New Pakistani short film ‘Swipe’ creates buzz about blasphemy law
A scene from “Swipe.”
(REVIEW) “Swipe right for wajib-ul-qatl (death sentence). Swipe left for maafi (sentence).”
Despite the similar wordings, this isn’t Tinder we are talking about. Rather, the phrase is the crux of the new Pakistani animated short Swipe, released in November. The 14-minute film follows a young boy in a dystopian future who is addicted to iFatwa, a fictional crowdsourcing app that lets players decide who deserves a death sentence. Players compete to earn a top spot on the Ajar board (the app’s leadership board).
When I first heard of the film, I was more than a little intrigued. Religion isn’t an easy topic to approach in Pakistan, even when discourse is greatly needed. And so I approached my viewing of the movie with both curiosity and fear. There’s too many stories, too many interferences in the name of religion that occur every single day, too many people who think they have a right to pass laws and “fatwas” in the name of religion, for this to be considered a distant dystopian depiction. It immediately brings anyone who’s grown up in the digital age, myself included, to a halting evaluation of our own dependence on social media and whether we really ever think about what we’re sending out into the void. It also takes a lot of guts for someone to create such a piece of art in Pakistan.
So I decided to ask creator Arafat Mazhar about his film. He told me creating it was an emotional journey.
“In many ways Swipe has been in the works for 10 years. It came from a need to talk about how we’re all feeling,” he said. “Although our research work was focused on impact, the film wasn’t exactly about preaching. We wanted to reach different mindsets over emotional obstacles and try and resonate with the community’s heart. You and I are the same, we’re not that different.”
The film is resonating with many young Pakistanis. Sannan Sharif, a 20-year-old Pakistani student at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, posted a positive review of the film to Instagram that has already racked up nearly 100,000 views.
“This movie is obviously just a narrative rather than a lecture,” he said. “It allows the audience to make their own conclusions rather than imposing someone’s judgement on it and that I feel is just a more effective way of communicating.”
Sannan also praised the film for showing “what mob mentality can do” and the dangers of social media in Pakistan.
“Social media allows the actor to separate themselves from the consequences of their actions which is why people tend to say unbelievably horrible things when they are behind a screen,” he said. “In a sense swiping once out of 10,000 swipes [which is how many the app needs to award a death sentence] or making one hateful comment out of 10,000 can have a similar effect.”
Rather than limiting itself to talking about merely problematic legislation around blasphemy laws, I saw Swipe as a commentary on the impact generations worth of such beliefs have on the citizens of that society. It showed a very raw visual of what happens when such beliefs, and the actions of those who believe in them go unchecked.
Arafat’s impetus to create a film came partly from concern at the way children in Pakistan are growing up. A particularly impactful moment comes at the end of the film, after the animated story, in which a video shows a group of children hanging their doll and associating her with Asia Bibi, the young Christian woman who was accused of and later acquitted of charges of blasphemy in the country. The conversation around blasphemy in Pakistan is rarely had openly and is limited to the brave few who choose to venture into that arena. Despite only being a 14 minute long film, Swipe has opened doors for these conversations to reflect how they impact each and every citizen of the country.
Arafat said the film came from “the need to tell different stories to our children, our community’s children. We aren’t able to tell them stories beyond that of violence.”
Seeing the protagonist as a child hammered the message home all the more for me. Children are always seen as the innocent parts of society, those who deserve our protection the most. To see a young child wrapped up in a battle of life and death that he perhaps never saw as more than a game till the very end was heartbreaking.
Rida Maryam Zafar, who just completed her Masters in Child Development at Oxford University, said:
“I also love how the ‘protagonist’ is just going about his day because you see both how inconsequential and devastatingly consequential his mundane reality becomes. It also drives home how vulnerable and susceptible our children are, and how much we’re failing them because of the world we are creating and allowing to be created even if we don’t endorse it.”
Before the film was released, Arafat said the team feared for the safety of its artists, some of whom used pseudonyms in the credits.
A scene from “Swipe.”
But the reaction to the film has been surprisingly unifying, perhaps because the film does not aim to steer viewers into a particular political stance but appeals to emotions to force some self-reflection about blasphemy law and the death penalty. Of course there’s been some concern regarding public appreciation of the film, perhaps because of security issues. Despite editors and writers reaching out to Arafat to appreciate the film, some have been reluctant to publish the appraise. But even with these barriers of fear, politics and the power of mainstream media that has limited the film to perhaps a far smaller audience it deserves, it is undoubtedly a remarkable watch that leaves you thinking for long after its over. An open stance against the blasphemy law may be a long way away, but at the very least the film begging dialogue on what the impact of these laws are on everyday citizens. The film quietens the noise around us that keeps telling us to think one way or the other. The film itself has very little dialogue, and the main character says nothing at all. But his actions, and the heartbreaking ending they lead to, say more than words ever could.
Nineteen-year-old Aisha, who lives in Peshawar and watched the film with her younger siblings, said what appealed to the younger children the most was the attention given to the details of desi life.
“There’s very little animated depictions of desi life, and so we paused and cheered at the little details we find in our homes and our daily lives: the flies and crows and desi patterns on the pillows, the small heater tucked away, the sabzi wala (vegetable vendors) stalls etc.”
Sometimes it’s the smallest touches that make a film hit so close to home.
Anmol is a Muslim Pakistani journalist and feminist. Alongside her freelancing, she works on her own magazine Perspective Magazine that aims to explore Pakistan through a feminist lens and aims to empower unheard stories in her writings.