Bollywood fare 'Omkara', 'Khosla Ka Ghosla' for Pakistan fest

Islamabad, Nov 30 (IANS) Bollywood will make its presence felt at Pakistan's prestigious Kara Film Festival this year with "Omkara", "Khosla Ka Ghosla" and "Woh Lamhe".

Actors of "Omkara" - Ajay Devgun, Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Konkana Sen Sharma - and Anupam Kher, director of "Khosla Ka Ghosla", will attend the festival that kicks off Dec 7 in Karachi. It is being held for the sixth year running in the city.

The festival has been aptly titled "Tamanna ka Chhatta Qadam" (The sixth step of desire), as a Ghalib-inspired metaphorical allusion to the sixth leg of the city's unique festival, which aims to promote cinematic creativity in Pakistan, The Daily Times said.

Both Kher and Mahesh Bhatt, who has written "Woh Lamhe", a self-confessed account of his relationship with the late actress Parveen Babi, are familiar figures on the Pakistan film fest circuit.

The festival will show "The Road to Guantanamo", winner of the Silver Bear award at the Berlin film festival, which looks into the lives of British-Pakistanis held at the infamous prison on charges of terrorism.

There will also be a Pakistani short documentary, "Mukhtar Mai: Struggle for Justice", directed and produced by Beena Sarwar. It tells the story of Mai, a woman in rural Punjab who was gang-raped on the orders of tribal village heads for a crime her younger brother allegedly committed in 2002. Rather than keep quiet, as is the norm in Pakistan, she knocked at the doors of justice. An internationally known name among human rights organisations, Mai was named a "World Hero" by Time Magazine this year.

The prominent international current affairs documentaries will include former American vice president Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", a troubling look into the future possibilities of a global environmental catastrophe.

The festival will also include a retrospective on French filmmaker Francois Truffaut, of "Les Quatre Cent Coups" (400 Blows) fame, a tribute to critically acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi and a spotlight on Jamil Dehlavi, a filmmaker of Pakistani origin.

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