Aug 22, 2011

Screening of Slackistan in Lahore

Slackistan was screened at Ali Auditorium in Lahore to a packed house and has been well appreciated in its quarters.The screening mostly composed of the youth with over 500 viewers in 2 days of screening.Slackistan has been the center of a lot of controversy in terms of its bold approach towards the youth however it does portray what the youth of Pakistan actually is rather than the CNN style outlook of a terror stricken country with mullah's and suicide bombings.
The movie is made for the audience and has proven to be more popular in Islamabad since it is based on the youth of the Capital.The audience at the event viewed it as a mirror to the new generation without censorship,one of the key reasons the movie was banned from a nationwide release.

Plot

Islamabad, Pakistan. A year has passed since democracy returned to the country and Hasan and his friends graduated from college. For both the civilian rule and this group of friends, things haven’t quite turned out as everybody had hoped. Hasan has always dreamt of becoming a filmmaker and has recently bought a video camera. However, unable to find a pirated copy of ‘Mean Streets’ and deprived of even a single cinema in his town, he lets the camera sit in its box and roams around with his two best friends.

Everyday, the cocky but charming Sherry pulls up in his dad’s large Mercedes, with the ever perky Saad in the backseat, picking up Hasan and going through their routine of shisha cafes, house parties, high school stake-outs and lots of driving around town. Sherry is secretly borrowing cash from local rich loser Mani, who is trying to buy his way into Sherry’s social circle and contacts.Hasan harbours feelings for his neighbour Aisha, a beautiful, sensitive girl who has been a long-time ally of Hasan’s, believing in his ability to make films. She has her own secret. She plans to leave the country and move to Boston to follow an American-Pakistani guy she has been involved with long distance. Hasan does not know this.

Zara, meanwhile, completes this group of friends, as the girl who constantly tries to fit in with the ‘Isloo’ crowd. Always lipsticked, made-up and desperately trying to please the spoilt and superficial Zeeshan, she doesn’t understand why her little brother won’t speak to her anymore.When Aisha tells Hasan about her plans to leave the country for a career-driven guy, he is privately devastated, but supportive of his friend. She leaves him and his world in a state of aimless failure. Hasan needs to do something with his life. He needs to take his camera out its box and point it at the people outside of his little world.However, with Mani and his boys chasing down Sherry’s cash debt, Hasan might find moving on and getting out of ‘Slackistan’ harder than he imagined.

Starring: Shahbaz Shigri, Aisha Akhtar, Ali Rehman, Shahana Khalil, Osman Butt, Khalid Saeed.

Directed by: Hammad Khan