Salman Ahmed Khan

My Pure Land is striking drama based on an extraordinary true story, and the UK's entry for Best Foreign Language Film to the 90th Academy Awards. A tense siege contemporary Western, told in partial flashbacks, the film tells the story of a young woman called Nazo and her mother and sister, who are called to defend their home after a bitter family feud leads to her father's incarceration. In their secluded farmhouse in rural Pakistan, the women find themselves surrounded by armed men hired by their Uncle Mehrban to take their land. When Nazo's resistance leaves two of the men dead, an enraged Mehrban calls in a local ragtag militia of two hundred armed bandits to finish the job. Massively outnumbered, with nowhere to go and only a handful of bullets left, Nazo still refuses to give in.

In a nondescript neighbourhood of Lahore, three friends are desperate to get on to the fast track to success. Khaldi, Taambi and Chitta, all in their early twenties, believe that the only way out is to the West. The journey that unfolds through the story of this film gives us a peep into what constitutes the everyday in the lives of many young men and women in Pakistan - a sense of entitlement that cannot be fulfilled, desperation to somehow prove themselves in the face of all legitimate doors being locked and an ennui from which they feel there is no getaway. The film also features Naseerudin Shah - who is widely considered to be one of the finest Indian stage and film actors.