Activist Documentary Film in Pakistan

The Emergence of a Cinema of Accountability

Rahat Imran

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317503385
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Freedom
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book, the first academic book on Pakistani documentary cinema, traces the development of activist filmmaking practices in Pakistan which have emerged as a response to the consequences of religious fundamentalism, extremism, and violation of human rights. Beginning with the period of General Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization process (1977-88), it discusses a selection of representative documentary films that have critically addressed and documented the various key transformations, events, and developments that have shaped Pakistan's socio-political, socio-economic, and cultural history. Such activist filmmaking practice in Pakistan is today an influential factor in addressing the politics, and negative and oppressive effects of the Islamization era, discriminatory laws, particularly gender-discriminatory Sharia laws, violation of human and citizen rights, authoritarianism, internal strife, the spread of religious fundamentalism, and the threat of Talibanization, and oppressive tribal customs and traditions. The contribution of Pakistani documentary filmmakers stands as a significant body of work that has served the cause of human rights, promoting awareness and social change in Pakistan, particularly regarding gender rights.

1 Towards a theory of ‘Cinema of Accountability’

Critical perspectives on activist film practices

Introduction

Cinema Studies perspectives relevant to the understanding of the emergence of Pakistani documentary film practices as activist interventions are discussed in this chapter. In the absence of a theoretical framework or pre-existing study from which specifically contemporary Pakistani documentary films, activist or otherwise, can be evaluated, it examines key perspectives on documentary filmmaking from outside Pakistan that serve as building blocks for a theory relevant to documentary productions discussed in this book. Hence, broader existing critical perspectives from film scholars and theorists on documentary film serve as an informing framework for these Pakistani productions, and the foundational activist context for their analyses. Subsequently, these frameworks facilitate in defining an emergent activist film category of a ‘Cinema of Accountability’ from within a Muslim state in which the achievement of activist film faces daunting challenges. Additionally, a discussion on the concept of ‘Spatial Boundaries’ as allocation of gender power in Islamic societies helps to evaluate the role of Pakistani women filmmakers operating in the public domain, particularly in conservative regions dominated by orthodox norms and patriarchal mindsets, such as the tribal areas in the Khyber Pakhtunkhawa Province (KP) where women’s public presence is discouraged. The last section in this chapter, entitled ‘Pakistani Cinema under Islamization’ offers a brief context for the developments that were impacting Pakistani cinema in an environment of religious fundamentalism, state censorship, and restrictive policies during General Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship.

As discussions on films will later illustrate, drawing parallels, and translating the following perspectives in contemporary political terms will explore their applicability to activist documentary filmmaking practices in contemporary Pakistan.¹

There are four overarching themes by which a theoretical framework for this book is structured. Film-studies themes and perspectives, including feminist documentary frameworks, which can be borrowed from to expound the topic of this book include: 1) Perspectives on the Contextual and Historical Approach to Documentary Filmmaking; 2) Perspectives on the Activist and Political Intent of Documentary Film; 3) Feminist Perspectives on Documentary Film and Activism; 4) Parallels with Other Activist Film Currents (i.e. perspectives on Third Cinema, Cinema Novo, and a post-Third-Worldist approach).

1. Perspectives on the contextual and historical approach to documentary filmmaking

Documentary film perspectives discussed in this section will aid in reading the historical contexts and background to the productions discussed in this study.

The beginnings of contemporary Pakistani activist documentary filmmaking practices, as analysed in this study, are inspired by and rooted in the critical historical period of President General Zia-ul-Haq’s eleven-year dictatorship (1977– 1988), and the socio-political and judicial transformations that began to take shape during his Islamization drive. Consequently, it is crucial to begin by contextualizing films in this historical period in order to understand the productions it motivated, and the continuing influence of the transformations during this phase on Pakistani society and the emergence of activist filmmaking in the country.

A consideration of contextual and historical perspectives is important in evaluating the activist involvement, intent, and success of Pakistani documentarists in relation to the issue-oriented films discussed here. These issues include: the effects of politicization of religion; religious fundamentalism; discriminatory judicial reforms that particularly affect women and religious minorities; human rights violations; gender rights; gender-specific tribal customs and practices; and issues of violence against women.

Perspectives on the contextual and historical approaches to documentary filmmaking facilitate in addressing the position of Pakistani documentary filmmakers in their particular historical and political contexts. Secondly, these perspectives assist in situating and understanding the chosen films as socio-cultural and socio-political productions, and the ideological currents that are the basis and key determinants for their creation.

Arab film historian and scholar Viola Shafik points out that it is vital to make connections between the prevailing socio-political conditions and the historical period and events that motivated such filmic works for an in-depth analysis.² From this perspective, it is important to take into account the position of Pakistani documentary filmmakers as themselves part of the culture, religion, and history they seek to depict and critique in their films, and to contextualize the issues they raise accordingly in their productions. As Pakistani documentarists have represented a history, memory, and environment of which they themselves have been participants, their subjects, topics, and environs, and the historical time frames of their films, need to be considered in totality to facilitate a contextual-reading of their productions for content analyses. This approach will illustrate the connection between the historical timeframe and the consequential and connective links of their activist intent that saw the emergence of an activist documentary ‘Cinema of Accountability’ in the country.

Likewise, film scholar Chuck Kleinhans stresses the significance of a film/ video work’s context – the historical moment in which a work was produced, distributed, and exhibited, and the audience it reaches. Similarly, he emphasizes contextualizing the filmmaker’s own position regarding his/her productions: that is, the relationship of the filmmaker to political, personal, historical, social, and institutional conditions.³ As Kleinhans argues, documentary filmmakers must be deeply engaged in the political and social issues they represent in their work:

Makers have to think like political organizers – with both intensity and distance, attention to the immediate and the long range, to the tactical and the strategic, and to the individual and the group – in other words to the complexity and richness of the immediate historical moment and its potentials and possibilities.⁴

Similarly, in her post-colonial critique, Vietnamese-American film scholar and film-maker Trinh T. Minh-ha calls for a re-evaluation of representations of history with an emphasis on ‘lived history’ that would defy stereotypes and counter dominant discourses and representations.⁵ Her focus is on the necessity to deconstruct and re-examine history through the eyes and narratives of those who have been the victims of violent histories, as opposed to the frequent distortions of dominant and ‘authoritative’ media.⁶ Trinh’s perspective on claiming the right to revisit one’s own history as insiders can be applied to Pakistani documentarists who have returned to their past to counter official discourses and seek answers for the present and the future, particularly regarding issues of religious fundamentalism and human rights.

In his essay entitled For an Imperfect Cinema, Cuban film theorist and film-maker Julio Garcia Espinosa stresses the need to revolutionize the very concepts of art and cinema, and to understand them as progressive forces towards social change. Espinosa advocates a democratization of art and urges artistic accessibility, arguing for what he calls an ‘imperfect cinema’ that would break class and artistic hierarchies and speak to all as a solution.⁷ This ‘imperfect cinema’, he contends, would render art as an activity available to all in the service of social, political, and cultural responsibilities, instead of art as an elitist practice in the hands of a few who can dictate its terms, directions, and significance. Espinosa stresses the importance for science and art to merge, and the participation of sociologists, scientists, and others from various disciplines to participate in artistic activities in order to break down the class and disciplinary barriers that hinder artistic progress that could translate into a better and more just society. He is critical of art as an elitist activity, and suggests that art should be everyone’s domain against traditional views that separate artistic/cultural producers and consumers.

According to Espinosa, such a collective revolution can be facilitated by an ‘imperfect cinema’ that would be created by the ‘masses’ regardless of technological finesse. This ‘imperfect cinema’, which he likens to the process of impartial media reporting and coverage, would expose relations of dominance and power instead of merely criticizing them, and enable a more popular engagement with art and politics:

We should endeavor to see that our future students, and therefore our future filmmakers, will themselves be scientists, sociologists, physicians, economists, agricultural engineers, etc., without of course ceasing to be filmmakers … we cannot develop the taste of the masses as long as the division between the two cultures continues to exist, nor as long as the masses are not the real masters of the means of production … A new poetics of cinema will, above all, be a ‘partisan’ and ‘committed’ poetics, a ‘committed’ art, a consciously and resolutely ‘committed’ cinema – that is to say, an ‘imperfect’ cinema.⁸

The emergence of Pakistani ‘activist documentary’ (as defined in this research) does not have its roots in filmmaking per se, but is rather embedded in ongoing resistance movements supported by a host of cross-disciplinary actors. This activist documentary then merges science and art (creativity) to break down disciplinary barriers that can hinder ‘committed’ art, as stressed by Espinosa in his call for an ‘imperfect cinema’. It would be important to assess the extent to which Pakistani documentarists have achieved their effort of creating a socio-political version of an ‘imperfect cinema’; that is, one that not only deviates from the country’s mainstream commercial cinema industry, and the state-owned media that are regulated by government policies, but one that can also be seen as carving out its own niche as an activist documentary ‘Cinema of Accountability’ that questions and challenges state policies, laws, and official versions of history, and engages with crucial social and political developments.⁹

It can be argued that just as alliances and struggles in Pakistan gave birth to new channels of activism such as women’s organizations, legal aid cells, human and gender rights watch groups, and theatre-for-social-change groups, all with a shared agenda for resistance and consciousness-raising, they also led to the emergence of an ‘activist documentary’ filmmaking practice in the country. In the absence of professional filmmaking training and academies at the time, this development was facilitated by the arrival of cost-effective and accessible video technology in the 1980s. Since then, these practices have been supported by old and new collaborations and participations that have included a wide cross-section of professionals and civil actors: women’s rights activists; human rights and legal fraternities; educationists; sociologists; psychologists; journalists; writers; academics; poets; performing artists such as singers and theatre artists; local and international non-government organizations; and later, even government organizations. Additionally, ordinary people and individuals have been involved in the exercise by offering first-hand testimonies and accounts of their specific experiences and struggles. In this context Espinosa’s concept of an ‘imperfect cinema’ is most relevant to activist collaborations between Pakistani documentary filmmakers, and their subjects and participants that range from a vast cross-section of society and disciplines.

It is important to examine the contribution of Pakistani documentarists who have opposed religious fundamentalism and authoritarian suppression as participants of their specific culture, history, religion, and politics. In particular, Pakistani women filmmakers and their female subjects (both of whom have broken the socio-cultural and religious spatial barriers that could set limits on their very appearances in public spaces in a Muslim society, particularly in the ultra-conservative tribal regions of the country) have bravely seized the opportunity to document and present their personal experiences and testimonies. Towards this end, both Trinh and Espinosa’s perspectives assist in evaluating Pakistani documentarists’ role as agents of social change and political resistance who have challenged dominant official, patriarchal, and fundamentalist forces in Pakistan through their respective productions.

Correspondingly, film scholar Bill Nichols calls attention to the situation of the filmmaker in the making of the film, and his/her own position regarding their depictions. He points to what can be termed as ‘auto-ethnography’, that is, ‘when the filmmaker and subject are of the same stock.’¹⁰ In the case of Pakistanis who have been part of the history, culture, and transformations that they depict in their films, Nichols’ view helps to reflect on the significance of Pakistani filmmakers’ familiarity and identification with their own religious, socio-cultural, historical, and socio-political issues and constraints, including the nuances of sensitive religion and gender-specific issues in an Islamic society.

Hence, relevant to their activist intent, Pakistani filmmakers’ own situation also needs to be considered as this factor can affect their representations. For example, the socio-political and censorship constraints under which Pakistani documentarists may have to operate can be decisive and influential factors in their productions. In Pakistan’s case, this examination provides an insight into the limitations, constraints, and challenges docume...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Preface
• Acknowledgement
• Special thanks
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Towards a theory of ‘Cinema of Accountability’: Critical perspectives on activist film practices
• 2. Injustices on film: A reading of activist documentaries against the legacy of Islamization
• 3. Cinema on Terror: Charting the militant mix of politics, religion, and Talibanization
• 4. Victims of a vicious system: Women, violence, and human rights
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: The Hudood Ordinances
• Appendix 2: The Law of Evidence
• Appendix 3: The Blasphemy Law
• Appendix 4: Background to the radicalization of madrasas in Pakistan
• Appendix 5: Laws of Qisas and Diyat
• Glossary
• Index