Women in films

seminar

Films are an astonishing medium of entertainment and fantastic storytelling devices. They are influential, constant and a way of perfect communication. Moreover, the role of films becomes more significant in a nation that has a low reading ability rate. Therefore, films in Pakistan have become a standard and powerful channel of entertaining and educating masses.

As movies cover a plethora of subjects and issues, we can also talk about representation of women in films. As audience, we come across movies that have portrayed women in different ways. Some proved to be effective, while others just depicted stereotypical concepts associated with women and the patriarchal society they live in.

Recently, in order to highlight women in and behind films, a seminar titled ‘The Celebration of Women in Film’ was organised as part of Pakistan International Film Festival 2018 (PIFF), in Karachi. The 2-panel discussion at the seminar incorporated topics such as: contribution of women in cinema, struggle they faced while working in films (e.g unequal pay, harassment, sexism, unfair treatment and work environment), future of women in films and changes that should be expected in the movie industry. The first panel included Samina Peerzada, Asif Raza Mir - as the only male panellist - Haseena Moin, Reema and Nabila with Sania Saeed as the moderator for the panel. The second panel saw another set of women that included Fizza Ali Meerza, Momina Duraid, Zeba Bakhtiyar, Sabiha Sumar, Hareem Farooq and Sarwat Gilani.

The discussion began with the role of cinema in changing perceptions and how important it was to express the right narratives through our films. “Cinema is a medium that allows us to tell stories, but our job is to show the mirror to society and it’s the state’s duty to fix it. How the society or state fixes it, it’s up to them,” stated Samina Peerzada while sharing her experience as a filmmaker.

On the other hand, veteran writer, Haseena Moin, commented, “The content should be important. We made a mistake by copying Indian films that made things worse. So, we kept making movies which lack storytelling and hence that didn’t help.”

The first session discussed how women started diverting themselves towards making films and what challenges they faced during the whole process. However, hair and makeup expert Nabila - one of the panellists and who had contributed in films by training and providing hair and makeup teams for various projects - objected after her fellow speakers talked about how films and the industry had negatively treated women and their efforts in the past. “I don’t know why we are focusing on difficulties, why aren’t we celebrating what we are doing,” she expressed. “I don’t remember any difficulties in the past 22 years of my career.”

Whether as actors, directors, producers or writers, women have been an integral part of the entire filmmaking process and have turned out to be successful as well. Some of the names include producer Fizza Ali Meerza, actor-producer Hareem Farooq, Sarwat Gilani and Sabiha Sumar who were also present as part of the second panel, to share their views on the subject.

If we wish to educate our masses and consider our women educated then why don’t we portray our women as doctors, lawyers, architects onscreen?” filmmaker Sabiha Sumar asserted. “We see them as black or white, there is no grey in between. There should be layers to her character.”

“There are so many women heroes around us, why don’t we highlight their stories?” Sarwat Gilani added, saying that she would love to portray a woman hero onscreen.

As films and media are powerful agents to bring change and shift the mindsets, it is high time that a pragmatic approach is followed in the portrayal of women and their issues through pertinent cinema and TV content.