Pakistani film In Flames set to have its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival 2023
A still from In Flames. Via XYZ films
Pakistani filmmaker Zarrar Kahn's debut film In Flames has been selected to screen at the Directors' Fortnight section at Cannes Film Festival 2023. The independent sectionruns parallel at the Cannes Film Festival each year. This is the second time in a row that a Pakistani film has been selected for screening at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2022, Saim Sadiq's Joyland became the first Pakistani film to have its world premiere at the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival. The film subsequently won the Jury Prize and the Queer Palm award.
Kahn's film In Flamesis among 20 feature films and 10 shorts that have been selected for screening in the parallel section. The Cannes film festival will be held from May 16 to May 27.
In Flames marks the return of Pakistan to the Directors’ Fortnight after 43 years. The first Pakistani film to play in the Director's Fortnight was filmmaker Jamil Dehlavi's The Blood Of Hussain in 1980.
In Flames is a Canadian-Pakistani co-production and is also the first South Asian 'horror' film to have been selected in the Director's Fortnight section. The film is set in Karachi where after the death of the family patriarch, a mother and daughter’s precarious existence is ripped apart by figures from their past – both real and phantasmal. How they find strength in each other to survive the malevolent forces that threaten to engulf them forms the rest of the story.
Meanwhile, Indian filmmaker Kanu Behl's film Agra too has been selected in the same section and will have its world premiere at the film festival in May.
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