Production Notes

Under Kala Pul

     KALA PUL - THE BLACK BRIDGE, director Saqib Mausoof’s debut feature film, is an exploration of family, regional politics, revenge, and the conflicts inherent in trying to escape one’s past. It uses the thriller genre as the driving force to provide insight on ; a forgotten megalopolis of fifteen million people in , a front line state in the War Against Terror.

    It unites Mausoof with Salim Iqbal, a veteran Pakistani actor who has been given a newopportunity to probe both the underworld vibes of Karachi and the evolving role of a masculine code of honor called jawanmardi, a set of rules followed by the Muslim gentry; similar to Bushido in Japan.

    Saqib Mausoof:” These days the only time we hear of Muslims is in reference to suicide bombers

Abandoned bus

and cowardly acts of terrorism, but jawanmardi is a code of honor which forbids violence against civilians and discipline in defending one’s honor. It is based on the principal of futtuwa, or Islamic chivalry, which was in some parts the genesis of the French Chevalier after their encounters with Muslim commanders during the Crusades.”

    KALA PUL is not for the faint hearted. It molds its concerns around universal social factions found in any harsh city and brings together characters operating on the fringes of society, whose obsessions provide fascinating looks into the darker, compulsive side of human nature and its effect on militancy, extremisms and greed. The title derives from a bridge in which connects the affluent parts of the city to the lower income areas. The protagonist grew up under the shadows of the bridge caught between the haves and have-nots – a  world of MTV inspired ‘burgers’ (westernized youth)

Turtle Beach

and the other of the left behind fodder for the Kalashnikov culture. The story is absorbingly atmospheric, often contain an innovative use of voice-over and flashbacks that are more in line with film noir then the Bollywood song and dance numbers that viewers are accustomed to seeing out of .

    With the success of the adapted stage play in San Francisco, which was reviewed in Dawn, Pakistan’s largest circulating English Daily, as “Mausoof has taken a different route with KALA PUL, producing results not unlike Satyajit Ray’s Distant Thunder, and exposing the impact of 911 in Pakistan”, Saqib founded Black Crow Productions with Muder Kothari, a successful silicon valley based VC and embarked on shooting the movie in Karachi.  

    Mausoof is particularly drawn to a political thriller style. “I have used the basic revenge plot to expose excessively

DP Team

brutal forces that drive the emotional engine of Karachi. The protagonist, Arsalan Mirza is someone who can’t escape his past and is drawn back to it, when he visits the city of his birth after twelve years as a fugitive. It is a story of a man who knows that if he returns Karachi, he will die or pay for the sins of his past. Still he finds himself compelled and in that way he is driven to commit a violent act of retribution.”

    Also starring Angeline Malik, Ayesha Toor, Ashok Malani and Munawar Saeed, KALA PUL is based on an original screenplay by writer Saqib Mausoof is produced by Muder Kothari. Ali Mumtaz, Nauman Sheikh, Kiran Bukhari, Miraj-ul-Haq are featured in supporting roles.

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