After stalwarts such as Bimal Roy and Satyajit Ray, Pakistani director Sabiha Sumar became the first South Asian film-maker to win the highest award at an internationally renowned competitive feature film festival.

Her first feature film, Khamosh Pani, won 17 international awards, including the Golden Leopard award for best film at the Locarno Film Festival in 2003. It put Pakistani cinema on the world map. She has also introduced and trained many actors and production crew in South Asia. For example, actress Shilpa Shukla who debuted in Khamosh Pani became a critically acclaimed actress in India, and went on to play the lead in films such as Hazaaron Khwahishain Aisi and Chak De! India, and renowned actress Kirron Kher went on to become a sensational star in Bollywood, after receiving international acclaim for her role as Ayesha in the film.

However, Sumar’s contribution to the world of film lies, first and foremost, in her poignant portrayal of life, where she uses cinema to tell her stories with honesty and compassion. Her unassuming manner and frank approach, as she agrees for a quick interview, belies her achievements. In conversation she speaks to us about the recent developments in Pakistani cinema and her latest film, Good Morning Karachi (2011) which premiered at the Goteberg Film Festival (GFF) in Sweden in January this year. The story revolves around the struggles of a young woman in Karachi (Rafina played by Amna Ilyas) in realising her dreams to become successful in the fashion industry.

Saving Face (2012), also produced by Sabiha, made history as the first Oscar for Pakistan. It received the Best Documentary Award (Short) at the 84th Academy Awards and has also received five Emmy Award nominations.

Q. Can you recount some of the problems you faced in the early days of your career as a film-maker?

SS: Making my first feature film, Khamosh Pani, was a huge learning curve for me. It was my first feature film and I had no idea that it would be so well-received. Winning at the Locarno Film Festival was a humbling experience for me, as the film competed with many other beautiful films. But what was sad at the time was the fact that the film couldn’t even be screened in the country of origin. There were no distributors, no cinemas. The censor board informed me that there was a ban on Indian actors and Kirron Kher was my lead actress, so that put a halt to my efforts to release the film in my own country.

But I didn’t let that stop me. I created a travelling cinema — put my film on a truck with a projector, screen and some sound equipment and set out to do my Pakistani premiere in Wah Village where the film was shot. After a thundering response in Wah, my team and I toured 40 small towns and villages and created open air cinemas for the general public to see the film. It was the most exhilarating experience of my life.

Therefore, I think it was the time in which I started making films that was most challenging. I started this work at a time when cinemas in Pakistan were being razed to the ground and wedding halls were built in its place. And technicians who had grown in the industry prior to that time had moved away to other fields simply to survive. And there I was, a fresh graduate of film, saying I want to make films and I didn’t know how that would be possible in a country that had no infrastructure for filmmaking. There was a lot of suspicion regarding what I had set out to do; people couldn’t accept that I just wanted to tell stories.

Q. What kind of response did Good Morning Karachi receive at the GFF?

SS: We had three screenings at the Goteberg Film Festival. All of them were sold out and the audience loved the film. The question and answer session, which followed each show, was very engaging and passionate. There were a few Asians in the audience, but by and large it was a Swedish audience. We had gone there as a delegation of 14 in all, including our main cast and crew. And it was a very moving time for us all.

The film really pulled the Swedish audience out of their comfort zone about their previous understanding of Pakistan. It was full of young people and they had all these questions about how Pakistan has changed, about the fashion industry and were surprised to learn how young women were so ambitious in Pakistan. The movie is about a universal struggle — so I think they were able to relate to that struggle.

Q. Can you provide a tentative launch date for Pakistan?

SS: I hope to release it simultaneously in Pakistan and Europe before the end of this year. But we don’t have a fixed date yet.

Q. What inspired you to make a film on the subject? Is the story based on real-life characters?

SS: Yes. It is a film based on many real-life characters. The opening up of the media industry in Pakistan created a situation whereby glamorous jobs were created for the youth in the industry. But the fact that Pakistan was completely unprepared for this was ironically a silver lining for us at that time. This gave many young women and men a chance to come out and prove themselves in film, television and fashion. Shandana Minhas’ novella Rafina is steeped in this reality. Rafina’s story mirrors the lives of countless urban youth. I am sure that when people watch the film, they will see their own dreams and hopes reflected in it.

Q. There is a prevalent trend in Pakistan where one can witness a particular type of documentary films and subjects emerging in recent films. Can you tell us why you think this is so?

SS: Pakistan doesn’t have a tradition of documentary and feature film-making. The picture of Pakistan in the news is often bleak and offers a particular view of Pakistan. And documentaries that emerge from here are also part of this culture of wanting to show it raw and feeding into the images that are being produced by both the West as well as us. We are responsible for this state since we have ignored the development of our arts, which is a huge part of us. By doing so we have promoted a type of graphic and violent imagination of Pakistan that leaves no room for a different kind of interpretation. And I think that is why movies such as Good Morning Karachi stand in stark opposition to the existing narrative.

Q. You said “Good Morning Karachi stands in stark opposition to the existing narrative.” Kindly elaborate.

SS: There is widespread belief in Pakistan that films ought to be about issues. I don’t agree with that. Issues have to turn into stories, otherwise they don’t move people. Fiction or documentary, film is first and foremost about storytelling and how you use the language of cinema to tell your story. A great film begins with a flawless script. And we need to work on this first. The next step is to know how to use technology to serve the story telling.

Good Morning Karachi addresses the tension between religious extremism and modernity as experienced by a young woman coming of age in the city of Karachi. It tries to connect her story with the audience’s lives. And so in the way of handling an issue, the treatment of it, we can differentiate cinema from other forms of art.

Q. You have also recently worked in television. Could you tell us about that experience?

SS: Yes, I directed a 23-part drama series called Mi Raqsam, which I enjoyed a lot. Even when I had long days, such as a 13-hour shift at work I didn’t feel it at all. And I would love to do another project in television soon. I had a very supportive cast and crew, where the actors would hear my interpretations and then come up with their interpretations, making the filming process very exciting. I really enjoyed training them and think this is one of the reasons I would like to go back to it again.

Q. What of Sabiha Sumar will we see next?

SS: I am very keen to continue my work in both documentary and feature films. So right now I am working on a sequel to Dinner with the President and also developing a script for a new feature film. My stories tend to come from my experiences in Pakistan. This was one of the reasons I did not want to leave. Pakistan offers for me an inner perspective that I would not have had elsewhere and this for me is very important in my films. And television, as I said earlier, is another field I want to continue in.