Committee selects 'Saawan' as Pakistan's submission to Oscars 2018
Saawan is based on the story of a polio affected nine-year old boy from Balochistan.
KARACHI (Daily Dunya) – Directed by Farhan Alam and written and produced by Mashood Qadri, ‘Saawan’ has been selected by the Pakistani Academy Selection Committee as the country s submission to the Foreign Language Film Award’ category at Oscars 2018.
The nine-member committee was headed by two-time Academy Award and Emmy winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and included Jerjees Seja [CEO ARY Digital Network], Nadeem Mandviwalla [Managing Director Mandviwalla Entertainment], Asim Raza [Film and Television Commercial Director and Producer], Momina Duraid [Director and Producer Hum Films], Talat Hussain [Radio, Film, Television and Stage Actor], Sakina Samo [Actress, Producer and Director], Rizwan Beyg [Fashion Designer], Mohammad Hanif [Author and Journalist] and Ali Hamza [Singer, Song-writer and founding member of Noori].
The category will include submissions from around 80 countries. The final list of Oscar nominees will be announnced by the the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on January 23, 2018. The 90th Academy Awards are set to take place on March 4, 2018.
Till date, Pakistan has been nominated five times in the Oscars.
Inspired by true events, Saawan is based on the story of a polio affected nine-year old boy from Balochistan. It stars Saleem Mairaj, Syed Karam Hussain, Arif Bahalim, Najiba Faiz and Imran Aslam in lead roles.
The drama film has earlier won Best Foreign Language Feature Film award at the Madrid International Film Festival 2017 and the ‘Best Film’ and ‘Best Soundtrack Award’ at Salento International Film Festival in Italy last month.
While expressing views over the film, Chinoy said that Pkaistan has also reached in Oscars this year which will give confidence to the new filmmakers.
Farhan Alam said that the film’s submission to Oscars is not less than an honour for the team.
