the best decisions I ever made. I’m lucky in that I live in a house of libraries. But I’ve never regretted giving away my own collection. The books I love, that move me profoundly, I keep. The rest I want to share, to give to friends. I donate them or leave them on buses or benches or planes for strangers to read.

Which are some of the books you’ve kept?

Oblivion by Hector Abad is so beautiful. I kept my copy but I’m always giving it away so I’m always restocking that one. I hung onto Joan Didion’s Democracy and Sharon and my Mother in Law (a great set of essays by a Palestinian writer named Suad Amiry).

Who is the first fictional character you recall identifying with?

Atticus Finch is one of my favourite characters of all time in fiction. But who can identify with him? He’s too heroic, an ideal but not a mirror.

If you left 70 Clifton today, what one thing would you take with you?

Nothing. I wouldn’t take anything, only my family and my dogs.

You’ve always wanted to...

Learn

And you’ll probably never...

Be good at maths

When were you last happiest?

Finishing a wonderful book — Heat by Bill Buford — last night.

Why join Instagram or Twitter?

I always imagined you as too reclusive for such public platforms.

Twitter has always been a way for me to speak directly with people — I always appreciated that about the medium. Its a place where I can put forward issues that are important to me or just share something I find interesting and support the work of others. It’s a great place for news, to fish around and see what’s happening in different places. I don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s real life.

Instagram seems a more positive version of that — less rants more sharing. I’m allergic to selfies and things like that. It’s Facebook I can’t stand and would never join — that’s intrusive and, in my opinion, pointless.

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When do you feel powerful?

I’m trying to think but you know, it’s not a feeling I associate with anything good. What does feeling power mean? Imposing force? Strength? I’m more interested in letting go. We are all vulnerable, even those who think they’re strong. Especially those.

Would you ever consider extending your writing to film projects, plays or any other medium?

I’m always open to expression, whatever the medium.

Do you see yourself living in Pakistan all your life?

Karachi is a city I love. Karachi and Damascus are the two cities of my heart. Those are the two homes I ever had. I don’t know if I’ll live here all my life but it will never leave me.

But you are asked to speak of your family and your father in almost all the interviews you do.

Doesn’t it feel intrusive? Or do you get used to this and see these interviews as moments of remembrance?

My father and I were soul mates. He was and always will be my reason for living.

It took me years to see that nothing happens to him so long as I am here, as long as Zulfi is here. Next year it will be 20 years since he was murdered but now, more than ever, I see him everywhere.

When I was touring with Songs of Blood and Sword it was very important for me to speak about his killing, and for years before that, even though it was difficult. When I speak of him now, I talk about his life, who he was and what he was like, and nothing could make me happier.

The end FEBRUARY 20

But how do you not get angry?

The truth is Sanam, I was angry for a long time. I had not only lost my father but he was killed in front of us. We were inside the house that night and could do nothing while he was lying on the street bleeding to death, which the police made sure of.

All the senior officers present that night were never held accountable for the lives of the seven men they assassinated. They were promoted once, twice, many times. They continue today to serve at the highest level of state.

I was deeply angry for a long time. But the men who killed my father acted out of anger and I don’t want any of their poison. I don’t want to carry what they did. My mother always told us that we wouldn’t let the violence follow us any longer because we would live without anger and hate. Almost 20 years later we have received no justice for my father’s murder. I am still very sad about that but who receives justice in this country?

But to go back to anger, when I understood that those whom you love never leave you — they remain, they return — and no one had the power to take away what I love and believe in, my perspective on anger shifted. But that took years.

Democracy: An excerpt Democracy, an e-single opens at Karachi’s Sind Club, in the shadows of the banyan trees around the club’s pool, where Brigadier Azad has two things on his mind: how to keep the chlorinated pool water out of his eyes and how to stop his wife getting in the way of an affair. But then a splash of brownish water hits the brigadier in the eye as Major Jamshed clicks his heels smartly, wetly, together at the edge of the pool.

“Terribly sorry to disturb you, Brigadier Azad, but we have to leave.”

The Brigadier was known for his cool. He had been on active duty in three of Pakistan’s four wars. It would be near impossible to hustle him out of this swimming pool.

Major Jamshed had been told not to say a word about the mission until they were en route. Brigadier’s ears only.

At first glance Major Jamshed spotted at least four sets of non-essential ears milling around the swimming pool, five if one counted the toddler with the nasty scratch. She was whimpering, a string of snot connecting her bleeding nose and mouth. Major Jamshed frowned and looked at his watch. It has taken him five minutes to drive across the club to the pool. This was taking too long already. He heard the screeching sound of the jeeps pulling up to the parking lot. Everyone was in position.

The Brigadier raised an eyebrow, but didn’t move except to wipe the puddle water from his eyes. “What’s happened?”

He wore Lycra swimming trunks. Not the kind that looked like chuddis, they were longer than that naturally, reaching his mid-thigh, but still, he didn’t want the Major to see him so informally attired.

“I’ve got your uniform in the car Brigadier Sir, it’s urgent that we leave immediately.” Major Jamshed’s eyes darted back and forth; there were too many people to risk saying anything. He held his breath.

Do you feel that people expected you to only write what you know? Do they just want to hear the gossipy family stories?

I don’t think people expected I would keep writing, actually. T

Sanam Maher is a senior subeditor at The Express Tribune magazine desk.

She tweets @SanamMKhi MARCH 1-7 2015

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Natural selection This year’s Berlin Film Festival leaned towards works by strong female directors and actors

BY SCHAYAN RIAZ DESIGN BY SANOBER AHMED

When director of the Berlin Film Festival Dieter Kosslick explained the inclusion of more works by and about women in this year’s festival programme, he bracketed their films under one sentence: “Strong women in extreme situations.” Although this may have sounded like a joke, he was serious.

Juliette Binoche starred as an arctic explorer, Josephine Peary, in the opening night film Nobody Wants the Night and Nicole Kidman played an explorer, Gertrude Bell, in

Queen of the Desert. It seems the festival programmers felt that by having strong female characters battling extreme conditions geographically, they would be championing gender equality.

Nobody Wants the Night is made by a woman, Isabel Coixet, but it’s hard to imagine the film would have opened a prestigious film festival like the Berlinale had Binoche not been the leading actor. While otherwise dependable in everything she does, Binoche acts very strangely here

Lights, camera... Berlin!

• The Berlin International Film Festival, known as the Berlinale, is one of the film industry’s most prestigious annual events. The festival was started by the Western allies after the Second World War as a ‘showcase for the free world’.

• Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca opened the first Berlinale in 1951. Although the film had premiered in 1940, many Germans had been unable to watch it until after the war ended.

• The festival’s Golden Bear — the highest prize awarded for the best film — pays tribute to the heraldic animal of Berlin, featured on the coat of arms and flag of Berlin.

• In 1970, German director Michael Verhoeven unveiled O.K. — a film about a Vietnamese girl who is raped and shot by four US soldiers — at the festival. American director and Berlinale jury president George Stevens threatened to quit and later, the entire jury resigned without bestowing any prizes.

• In 1979, the Soviet delegation, including representatives from across Eastern Europe and two members of the jury, walked out when The Deer Hunter — about a group of Russian-American soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War — was screened. as Peary, who headed to Greenland in pursuit of her husband Robert, who is in search of the North Pole. Peary finds accommodation with Allaka (Rinko Kikuchi), an Inuit woman who has been impregnated by Robert and is waiting for him to return. It’s a ripe set-up, but ultimately turns into a plodding bore.

The same can be said about Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert. Bell plays the multifaceted role of a writer, a traveller, an archaeologist and even a political officer.

She was responsible for the formation of large parts of the Middle East, specifically Iraq. So, it’s a shame that Herzog restricts a life as rich as this to just two love affairs. To add to this, the legendary film-maker who has crafted great portraits on powerhungry madmen just cannot direct romance. The less said of Bell’s ‘romantic’ scenes with British diplomat Henry Cadogan (James Franco), the better.

Luckily, two other pictures screened on the second day were powerful enough to supplant the memories of Herzog’s film. Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s Taxi and Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years were the festival’s standouts. Taxi is a profound meta-comedy and Panahi’s third film since Iran’s government imposed a suspension on his work. He nevertheless continues to make movies, not caring about the ban and seems to have a wonderful time doing so. In Taxi, he plays a taxi driver, whose cab serves as a production company and every passenger is a new project. When Panahi smiles into the camera, he seems to tell us, “It’s okay, I’m still working.” It’s a little marvel of a film and it is very satisfying that the jury awarded the film a Golden

Member of the international jury Audrey Tautou arrives for the screening of the movie Nobody Wants the Night, in Berlin.

PHOTO: REUTERS

FEATURE

The great thing about the Berlin Film Festival is that one bad film is followed by several fantastic ones. And so Knight of Cups was followed by an absolute knockout — Patricio Guzman’s The Pearl Button, the only documentary in the competition

(Left) Iranian film director Jafar Panahi won the top Golden Bear prize for Taxi. (Right) Panahi’s niece Hana Saeidi cried as she collected the award on his behalf. PHOTO: REUTERS

Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay won Best Actress and

56 Best Actor, respectively, for 45 Years. PHOTO: AFP MARCH 1-7 2015

Bear, the festival’s top prize. Panahi’s niece, Hana Saeidi, accepted the award on his behalf, unable to hold back her tears as she held the Bear.

The Bear also went to actors Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay for their wholly complete performances in 45 Years. Andrew Haigh’s screenplay of a long — and not always easy — marriage, asks, ‘What if one is not married to the love of his or her life?’ This is a story of courtships, compassion and ultimately about compromises and will end up in many top 10 lists this year.

Then came the third day of the Berlinale: a proper jolt to the senses. It was time for a Berlin-set film to appear in the line-up and Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria, about four young men who meet a Spanish girl in a nightclub, get drunk and rob a bank, was an ideal choice. It’s a simple story, but here’s the trick: the film is one wondrous, 140-minute take.

Unlike Birdman, this year’s Oscar winner for best picture, Victoria isn’t cut together to look like one, uninterrupted shot. It actually is. Sturla Brandt Grøvlen’s cinematography rightly won the Outstanding Artistic Contribution award.

Another film where the camera was constantly in motion was Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups. But this time around, the technical trickery was just irritating. While Schipper had an actual story to tell, Malick just came off as pretentious. Although the cast includes Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett and a host of pretty actresses (including Freida Pinto), the star power does little to hold up the film. There’s a whiff of a plot as Bale is a hurting writer drowning his sorrows with manifold adulterous liaisons, but the audience suffers more than him.

However, the great thing about the Berlin Film Festival is that one bad film is followed by several fantastic ones.

And so Knight of Cups was followed by an absolute knockout — Patricio Guzman’s The Pearl Button, the only documentary in the competition. It talks of the atrocities committed

by Chilean dictator Pinochet and Guzman speaks to the indigenous populations of Patagonia as well as to scientists, trying to make sense of his country’s troubled history.

The one good thing to come out of the whole ‘strong women’ slogan this year was that the jury, led by director Darren Aronofsky, felt compelled to award the Bear for Best Director to Malgorzata Szumowska. Her Polish film Body is a drily funny film about a father and daughter coming to terms with the loss of the mother. Body has the best opening scene of all competing entries in this category: an apparently dead body hanging from a tree is cut down by the police and when it lands on the ground with a thud, the ‘corpse’ just stands up and wanders off the crime scene. It’s a sublime slice of dark humour.

Berlinale by the numbers • In 2014, the festival sold 325,262 tickets and 945 films were screened over 11 days.

• Over 7,000 films from all over the world were submitted to the festival this year — that’s almost 500 more than last year.

• Exactly 441 movies from 72 countries made it into the official programme.

• In this year’s programme, 155 of the films were produced by women, while 115 were directed by women.

Actress Lily James attends the premiere of Cinderella.

PHOTO: AFP

Speaking of timing, the most topical film in the competition was Grand Jury Prize winner El Club, dealing with the subject of organised religion, in particular the Catholic church. A handful of excommunicated priests live together in an isolated coastal village, under the leadership of an ex-nun (now here’s a strong woman living in an extreme situation). They pray, eat and sing together and train race dogs. These are bad people, but the reason for their banishment from the church (either homosexuality or paedophilia) isn’t clear. The dogs serve as a potent metaphor in this devastating moral tale, appearing more human than the priests.

With this film, Pablo Larrain asserts himself as one of the brightest voices in World Cinema today and the jury wouldn’t have been amiss to give him the Golden Bear. But this just proves that this year’s line-up featured very strong competitors. While festivals like Cannes or Venice get the lion’s share of celebrities, the real stars at this year’s Berlin Film Festival were the films.

Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan attend the premiere of Fifty Shades of Grey at the 65th Berlinale International Film Festival in Berlin, Germany.

PHOTO: REUTERS

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Schayan Riaz is a Germany-based writer who tweets @schayanriaz MARCH 1-7 2015

FILM

A Rock-ing comedy

Top Five depicts what it takes to be an AfricanAmerican entertainer

BY SAMEEN AMER

Funnyman Chris Rock has earned much praise as a stand-up comedian, but his talent hasn’t always translated into big screen success. With his latest film, the actor brings his standup smarts to celluloid, creating an amusing flick that will probably rank in the top five of his movie career.

Top Five tells the story of actor Andre Allen, a former standup comedian who is the title star of an action-comedy film Hammy the Bear. Tired of playing a cop in a bear suit and longing to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor, Allen chooses to star in Uprize, a movie about the slave rebellion in Haiti. On the day of the film’s release, he finds himself being shadowed by entertainment reporter Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson) for a profile, while also preparing for his imminent wedding with reality TV star Erica Long (Gabrielle Union). Resolves are tested and secrets are spilled as the interview proceeds. The characters find out more about each other and, in turn, discover more about themselves.

How things unfold is quite predictable, but while the premise may be simple, it still offers the perfect platform for Rock to showcase his wit. Top Five (which gets its title from Andre’s habit of asking people to name their favourite rappers) functions as a showbiz satire that comments on everything from racism and addiction to fame and relationships. But the freewheeling style also makes the proceedings seem haphazard.

A host of cameo appearances by famous faces pop up throughout the film; some of them seem shoehorned, but they are mostly quite amusing. Rock’s performance is genial and Dawson helps carry the film with her affable, easygoing turn, which makes the proceedings more engaging.

For the most part, Rock manages to keep viewers amused with his wry observations.

At its best, Top Five is genuinely funny and effortlessly charming. The humour, however, is definitely not for everyone. Some of the language and crude jokes could offend viewers; plus, its raunchiness detracts from the substance and is likely to make some moviegoers cringe. If the focus had been on making the film smarter instead of smuttier, the project could have probably been more enjoyable.

On the whole, Top Five may have its flaws, but it is still one of Rock’s most entertaining outings. Despite its untidy execution and conventional resolution, the film offers some sharp commentary and also manages to charm its audience by delivering a fair share of laughs.

Rating:

66

Sameen Amer is a Lahore-based freelance writer and critic. She tweets @Sameen MARCH 1-7 2015

Watch more of Chris Rock Down to Earth (2001) An aspiring comedian Lance Barton (Chris Rock) is struggling to get his career off the ground when he dies in an untimely bus accident. But he gets a second shot by being reincarnated as a wealthy but unlikable white businessman.

Head of State (2003) A Washington DC alderman surprisingly finds himself running for presidential office after the party’s original candidate dies unexpectedly.

I Think I Love My Wife (2007) A married man, who fantasises about other women but never acts upon his impulses, finds his self-control tested after an attractive old friend (Kerry Washington) shows up.

A royal animation The real magic in The Tale of the Princess Kaguya lies in its technique

BY NUZHAT SAADIA SIDDIQI

Studio Ghibli has given the world some of the most amazing animated films. Co-founded by the venerable Hayao Miyazaki and his longtime creative collaborator Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli has pushed the limits of the type of stories that can be told through animation. The distinctive stylistic treatments of Studio Ghibli productions, especially in films helmed by Miyazaki, have carved a niche as far as the world of animated features is concerned, both inside and outside Japan. Since Miyazaki retired from active film-making last year, the spotlight has now shifted to Takahata, to keep the magic going.

With the Oscar-nominated The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, Takahata has once again proven why people world over wait for Studio Ghibli films with bated breath. The film is a temperate adaptation of a Japanese folktale, The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter. The story focuses on a humble middle-aged bamboo-cutter who finds a child in a bamboo grove and brings her home to his astonished wife. In their modest hut, both husband and wife witness the magical transformation of the sprite-like creature into an actual infant, who then starts growing by leaps and bounds — literally like a bamboo. The bamboo-

cutter is convinced that the child is a princess and that he has been selected to help her fulfill her destiny. This belief is reinforced when the bamboo-cutter finds innumerable gold coins and luxurious fabrics in the same manner he had found the child. His wife, a sensible and loving woman, endures his passionate speeches about the ‘princess’ and her destiny; yet, keeps him grounded with her practical demeanour and no-nonsense attitude. She proves to be the ideal normalising agent in the young child’s life, who is named Little Bamboo by her rowdy friends.

Through the course of the film, the bamboo-cutter convinces his wife to relocate to a big city so that they can introduce Little Bamboo as a true noblewoman. For this purpose, a large mansion is bought, servants are hired and a governess is selected to turn the girl into Princess Kaguya. However, the transformation comes at the cost of the loss of innocence in Kaguya and causes much grief and anguish to those she loves the most.

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a staggeringly harrowing film packed with emotions. It stands out because of Takahata’s drained colour palette as opposed to Miyazaki’s rich and saturated one. Each frame seems to be the pages of an old fairytale compendium with flowing, fluid paint strokes in muted colours. Additionally, the intensity of colour waxes when Kaguya is happy and wanes when she is shown to be sad or angry.

Based on a fairytale, the film can perhaps be likened to those written by the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen before they were sanitised by Disney for mass consumption. But where Miyazaki’s films often offer no direct moral lessons, Takahata’s retelling of the old Japanese tale ends on an absolute note that leaves no room for random speculation. But despite its strengths, the Japanese animated marvel wasn’t able to bag an Oscar.

Rating: NuzhatSaadia Siddiqi is a Lahore-based writer and book hoarder.

She tweets @guldaar

Animation beyond Disney The Triplets of Belleville (2003)

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The French animated film is a rambunctious tale of a grandmother who has set upon a perilous journey to save her cyclist grandson from a gang of villains. She is accompanied on her quest by an obese dog called Bruno and the eponymous Triplets of Belleville.

MARCH 1-7 2015

Persepolis (2007) The thought-provoking French animated film Persepolis is based on Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novel which recounts a young girl’s journey through adolescence and young adulthood in the increasingly stifling post-revolution Iran.

Chico & Rita (2011)

Chico & Rita is a Spanish animated film that recounts the story of the lead pair on a journey to find fame and seek fortune in the music industry. Set in a stretch between the 1940s and 1950s, the film has a brilliant soundtrack to boot.

A SOLUTION IN SIGHT The app Be My Eyes helps blind people ‘see’

BY ZOHAIB AMJAD | DESIGN BY HIRA FAREED

The spirit of volunteerism is slowly fading away in today’s fast-paced world. Most people do not find the time to devote themselves to a social cause. The launch of the non-profit app Be My Eyes, however, is working to change that. The app, available through iTunes, allows sighted users to assist the visually impaired in carrying out day-today activities, such as making their way through a train station or checking the expiry date of a medicine, from the comfort of their homes and at any time they deem convenient.

How it works The idea for the app was first floated by 50-year-old Danish furniture maker Hans Jørgen Wiberg almost two years ago. Visually impaired users can take a picture of an object with a smartphone camera and send a request to a community of helpers via the app. A volunteer then accepts the request for help and responds to the user by describing the object via liv live video.

It’s my hope that by helping each other as an online community, Be My Eyes will make a big difference in the everyday lives of blind people all over the world Founder of the app Hans Jørgen Wiberg

Easy to use The app is designed to be as user-friendly as possible.

It features an easy user interface, which requires one to sign up via an email address or a Facebook account. The visually impaired user then accesses the app on their phone to request assistance. A user can choose to block another user if he or she is unhelpful, thus preventing unwanted intrusion. The ease with which people can access this app can potentially lead to its malign use, as sighted users can deliberately give out false information to the blind.

However, such incidents have not been reported yet.

Among the many interesting features of this app, users can communicate in 80 languages and choose more than 70 one language through the settings on their phone to help MARCH 1-7 2015

Seeing is believing:

The official site for this app proudly displays 139,947 sighted users

and 13,068 visually impaired users who have been helped 41,509 times to date

As seen last on Feb 23.

an international set of users. Moreover, this app is free of cost until September when the developers will run out of initial funding. After that, they will create a sustainable business model, which includes subscriptions and donations.

Zohaib Amjad is a scientist with a major in Biology. He tweets @infecuni

Alternative and similar apps TapTapSee: This is a mobile camera application designed specifically for visually impaired IOS users. The app utilises the iDevice’s camera and VoiceOver functions to photograph objects and identify them out loud for the user.

Vizwiz: The app allows visually impaired users to receive quick answers to questions about their surroundings. It combines automatic image processing, anonymous web workers and members of the user’s social network in order to collect fast and accurate answers to their questions.

See4Me: This app has been set up by a German non-profit organisation. An image selected by a visually imapired user is sent to a sighted volunteer (called NetEye) via the internet. A local network (intranet or LAN) can be used where a direct internet connection is not desirable — for instance, due to security requirements in companies or institutions.