Veteran Indian film, theater and television actress Shabana Azmi is staunch advocate of co-productions between India and Pakistan.

"For long time now, my husband and I have been saying that we really need more co-productions between India and Pakistan. If you look at cricket, it divides you it doesn't put you together! It is art that unites [when] politics divides. Art is an instrument that can bring about social change, and we can do it through cinema." "When you have so much talent in Pakistan, particularly in writing, India and Pakistan can come together and make really, really good cinema," she said.

Azmi was all praise for her co-star, beloved Pakistani actor Sajal Aly who stars in cross-cultural film.  Azmi plays Aisha Khan, family-focused matriarch of Pakistani family based in UK. "She thinks her work begins and ends with happiness of her children. Aisha is woman on threshold of modernity and tradition, warm, generous and good person," she says. Film, she says, "busts notion that arranged marriages are archaic and from barbaric world". "But it does this with warmth and hum¬our, observing two cultures different from each other, but in non-judgmental way."–Agencies

Published in The Daily National Courier, February, 17 2023

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