‘Dukhtar’ showcases Pakistan’s fledgling independent film industry

First time Pakistan producer and director Afia Nathaniel tells a harrowing yet tender story of one woman’s journey to save her ten year-old daughter from marriage to an old man as part of a peace deal between opposing village leaders in Pakistan’s mountainous hinterland. Inspired by a true story “Dukhtar” illustrates primitive cultural practices of rigid patriarchy on the one hand and the growing empowerment of women who are willing to risk even life itself to become fully human and free.

Allah Rakhi (Samiya Mumtaz) is a young mother who had been married to her much older husband at a young age. When she overhears her husband agreeing to marry off their ten-year old daughter Zainab (Saleha Aref) to an old man, she takea Zainab and flees.

Her husband’s family, as well as the groom’s followers, pursues Allah Rakhi and Zainab through the labyrinth of the village pathways. When mother and daughter reach the highway Allah Rakhi convinces Sohail, (Mohib Mirza), an ex-Mujahid truck driver, to drive them to Lahore in his brightly painted bus. It breaks down and the trio makes off on foot toward Sohail’s village. Allah Rakhi convinces Sohail to take them to Lahore to find safety with her mother that her husband has not allowed her to see since her marriage fifteen years before.

With the bus repaired, they set off to Lahore and an uncertain, terrible yet ultimately hopeful destiny awaits.

Director Afia Nathaniel is quoted in the press notes for the film as saying, “The seed of the film is inspired by the true story of a mother from the tribal areas of Pakistan who kidnaps her two daughters and seeks a new future for them. The story resonated with me deeply because in Pakistan, I come from a humble family of very strong women, women who have endured extremely tough lives in hope of a better one for their children. So while studying Film Directing at Columbia University in New York, I penned a fictional screenplay for this road-trip thriller. The mother’s journey into the unknown would raise important questions about the price we are willing to pay for freedom, dignity and love in a time when modernity, tradition and fundamentalism have come to a head. In the ten years that it took me to make this film, I became a mother to a daughter myself and the issue of child marriage became even more personal. Every year, around the world, nearly 15 million girls lose their childhood to marriage and for me this is an unacceptable reality. And so the determination to make the film and have it seen by audiences never left me.”

Afia Nathaniel is part of Pakistan’s fledgling independent film industry. The contrast between the bald and jagged terrain with the colorful bus, contacts the inner realities of a culture that sucks the spirit out of women and one that fires the spirit. The bus the mother and daughter ride in is helmed by a younger man and symbolizes the direction in which a younger Pakistani society wants to go. “Dukhtar” is a road trip to freedom, fueled by hope, where good men exist and women can make their own decisions about their lives. In Urdu and Pushto with English subtitles.

The film opened in New York last weekend and opens in Los Angeles on October 16, 2015. This is a film for your Netflix list if you cannot get to a theater.