Claim the Frame, a special event celebrating five years of Patakha Pictures, an initiative of two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and SOC Films, shared a sneak peek of four documentaries by eight young women mentee filmmakers from across the country on Monday. The event was held in partnership with the British Council and the Scottish Documentary Institute. Patakha Pictures is dedicated to supporting the next generation of documentary storytellers in Pakistan and has so far supported 76 emerging filmmakers, whose work has received more than 22 awards and screened at over 100 film festivals worldwide. This year, eight women filmmakers from Punjab, Sindh, and Gilgit-Baltistan formed four creative pairs, and their films explore women breaking barriers in traditionally male spaces, climate change, child marriage, and the survival of artistic tradition and healthcare in remote communities.
The five-month training and mentorship programme gave the fellows production funding, weekly online mentorship, an intensive in-person edit week in Karachi, and specialised workshops on storytelling, camera techniques, editing, and other practical parts of documentary filmmaking. Noe Mendelle, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and founder of the Scottish Documentary Institute, returned for the fifth time as an international mentor. She was joined by filmmaker and cinematographer Nadir Siddiqui, producer Huma Murad Shah, journalist and documentary filmmaker Maryam Ishani Thompson, edit mentor Husain Qaizar, and sound engineer and producer Sameer Khan, who together brought expertise in cinematography, production, ethics, journalism, and sound design. Speaking at the event, Obaid-Chinoy said five years of the programme have confirmed that talent is universal but opportunity is not, and that access to funding, mentorship, and creative freedom can change the path of women filmmakers.
The first pair, Shagufta Rasool and Munira Shah, from Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa respectively, made the documentary Koh-i-Firishtayesht, which traces the legacy of Lal Pari, a retired healthcare worker and midwife who spent decades reaching women across the remote Shimshal Valley. The second pair, Kinza Waqar from Bahawalpur and Jazaba Raheel from Lahore, made D’aat, which follows Bakht Ali, a camel barber who creates intricate designs on the coats of camels in the Cholistan desert using a pair of scissors and a razor. Obaid-Chinoy told the fellows that they are not simply beneficiaries of the programme but the people for whom it exists, adding that many people helped guide her at the start of her own career and that she now wants to do the same for the next generation. British Council Pakistan Arts Director Laila Jamil said the tenacity and vision of Obaid-Chinoy bring the British Council and SOC Films together again and again across different art forms.
Monsoon Brides, by Karachi-based filmmakers and journalists Aleezeh Fatima and Aisha Manzoor, tackles the sensitive link between climate change, poverty, and child marriage in rural Sindh, and Fatima said approaching the story with sensitivity was an eye-opening and humbling experience. The fourth pair, Ishma Areeb and Javaria Waseem from Lahore, made The Horses Know Her Name, which tells the story of Anum Shakoor, a woman who found strength and healing through horses before entering the overwhelmingly male world of tent pegging. Together, the four films reflect the range of stories that emerge when emerging filmmakers receive funding, mentorship, and room to work on subjects rooted in their own communities. After five years, Patakha Pictures and its partners now point to a growing record of awards and festival screenings as evidence that this kind of structured support can carry documentary work from local settings to international audiences.
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