SYNOPSIS

The story, based on true stories, begins in 1979 when Pakistan began to introduce into the path of Islamization after the coup d'état of General Zia. The film binds the fate of a woman and the political developments in Pakistan throughout last twenty-five years.
We are in 1979 in Charkhi, a village in Pakistani Punjab. Aïcha (Kiron Kher) is a cheerful woman in her forties who never talks about her past. Since the death of her husband, her eighteen years old son is the center of her existence. Salim (Aamir Malik) is a good, charmingt and dreamer boy who is in love with Zoubida (Shilpa Shukla). In Pakistan, General Zia-ul-Haq has just taken the power and established the martial law. The country is introduced into the path of Islamization.
Salim began to frequent a group of Muslim fundamentalists. Zoubida is gradually abandoned by her lover, while Aïcha worries about seeing his son changing so brutally.
The events rush by the arrival of the Sikhs from India for their pilgrimage. One of them begins to find his sister, named Virou, who was captured by the Muslims in 1947. The past comes suddenly to the surface...

TECHNICAL DATA

Director:Sabiha Sumar
Screenplay: Sabiha Sumar, Paromita Vohra.
Production: Helge Albers, Philippe Avril,
Cast: Kiron Kher, Aamir Ali Malik, Arshad Mahmood, Salman Shahid, Shilpa Shukla.
Film Editing: Bettina Böhler
Cinematography: Ralph Netzer.
Soundtrack: Madan Gopal Singh, Arshad Mahmood.
Runtime: 99 min. Language: Punjabi. Subtitles: Spanish.

DIRECTOR

BIOGRAPHY

Sabiha Sumar was born in Karachi in 1961. She studied filmmaking and political sciences at New York and International Relations at the University of Cambridge.
In 1992 she founded the production company Vidhi Films. Sumar has always conceived her job as a way to criticize those things that do not seem right in today's society such as women's role within a highly traditional patriarchal system. In this respect, his position has always been claimed. For example, in 1998 she filmed Who Will Cast the First Stone, focusing on female working class and the protests that took place against the Islamic laws in 1979.
Also Suicide Warriors (1996), documentary about the guerrillas of women formed in their fight for obtaining a home for the Tamils in Sri Lanka. He has also made numerous series for German television.
Her first film, The Silence of the water (2003), was successfully presented at numerous international festivals.

FILMOGRAPHY

- Suicide Warriors (1996)- Director
- El silencio del agua (2003)- Director and screenwriter
- Dinner with the President: A Nation´s Journey (2007)- Co-director and co-screenwriter