KARACHI:
The sound of Japanese Taiko drums echoes in a rhythm during the opening credits. The madness of the rhythm builds up not unlike that of a pre-war buildup as we see a Kurosawa-esque montage of a broken city — damaged walls, doors, empty alleyways – until we come to what looks like a homeless man waking up amidst the dark ruins.
This is how filmmaker Aleem Bukhari opens his latest short film Karmash. The film premiered as part of the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival on May 22, and is the first ever Pakistani short film to have earned the honour.
Going guerrilla
Karmash, Bukhari says, is his third short film, and is about the last survivor of a fictional Karmash tribe, who recalls the fragmented memories of his long-dead ancestral traditions. The 15-minute, black-and-white film plays out like an essay rather than a conventional linear narrative. And its structure and absence of information become its biggest strengths.
Bukhari is a visual artist and a self-taught filmmaker, who has been working independently since 2016. A number of short films and music videos later, Karmash has now become his breakthrough project with its inclusion in Cannes.
“It was surreal,” says Bukhari of the moment he found out Karmash was going to Cannes. “Very overwhelming.”
The Hyderabad-based filmmaker started the project last year, shot it in August and finished it early this year, just in time for Cannes’ submission. Besides the film’s haunting beauty, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the project is how it was made.
Six friends – Irfan Noor K, Ebad Talpur, Shahzain Ali Detho, Muhammad Ali Shaikh, Qadir Abbas and Bukhari – created Karmash on a shoestring budget, minimal resources and borrowed equipment. The film is a collaboration between Bukhari’s Sleepbyte Films and Noor’s Braanz Films.
“I’m the writer, director, and cinematographer of the film,” says the filmmaker. “Irfan Noor K is the actor and producer. Shahzain Ali Detho is the assistant director, co-editor and co-sound designer. Muhammad Ali Shaikh served as the location sound recordist and mixer. Ebad Talpur is the script supervisor and second AD. Qadir Abbas is the line producer.”
He continues, “Basically, the six of us made the film ourselves. We have done everything ourselves, just the six of us who share this passion for cinema. And under Sleepbyte Films, it was our aim to produce artistic, auteur-driven, unconventional cinema. Now we wouldn’t need approval of bigger producers or companies so we can continue to make the kind of films we love. These six people are the reason why Karmash is at Cannes right now.”
He also credited Salman Israr for coming onboard as the co-producer.
Bukhair quips that the film is so low budget that the festival submission budget was higher than the production cost.
“The production was difficult since we worked with a very low budget and bare minimum resources. No proper cars, only our bikes and equipment. You can imagine the summer heat in Hyderabad. We just survived, I don’t know how. Most of the budget was spent on fuel and food. Other than that, we went completely guerrilla the way we produced it.”
The film, shot on Sony A6400 with a 35mm lens (which works as an approximately 52mm lens on the A6400’s crop sensor), looks tightly framed. But rather than a limitation, it works as a deliberate creative choice and helps Bukhari create this strange, decaying world. The filmmaker also utilised mostly natural light, except a small LED panel for a couple of sequences.
Experimental storytelling
Bukhari shares how the story behind Karmash came to him. “The Karmash tribe doesn’t exist. It’s fictional. We kept the name since the word means ‘the one who follows his duty and legacy’. And the film’s themes are connected to the meaning. The character is trying to follow his familial legacy.”
The filmmaker was keen on creating an experimental film that was “narratively non-linear in its structure so that it becomes like a journal, an essay or a memoir”, and this character of the last remaining member of a tribe, who he is trying to recall his past, came to him. “Then the horror and supernatural elements came in.”
As far as the themes are concerned, Bukhari says the film is about oppression. “It’s about stealing the sense of belonging from someone who belongs to a particular place and culture.”
Considering the socio-political conflicts and erasure of certain communities around the world and within Pakistan, Bukhari essentially formulates a universal depiction of oppression which can fit the state of the current world and its many injustices without naming any one in particular. The creation of a fictional tribe serves him well here.
Earlier in the conversation, he states something rather interesting. He says, “He [the protagonist] wants to stick to his ancestral traditions and he’s narrating it to an audience that perhaps doesn’t exist.” This line, and a few others, opens up new interpretations of the film best kept unsaid for those who are yet to watch it and to honour the mystery and magic of cinema.
Stillness
Bukhari credits a long line of legendary filmmakers as some of his influences – Edward Yang, Paul Thomas Anderson, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Satyajit Ray, Hou Hsiao Hsien, Leo Carax, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, David Lynch and Bela Tar.
The 29-year-old, who has previously made shorts such as Sapola (2018) and Anaari Science (2024) is very much inspired by science fiction, cosmic and supernatural horror and magical realism genres.
From all the filmmakers and the genre tropes, he has picked up things that he uses to mold himself into a unique cinematic voice. He says the learning process includes eventually letting go of all influences to develop his own voice.
For him, cinema is a personal endeavour and he prefers to tell stories which emotionally resonate with him. “I want to tell stories I care about, perhaps about feelings of alienation and isolation, the bittersweet aspects of life.”
He adds, “That’s the kind of stories I want to tell, of people going through life in my city Hyderabad. The city plays a big part in my films. I want to keep that.”
But Bukhari sees cinema as more than just storytelling, placing atmosphere, mood and feeling over story. He wants to create “an experience, the atmosphere, feeling and a world” that stays with the audience even if they don’t fully comprehend the story.
With Karmash, Aleem Bukhari definitely accomplishes that.
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