Canadian filmmaker Arshad Khan has fulfilled a lifelong dream of sharing his personal journey of being a gay man, an immigrant in a hostile environment and a Pakistani Muslim, with the rest of the planet. His documentary “Abu,” (Father), screened at this year’s BFI London Film Festival on the 13th and 14th October.
ABU is a rollercoaster of a journey that opens up the intimate heart of a family that is at odds with itself. The family is in the bind that challenges so many migrant Asian families to a greater of lesser degree. This bind is the attempt to deal with religion, sexuality, colonialism and migration.
Arshad Khan weaves different narratives together beautifully. He combines home family video footage, scenes of observation, animation, and clips of classic Bollywood films. He identifies as gay and is of Pakistani-Muslim heritage himself.
The filmmaker moves viewers through the heartbreaking complex dichotomy when family meets fate, conservatism meets liberalism and modernity meets familiarity.
Away from the film, such situations, perhaps, result in the second generation of the diaspora Asian population feeling schizophrenic sometimes. Some may turn to drink, drugs, deceit, self harm, abuse or some other self-medication as a way of dealing with this.
But back to the movie maker.
Arshad Khan was always certain he was different. He came to the realisation that he is gay shortly after emigrating to Canada from Pakistan with his family.
His sensitive documentary is beautifully made and involves the viewer on Khan’s journey.
The viewer gets a sense of Arshad’s isolation and loneliness. There are also moments of happiness, growing up in a close-knit family.
The movie is so intimately written and directed that it leaves the watcher feeling privileged by having been allowed to witness some of Khan’s most personal and tragic moments. These include the death of his father.
The film’s origination happened when Arshad Khan made a video for his father’s memorial. At that point he realized that his family had created a large catalogue of family footage over the years.
The film-maker says: “We carried cameras with us everywhere. My father loved photography and he wanted to create memories for all of us. I saw the footage as an opportunity to share my ‘real’ story, but it was a huge decision to really come out and tell people things I had never shared before. It has been a truly cathartic process and although it breaks all the rules of not sharing emotions and issues outside of the family, I hope that my father would be proud.”
Conception
The time of the horrific terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in America created the film’s petri dish. Arshad Khan tells us;
“When 911 happened, I was in architecture school and living a good life. All of a sudden I felt like there was an intense war on brown skin and we were falsely labelled terrorists or suspect due to the colour of our skin.
And I felt that the media was stoking this fire and perpetuating these fears and that I had no voice. That is what got me into filmmaking. We need to tell our stories.”
Arshad Khan studied at the Mel Hoppenheim school of cinema at Concordia university in Montreal.
Canada is a filmmaker-friendly country and Khan got creative. He says,
“I started with a three minute video that I used for crowdfunding and then applied for a few Canadian grants.”
The film has not gone to South Asia yet. Arshad is interested at how his work will be received in India and South Asia. “It will be at the Dharamshala international film festival in November. Let's see how they like it.”
Canada’s sensitivity to film makers.
“Filmmaking is hard no matter where you are. However, in Canada there are a lot of public funding bodies federally and provincially as well. And that makes it much easier for emerging filmmakers to make their work,”states Khan.
We wondered about the relationship between Khan and his parents, especially with his mother after seeing her family exposed. He said;
“I think it is up and down. Lately it’s been pretty great as my mother has finally watched the film in Toronto and didn't think it was awful.”
Arshad Khan’s film is helping with his next ambition.
“I am working on my first fiction feature now. The roll out of the ABU film is helping me make new relationships in the industry. People are loving the film. Audiences are connecting with it. I am speaking with a few producers about it. Let's see where it goes.”
