Discoveries from Pakistan World Cinema

Pathar Tay Leek is a 1969 Punjabi social drama directed by Jafar Malik.

A music director navigates the tragic intersection of his art and his heart.

A sweeping retelling of the Layla-Majnun legend, where romance deepens into obsession, longing, and tragedy.

A self-reflective documentary observing the unseen labor that defines a Pashtun household.

A family from a persecuted minority returns to Pakistan eight years after leaving. They discuss the discrimination they face over a familial get-together.

Manju Maria is the tale of war to obtain the heart and soul of a beautiful woman (Maria) between the hero (Sameer) and wild evil (Manju). Everything is fair in love and war. See how an evil goes about the limits to achieve his goals and enables the heroine to go accordingly as he wants. Sameer struggles hard to save Maria from the evil quarrel Evil. Will Maria be able to go out of the Trance of Evil, will Sameer fight with Manju having too much proof will Manju be successful in achieving all goals.

A mother's wish to fulfil her son's dream of owning a pair of Chuck Taylors reveal the fragile threads of her double life. Will things ever be the same between the two of them?

Behind the Smile follows a young man who hides his depression behind a happy exterior. As his internal battle grows, his facade cracks, leading him to finally face his pain and seek help for healing.

Shan Shahid as Jagga Gujjar of Lahore.

A surreal voyage with Orpheus Augustus Marcks, a.k.a. Professor Sahib a Lahori poet, actor, philosopher, athlete, who walks the line between genius and divine madness.

New Punjabi Comedy Pakistani Film

Meher, Anwar and Arhab, a bereft and broken family, must face the circumstances around the death of Jibran (Jibi), their son and brother.

A documentary fairy-tale about the struggle for identity in the Hunza Valley set in a village located in the Northern-Pakistan somewhere between the past and the future. A magnificent turquoise lake in between rough, steep cliff surrounds the small village. But the lake hasn’t been always there. One day, an enormous landslide blocked a river. In a few months, this river turned into a huge lake, which is now up to 30km long. Thousands of homes and fields were flooded. Entire villages disappeared forever. Thousands of people got dislocated and had to look for different places where to live. What is left are the stories of those that once used to live there which are passed on from generation to generation.

In Search of explores the reasons and consequences of the progressive disappearing of the Pashtun culture along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A woman perhaps a drag queen performs to Pakistani film music from the 70s. S/he dances to segments of three different songs that are linked by images of a shack and food in plates which seem to have nothing to do with the performance or songs.

In 2012, Joseph Colony - a Christian settlement in the heart of Lahore - was burnt to the ground by a mob of religious fundamentalists on the basis of blasphemy charges. In 2014, two students ventured back in to find out if there is any space left for religious minorities in their motherland, Pakistan.

A personal family epic, where Danish-Pakistani director Anita Mathal Hopland looks back at the history of her two families over 15 years in Karachi and Copenhagen.

The film portrays life under a “taboo reality,” where rejection defines survival. At its center is Meena, a trans sex worker who shelters unwanted women in her dim flat. Without glamour, they endure by offering unusual fantasies to clients cast aside, in a world both harsh and tender, marked by struggle, fleeting solidarity, and fragile dignity.

The members of the Black Hawk group want to escape from the port of Karachi after stealing the death ray. Agent Jane Bond 008 is assigned by the British Intelligence Service to rescue the professor who succeeded in inventing the death ray while fighting against the members of the Black Hawk group.

Hashim, a lonely office worker, is asked by his domineering and charismatic co-worker Iqbal to get the number of an attractive female client. Desperate for companionship, Hashim uses Artificial Intelligence to Catfish Iqbal, forging a deep online connection. As their bond strengthens, the question looms: how long until Hashim's facade crumbles?

The story is based on the Pashto folk story Yousuf Khan and Sher Bano. The tale has also been referred to as the Pashto version of Romeo and Juliet.

LGBTQ+ asylum seekers in Belgium face an impossible ask: prove their identity by reliving the worst things that have happened to them. For people who have hidden their queerness their whole lives just to survive, the asylum process demands the opposite: total openness, total detail, to complete strangers. Red Elephant follows those caught in this cruel contradiction, many of whom have fled deeply conservative, homophobic societies only to encounter a system that requires them to narrate their most painful experiences as evidence. The film gets close to the reality of what this process feels like; the waiting, the vulnerability, the absurdity of turning personal identity into a bureaucratic checkbox. Red Elephant is a powerful story about what gets lost when the price of safety is exposing the very thing you were taught to hide.

"Charhda Toofan" is a classic Pakistani Punjabi action blockbuster packed with powerful performances, unforgettable dialogues, and intense fight scenes. Sultan Rahi leads the screen with his iconic action avatar, while Mustafa Qureshi and Sangeeta deliver compelling roles in this thrilling ride from the golden era of Lollywood.

Home is something that we all crave after a tiring day out in the world. Apna Ghar is a story just about that. Neha, who just started professional life and is about to get kicked out of her hostel is crippled with the fear that her parents might force her to marry if she goes back. As Neha hunts for the perfect rental, she uncovers surprises that could alter her life forever.

Nobody is perfect in this world. Everyone has their fair share of their imperfections,so rather than focusing on one's imperfections, one should focus on the positive aspect of an individual.This is thought behind the telefilm "Bin bul e Mehman".Thou this message has been protrayed in a comedic manner but should be implemented in our everyday life.

Incredible things happen when someone unveils an idea so inspiring that it moves others to act.

Two street beggars rob a wealthy heiress to repay her slight against their blind friend.

An action-packed political thriller about injustice

An Eid Special Telefilm from 2025 by ARY Digital

After entering a neighborhood house to retrieve a ball, Hussain, a young adult, is trapped in a loop.

A low-budget short documentary about living in the City of Lights.

A meditation on faith and memory, capturing the quiet intimacy of spiritual devotion filmed in Pakistan.

Two boys stumble upon a bag in a large waste yard bush. As they plan to sell their find, along the the bag’s true owners are already on the trail, a person dressed in all black starts to shadow one of them.

In the quiet lanes of Quetta, a grieving man’s fateful decision ripples through the lives around him, as magical realism unveils the hidden cracks between sorrow, faith, and redemption.

A mysterious operative is captured by a ruthless gang in an abandoned building. As dark secrets unravel, he must fight to survive and stop a looming threat before it's too late.

“Make it look real,” the clients of a photo studio in Pakistan urge the photographer. They want a photo of themselves with girls, and preferably holding a gun or sitting on a motorcycle, even though they have none of these things. So their photos are pasted onto stock photos. In a sense, these studios are selling a lie, but at the same time the photos bring to light the dreams and ambitions of their clients.

After ten years of his disappearance, Shabbir Hussain returns to his home, only to realize the tragic fate of his beloved family, igniting a desperate journey to rebuild his life.

A woman teaches a ghost classroom as she struggles to find a word in the Urdu language for the crime that has been taking place for decades.

TIP TIP PANI (2018) IFTIKHAR THAKUR, ZAFRI KHAN & KHUSHBOO - LATEST STAGE DRAMA

Shiny and Bandu are avid fans of Hammad, an egg-seller from Karachi who has found a huge online following in their city of Mumbai but is virtually unknown in his own vicinity. They connect online and what follows is a heartfelt journey to a promising friendship that exists in the borderless realm of the online world.

Mela Jaloos (Translation: Festival Procession, in Urdu) is a 13-minute art film that embarks upon a speculative queer Muslim journey of celebration, resistance, and protest. Taking a performance-based approach, the film uses poetic and hybrid means to present a kaleidoscope of influences that are rooted in Sufi histories, queerness, and life in Lahore, Pakistan.

Fictional drama based on a young boy growing up attached to migratory birds captured by a dying real fishing village in interior Sindh (Pakistan), shot with locals, this short film is a visually evocative metaphor of the boy forced to leave and provide for his ailing father only to return haunted as the migratory birds he loved and wanted to set free.

A Common Story About Women.

The shifting power dynamic between two friends.

Pakistani adaptation of Layla Majnun.

Noori spends her time doing "chilla-kashi" (meditation) in front of a candle, and fantasizing about a dream lover who comes to her on horseback.

A group of transgenders is going to form a theatre production in which they will talk about their rights through newly implemented law passed by government of Pakistan.

A young man visits his dying father for the confrontation of his life.

Katchi opens up with the young Saad, who falls outside the gender binary. Growing up in a middle class family, and striving for his true self, Saad encounters several gruesome events of bullying and molestation by other students at school. Later in life, Saad participates in a theatre show that portrays the lives of Trans* women, with his mother in the audience. Has she accepted her son? Or does the fear of losing family pride come in the way?

Due to difficulties of life, a young boy got involved in drugs, which led him to the Right path.

Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.