Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee will play the role of Quaide Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The Hollywood actor Mr. Lee considers it his most iconic performance to date.
After the producers of Jinnah declared bankruptcy and the film ended up in the hands of a liquidator, the director of the film, Jamil Dehlavi, bought the rights to its international release a few years ago. The film was being screened at different places as part of the I am Karachi film festival.
The film screening took place in the last week of May in front of more than 4,500 children from underprivileged backgrounds at popular venues, such as Capri, Prince, Atrium and City cinema in the Federal B area.
The director is of the view:
“I think Jinnah’s message deserves to be seen by the younger generation that wasn’t around when the film was initially released,” Dehlavi told the media. Written by Akbar S Ahmed and Dehlavi himself, the film was originally released in Pakistan and the UK in 1998 and has now been digitized to suit the requirements of multiplexes.
There were only 24, 35mm prints of the film available, which were lying in the then Nishat Cinema and were destroyed when the cinema was torched during protests on Ishqe-Rasool day. “All the prints were destroyed in the fire and we had to start everything anew. But, fortunately, I had the film in a format that may be obsolete these days but gave us room to start from somewhere. Adjusting the sound to digital requirements was a big challenge though,” said Dehlavi.
The film may capitalise on the national fervor by releasing on August 14. Apart from Lee, Jinnah’s cast includes Shashi Kapoor, James Fox, Maria Aitken, FRichard Lintern , Shireen Shah , Indira Verman, Shakeel and Talat Hussain.
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