A conversation with “Motorcycle Girl” director Adnan Sarwar

On Wednesday, July 31, the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies will screen the movie “Motorcycle Girl” as part of the Stanford Global Studies Summer Film Festival. The biographical drama is based on the life of motorcyclist Zenith Irfan, the first Pakistani woman to travel alone through the north of the country. In the interview below, the film’s director, Adnan Sarwar, discusses his storytelling process, the challenges he experienced in producing a female-centric film, and the future of Pakistani cinema.

I was actually involved in a different film project and was working on the script in 2016 when I came across a video on the internet. It was a “NowThis” piece about a girl from Pakistan who took a solo motorcycle journey from Lahore, my hometown, to Khanjerab, at the China-Pakistan border, to fulfill her deceased father’s dream. That a girl would undertake such an endeavor in the memory of her father moved me. And that she was from Pakistan, a country where a girl on a motorcycle is a rare sight since it is considered a social taboo, made the story even more interesting for me. I contacted her immediately and spoke to her over the phone. By the time the conversation was over, I had decided to shelf the project I was in the middle of and set about making “Motorcycle Girl.”

The cinema of South Asia is quite different from that of the West. The audiences expect song and dance, romance, and fantasy sequences when they come to the cinema hall. Granted, there is an audience for off-beat subjects, but in Pakistan, this is a very limited number. Producers are reluctant to finance films which they think do not tick all the boxes to make a hit, commercial film. The fact that that my film did not have a male lead — a “hero” — was a deal breaker for almost the entire industry. Financing a female-led film without the traditional male hero, therefore, was the biggest challenge. I had to sell some shares in my company to investors to raise funds, and then Kami Mehmood came forward to co-produce the film once the ball got rolling.

For me, it was primarily a father-daughter film. The love that a daughter feels for her deceased father gives her the strength to overcome social barriers and do this amazing thing which, in any other country, would not necessarily be a heroic act. Whereas there are no laws against women riding motorcycles in Pakistan, it is, and has been, a psychological barrier ever since the dark days of the Zia dictatorship, which pushed Pakistani women back a several decades. We should not be making movies about women riding motorcycles. It should not be considered a rare occurrence. With the release of this film, I hope I have been able to start a conversation about this issue.

We also [partnered] with the Government of Pakistan’s Women on Wheels (WoW) campaign, and the release of “Motorcycle Girl” coincided with the distribution of nearly 1000 motorcycles to women in eight major cities of the Punjab province. Now, people often tag me on social media when one of those women is spotted riding a motorcycle to work. My message would be that women should have the freedom of mobility because it is their fundamental right; that it is time that the women of Pakistan take their rightful place in society; and that we, as a people, should collectively overcome the psychological barriers that prevent women from achieving the same.

The third one will take some time simply because of the scope of the project. The industry is not at a stage where we can undertake such a huge film. We only have 120 cinema screens in the country at the moment, and the numbers have to make sense. The next one is a period film, set in the 1800s. It will be a biopic.

For the third film, I am looking at a person who stands as a hero for the entire subcontinent. Pakistan and India have a common heritage and a shared history spanning 5000 years. Where too much divides us nowadays, causing skirmishes and wars, there is also much that binds us. As a filmmaker, I want to tell the story of someone who is a hero for both countries in the hope that we will be reminded of what we have in common. As a staunch proponent of peace and open borders between the two countries, I hope that the film will play its little part towards the dream of a peaceful subcontinent.

It is too early to say if more female-centric movies will be produced. Commercial interests drive any business, and movies are a business for most people who are involved. There will always be the crazy ones who defy the norm, and I look forward to more people stepping forward to tell important stories. I believe cinema has the power to change a society, and Pakistan needs a new narrative. Pakistani cinema is just trying to find its feet after decades of neglect. The Zia dictatorship and its ultra conservative polices had a devastating effect on the fabric of Pakistani society. Cinema was no different. The industry has been in ruins. All the cinema halls were converted into shopping malls and only now are we are starting to recover. We still lack technical facilities and trained personnel, and it will be a few more years before we can learn to walk again. It is my hope that Pakistani cinema finds its own voice and its own unique identity. We have stories to tell because we have not been allowed to tell stories for many, many years.

 

Photo by Kilyan Sockalingum on Unsplash