Two films from South Asia have been selected at the Venice Film Festival—Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s Once Upon A Time in Calcutta (India) and Seemab Gul’s Mulaqat (Sandstorm, Pakistan). Both films play in the Orizzonti (Horizons) section of the festival, that runs from September 1-11. Once Upon A Time in Calcutta is a sprawling epic that comments on contemporary issues in Kolkata, with an ensemble cast that includes Sreelekha Mitra, Shayak Roy, Bratya Basu, Reekita Nondine Shimu (from Bangladesh), Arindam Ghosh, Satrajit Sarkar and Anirban Chakrabarti. In a major coup, the film has Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s regular cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki, shooting the film. His stunning cinematography in Ceylan’s films include Climates, Three Monkeys, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Winter Sleep and The Wild Pear Tree. Sengupta’s Asha Jaoar Majhe (Labour of Love) was at Venice in 2014.

Mulaqat, the 20 min short film by Seemab Gul, the London-based British-Pakistani filmmaker, is a strong coming-of-age film about a Karachi schoolgirl Zara, who casually shares a sensuous video of herself dancing, with her online boyfriend. He threatens to use social media to blackmail her into submission and bully her. It’s also a cautionary tale in how powerfully oppressive social media can be, and how easily they are used against girls and women, especially in patriarchal societies. Starring Parizae Fatima and Hamza Mushtaq, the film has been produced by Abid Aziz Merchant’s Sanat Initiative. Seemab Gul, a graduate of the London Film School, is a film director, writer, producer and artist. Her films include the marvellous documentary Zahida, on Pakistan’s first woman taxi driver, and several shorts, spanning drama, experimental film and art installations, such as One Day in Whitechapel, Home Bittersweet Home, Overtime, Towards a Militant Conceptualism and Metaphysiques. Her films have been shown worldwide, including at top film festivals like Hot Docs (Toronto), South by SouthWest (Texas) and the Sheffield Doc Fest (UK), and the Geneva Contemporary Art Centre. Her work has been supported by Channel 4, CBA WorldView, Al Jazeera and Arts Council England.