Synopsis & Concept

We had agreed on doing a film in which the main character os female, as we are mainly targeting the female audience.

Our main story revolves around a Muslim, Pakistani middle class girl, who is not very wealthy. She lives in a small, frugal apartment and does not own a car. Instead, she travels in public transport lik buses and 'Rickshaws'.

                                                      Photograph By Humera Alvi

Her family is very conservative, and also religous, which is why the girl is forced to wear a 'hijab' and cover her body with a 'burkha'(cloak).

But the family wants their daughter to have the best education and spend good money to let her study in a well-known and reputable school. The problem arises when the girls in her school are all very wealthy, with fancy clothes, expensive cars and huge mansions. Instantly, she starts to feel inferior and conscious of her unwealthy self. Then, she starts pretending to be something she's not. She hides from her parents and lies to her friends, just to 'fit in' and to not feel inferior. She leaves her home wearing her burkha(to show her family that she was obeying rules.), arrives to school early every time so that no one sees her riding public transport(as she lied to her friends about owning a car) and then takes off her burkha(to show that she wasn't conservative like her family). She also never invited her friends over to her home, as she lied about living in a mansion.

The turning point in the film, that will leave the audience interested in seeing what happens next, is when the girl meets her friends one day, planning to go to a restaurant, but instead finds that her friends had car issues and decided to go somewhere else. Then, they tell the girl that they had decided to go to her home in her car, innocently complaining that they had never met her family or seen her house. This is where she gets into trouble, and must decide how to handle the situation. Either she would lie and make up some excuses, or, she would come clean and reveal everything, with the fear of being rejected by everyone.

This was initially our main storyline. My partner Humera, had an idea to change the story slightly. Her version suggested that, instead of having a conservative girl trying to fit in with her wealthy friends, we could show a wealthy girl trying to fit in to her conservative friends. Thus, we would show that the girl wore trendy clothes and was very shallow. But after meeting her friends who were all religous and conservative, and wore burkhas, would try to become like them. She would hide from her family and wear a burkha as well. Humera suggested that this would be a unique and different story that no one had heard of before.

I, on the other hand, found the story a bit unusual. I did not believe that this story would seem interesting to the audience, as it was moving, very slightly, towards religion. Through our questionnaires, we indirectly asked our targeted audience which story they preferred. Our questionnaires have helped us decide that the original storyline would be a better choice, as people want to gain entertainment rather than learn something.

Our first storyline is now finalized, and we will now start working on our film. We have started sketching down ideas for the screenplay, and will soon make final drafts of our storyboards. And then, we start shooting!