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Bollywood inspiration
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Faramarz’s ‘Donkey in Lahore’ bonds Australia and Pakistan and revels in Hindi film music
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Photo: K. Ramesh Babu
Love across boundaries Faramarz K-Rahber
Faramarz K-Rahber, the Australian-Iranian film-maker, is no stranger to India. He admits to be fond of Indian cinema, especially mainstream Bollywood Films. “I have seen a number of Bollywood films and particularly liked Sangam and Sholay. I haven’t taken a liking to newer Hindi films as much as I loved watching the older ones,” he says. In fact, he wanted his composer Colin Webber to give Bollywoodish tunes to his documentary Donkey In Lahore. “I wanted him to recreate something similar to the song in Mohabbatein but he was just not able to. So I approached the Chopras and got their permission to use a few tunes in my documentary,” he says.
Donkey In Lahore was screened at the recent Hyderabad International Film Festival. Faramarz graduated from the Griffith University and has been making documentaries for the last 10 years and now teaches documentary and film production at the Griffith Film School. Donkey in Lahore was in the making for nearly five years. “It is an observational documentary that films the incidents that happened in the lives of a couple. I met the lead character, Brian, five years before making the film. Brian is a Gothic puppeteer from Australia who fell in love with Amber, a young Pakistani woman, during his visit to Pakistan. Brian, willing to convert to Islam to wed her, pursued her to Lahore to convince her family,” narrates Faramarz.
The reference to the donkey in the title, he says, “is a metaphor; and throughout the film you question who is the donkey. It could be Brian who is spending all his time in Lahore trying to convince the girl’s family. I plan to get a theatrical release of the film in Pakistan soon. The title may draw curious questions, but I am willing to explain.”
Faramarz followed Brian’s four-year –long journey, his conversion to Islam, renaming himself as Aamir and striving to be accepted in Pakistan. “Amber and Brian are from strikingly different backgrounds. Brian had his own set of troubles trying to dismiss unfavourable perceptions of Westerners and then try and bring Amber to Australia,” says Faramarz. The film-maker travelled to Pakistan five times and shot over 200 hours of footage.
His debut film, Fahimeh’s Story, which won the Independent Spirit Award at the 2004 Australian Lexus IF Awards, was also an observational documentary. “My next film, Blind Heroes, will adopt a similar narrative style. We travelled with the Australian blind cricket team to Pakistan where they won the third World Cup Cricket. We have tried to capture the players’ experiences in Pakistan, their stories and their motivation to play cricket despite their shortcomings. The film should be ready for a release in a few months. It has been one of my most challenging films so far,” says Faramarz.
SANGEETHA DEVI DUNDOO
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