Pakistani Drama 'Dancers' Seeks Partners at Busan Asian Project Market

Writer-director Eshah Shakeel brings "Dancers," a coming-of-age drama about two young people in a Punjab town near Lahore, to the Asian Project Market, which runs within the Busan International Film Festival's Asian Contents & Film Market.

The film carries a locked budget of about $443,000, with U.K.-based Pink Llama Films committed to financing, producer Haris Khan told Variety. The script's final draft is complete, the core crew is in place, and the first round of auditions for the two leads has finished.

What is 'Dancers' about?

The story follows Paras, who wants nothing more than to leave Pakistan, and Ramza, still working out who she is while facing a marriage arranged for her as a child. The two bond through clandestine dance lessons. Around them, construction of a new road splits the town between those who welcome change and those who see it as an assault on the way things have always been.

Shakeel knows the terrain firsthand. She took up dance and acting in secret because her family forbade both.

"When they faced their own crossroads, they charted their own paths, which I don't even necessarily agree with but which make sense for Paras and Ramza," Shakeel told Variety of her protagonists. "Their lives continue even when the film ends."

She says she has watched many friends and relatives move abroad in recent years, and whenever she considers leaving herself, the stories she wants to tell hold her back.

"It's a complicated limbo of the necessity of leaving and having an emotional bond with your roots and I wanted to explore this internal dynamic of Pakistani youth by splitting it into two characters: one who dreams of leaving and the other who feels a pull to home," she said.

Trained in contemporary dance, Shakeel plans to blend that discipline with a Punjabi dance form so the pair can express through movement what they keep hidden in everyday life.

Who is behind the film?

The project was developed at Film Independent's Global Media Makers program, where it was one of 20 scripts chosen from 600 applications.

Khan co-founded Pakistani production outfit Last Shot with Shakeel. Iram Parveen Bilal, whose credits include "Josh," "I'll Meet You There" and "Wakhri," has come aboard as producer. BBC veteran Waseem Mahmood, co-founder of Pink Llama, serves as executive producer and has been attached since before the Film Independent fellowship.

The crew includes:

• Cinematographer Haider Bhatti
• Sound recordist Ashar Khalid ("In Flames")
• Stylist and choreographer Gulshan Majeed ("Joyland")

"I would like to think that we are arriving in Busan with genuine momentum along with a team that has really pushed forward," Khan said.

Last Shot, whose previous work includes web series "Dheet Haddi" and short film "Explicit," both written and directed by Shakeel, centers its slate on stories by and about women.

"We are not trying to make only one good film, we're trying to build a company that can consistently put female-centric, socially urgent South Asian stories in front of the world," Khan said.

What does the team want at Busan?

At Busan, the team seeks investors, co-production and festival partners, and sales agents. Bilal says the financing plan draws on grants and funds, equity and in-kind support, alongside co-producers bringing hard and soft money.

"Our focus at Busan is to onboard co-producers who can open up not just the production possibilities of the project but also access to new markets for distribution," Bilal said.

Does Pakistan's cinema moment help?

Pakistani films including "Joyland" and "In Flames" have drawn international attention to the country's independent cinema, and festivals, press, programmers and grant bodies have grown more attentive to the region, Bilal said.

She remains skeptical that financiers have changed their habits. "I do not think the conversation with financiers and sales companies has changed. They are and always will be inherently risk-averse in their approach," she said. "Those who were willing to bet on independent cinema bet on it even when the world wasn't paying attention to Pakistan."

With its script, budget, crew and first auditions already secured, "Dancers" now hinges on whether Busan's co-production partners will take the bet Bilal says financiers have always been reluctant to make.