Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy hopes to introduce strong female characters with 3 Bahadur: Rise of the Warriors in which Mehwish Hayat and Nimra Bucha join an ensemble cast that also includes Fahad Mustafa.
Two-time Academy Award winning journalist and filmmaker, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s 3 Bahadur franchise, under the banner of Waadi Animations, has established itself as the first animated feature series in Pakistan over the past three years.
Having released two installments (3 Bahadur, 3 Bahadur: The Revenge of Baba Balaam) over the last three years, the next one slated to release this December is called 3 Bahadur: Rise of the Warriors.
It follows the school-going trio of protagonists, Amna, Kamil and Saadi, as they now battle it out with external forces. The recently-released teaser doesn’t give away much, but we see an extraterrestrial-invasion of sorts and some intriguing new characters.
“Amna, Kamil and Saadi have become household names. The films have evolved; we’ve seen heroes and villains, but Rise of the Warriors has some very strong female characters and in this film, the 3 Bahadur are confronted by powers that come from another world,” Chinoy revealed, speaking exclusively to Instep. “So we’ve completely changed the dynamics, the setting, the characters, and [will] introduce children to strong female characters. That’s what the push in this film is.”
Having extensively worked towards encouraging female participation in cinema and the society at large with her documentaries and other visual endeavors, Sharmeen says to have shaped better female characterization with her upcoming sequel. “We have a number of very strong women who feature this time around. We have Mehwish Hayat, Sarwat Gilani, Nimra Bucha (as voice actors) and two new characters that we think will change the way we see the power of women.”
The film has an ensemble voice-over cast that also includes the likes of Fahad Mustafa and Khalid Malik as well but it’s the women who will shine in this animated production. “In this film, Mehwish plays a very strong woman, who comes from another world, while Nimra does too and she’s made responsible for giving powers. The costumes, the jewellery that they wear, and the way they fight; we have spent a lot of time designing their characters and seeing how children will react to them,” Sharmeen continued.
The technical glitches, screenplay and the content have been bettered compared to the two previous releases and with the upcoming one, currently under post-production, Chinoy hopes to further raise the bar of quality animation in the country. “The 3 Bahadur franchise has evolved over the years, both the storytelling and the work that goes into animation; we feel that with every film, we have made it all stronger, the characters have been refined and we’ve worked on making the acting better,” Sharmeen stated.
“It’s a learning process and we are continuously teaching ourselves to tell stories better. There are a lot of hindrances and problems when it comes to animation in Pakistan and most of what we do is self-taught,” she revealed. Furthering her thoughts on what to expect, Sharmeen added, “You’ll (also) notice that the action sequences are stronger, we’ve introduced new environments, we’ve changed the way some of our characters dress, their features have been refined and something that I’m very proud of is that we’ve introduced very special VFX (with effects). I hope children will particularly enjoy.”
Animation is a growing industry in Pakistan and Sharmeen hopes to contribute to it in a significant fashion that goes beyond the 3 Bahadur franchise. She’s doing so by working on two more anime movies. “Waadi Animations is very much expanding and we’re currently working on two more films. One of which is for the international market while the other is for Pakistan. Both are very different from 3 Bahadur and have different sensibilities, and people will hear about them very soon,” she concluded.
