By Hira Nafees Shah
What do a Muslim fencer, a Muslim top-chef; a Muslim weight-lifter and a Muslim standup comedian all have in common apart from their religion?
They are all Pakistani-American women who have made great achievements in male-dominated professions—and whose riveting stories of personal triumph are documented in “The Pakistan Four,” a 2014 film by filmmaker and Fulbright alumnus Shehzad Hameed. Hameed captured the women’s stories while studying news and documentary filmmaking as a Fulbrighter at New York University.
“My first intention was to do something positive because I felt that there was an imbalance in how the West perceived Muslim and Pakistani women,” said Hameed. “I also made this documentary because I wanted to form a bridge between Pakistan and the U.S.”
So the alumnus went about filming the lives of his characters who had some incredible feats to their name. Weight lifter Kulsoom Abdullah, for example, campaigned and won the right for Muslim women to wear covered sports attire at national weight lifting competitions. Fatima Ali won a reality cooking show in Manhattan. Hareem Ahmad, an MIT graduate, left a career in Wall Street to become an award-winning professional saber fighter. Nadia Manzoor forged new ground as a standup comedian in the male-dominated field.
But you have to watch “The Pakistan Four” to find out about the ups and downs in the lives of these accomplished females, their internal conflicts and struggles and their family dramas. The documentary entailed buildings relationships with all his sources, so that the filmmaker could portray their stories accurately. It was a challenge to gain his subjects’ trust, Hameed says, but he was adamant to fulfill the task.
“I wanted to cross the gender barrier myself to understand the stories of these extraordinary women,” the alumnus said.
During the course of one year, the Fulbrighter traveled with his subjects, stayed at their homes, and also earned the trust of their families, so they could be as natural in front of the camera as possible.
Hameed’s work also had him jet-setting across the United States as he followed the women to Oregon, Chicago and New York, to name just a few of the destinations. The Fulbright Program and the International Institute of Education stepped in to provide him a small stipend to cover his expenses.
And it seems that the alumnus’ hard work is paying off. He has received the highest number of screenings for his documentary, amongst all his NYU classmates. One such screening was also hosted by the United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan at its Prometric Center in Lahore on May 9th, 2014.
“I felt that the documentary hit quite close to home as I grew up abroad,” said Fauzia Arshad, a teacher at Choueifat School who attended the screening. “I experienced a range of emotions as I saw the film and I am glad that it ended on a positive note.”
Arshad also said she was so impressed by the saber fighter that she now wanted to put her daughter in fencing classes.
For Rubina Sheikh, a lecturer at the Information Technology University, the film pointed out the problems of the Pakistani diaspora in the United States, but it also helped to link both the countries.
“I think it is very positive for us to discuss our problems, since we have a tendency to sweep them under the carpet,” she said.
Ayesha Aslam, a UGrad alumnus found “The Pakistan Four” quite inspiring, especially due to its emphasis on strong female characters.
“I am happy to see that women out there in the world are portraying a soft image of Pakistan,” she said.
The students at Kinnaird College also gave a similar reaction when the documentary was screened there, says the filmmaker.
“I am very happy with the feedback that The Pakistan Four has received,” said Hameed. “When the documentary screened in front of 150 female students at Kinnaird College, many of them cried and a lot of them said they wanted to be filmmakers.”
“The Pakistan Four” has also crossed boundaries in achieving international success—it has recently been short-listed for the London Film Festival. As for Hameed’s feelings regarding the outcome of his documentary, the alumnus says he is thrilled that he chose the groundbreaking women as his subjects.
“Pakistani media often thrives on negativity and positive stories can help change the narrative about the country locally as well as abroad,” the filmmaker concludes.
For more information about future screenings of “The Pakistan Four”, check out this Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/thepakistanfour
