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Event Details
Its makers, unable to cry hypocrisy, politely pointed out that an imported version of Dracula had been screened in the country's cinemas without mass depravity ensuing. A compromise was reached - the film could be shown, but would be X-rated.
With nods to Terence Fisher's 1958 Hammer version of Dracula and Bernard Herrman's Psycho soundtrack, Zinda Laash is a still-striking work of art-horror that, with its razzy outfits, lubricious dancing and perverse sexuality, pre-echoes The Wicker Man. No wonder a female viewer in Gujranwala was said to have died of a heart attack. — S.S. Sandhu
Please Note: This film is presented in Urdu with English subtitles.
Location
Asia Society
725 Park Avenue
New York, NY
About The Event
Co-presented by Khajistan.
Zinda Laash
Khwaja Sarfraz, Pakistan, 1967, 103 min.
In Urdu with English subtitles.
Followed by a conversation between S.S. Sandhu of the Colloquium for Unpopular Culture and film scholar Kartik Nair, and featuring a display of the film’s poster and censor certificate printed from the Khajistan archive.
Zinda Laash was the first horror film to be produced in Pakistan. If the government had had its way, it would also have been the last. This remake of Bram Stoker’s classic vampire novel was deemed “corruptive and evil” and yanked off screens after just one week. Its makers, unable to cry hypocrisy, politely pointed out that an imported version of Dracula had been screened in the country’s cinemas without mass depravity ensuing. A compromise was reached – the film could be shown, but would be X-rated. With nods to Terence Fisher’s 1958 Hammer version of Dracula and Bernard Herrman’s Psycho soundtrack, Zinda Laash is a still-striking work of art-horror that, with its razzy outfits, lubricious dancing and perverse sexuality, pre-echoes The Wicker Man. No wonder a female viewer in Gujranwala was said to have died of a heart attack. — S.S. Sandhu
For more information, please visit the event website.
Image: courtesy of Asia Society