Process

Every child needs their creative freedom; to commit themselves completely to the effort, and make whatever activity they are doing their own. But what’s more important in any creative act is the process of self-expression. With a similar aim, The Little Art conducted a five-day Filmmaking Workshop at APS and Azam Garrison from 13th February to 19th February, 2019. A total of 34 girls and 3 teachers from Azam Garrison and Garrison Academy for Girls attended the workshop. The workshop was conducted by Nida Esapzai, and Ammar Aziz.

The theme of the workshop was ‘overcoming gender-based roles and breaking through social expectations.’ The main issues to explore were ‘expressing emotions, communicating desires, aspirations, opinions and disagreements.’ The girls thoroughly explored the societal bubble that encircled them and how to break free of its pressures. They further learnt the importance of expressing what’s inside of them and how they can achieve everything they set their mind to.

There are no limitations when it comes to expressing inner creativity. While some may have the opportunity to express it through the way they dress, the drawings they make or even through writing; others may not have that same opportunity. Every child should have the freedom to express what is in them, through any medium. The filmmaking workshop at Umul Madaris acted as a catalyst to the children’s dreams and desires. Their interest in making films and expressing themselves through the lens came out as a realization of how important it is to have arts education in schools.

This particular workshop had a very diverse number of participants. Five of the boys who joined were in the process of becoming Hafiz, while there was also the usual discrimination present between boys and girls. They were not allowed to interact openly and maintained a safe distance.

Stimulating children’s creativity is very important for their development, and films play one of the major roles in doing that. The students at The Trust School, Thokar Niaz Baig Campus were a little shy at first, majorly because they were not used to indulge in activities that included both boys and girls in the same room. On the second day, trainer, Sehyr Mirza conducted gender exercises, after which not only did the children become highly interactive, but also expressed some great ideas for their short films.

One of the exercises was ‘Role Reversal’ in which the students were provided a situation and had to act on it, but as opposite genders. The first situation presented to them was of two girls or boys walking down the road and a stray dog shows up. The boys (acting as girls) presented a scared image of the girls upon making contact with the dog; they screamed and ran away.

Filmmaking workshop at Dar-e-Arqam was held from 11th March to 15th March, 2019 with a total of 24 students. The workshop was led by Fazal Ahmed and Abdul Basit.

The space and atmosphere of the school was a real challenge for the trainers and also the students, who had no such exposure before. However, a positive and active response of students throughout the workshop kept the essence of it alive.

Abdul Basit started the workshop with basic terminologies and concepts of filmmaking. The trainers continued with self-portrait activity and also explained the basic techniques of operating a camera. The other days were followed by reference images, videos and storytelling. The students were also given the task of capturing different shots within the school vicinity which they did very well. Many girls shared their ideas and there was a girl who said she wanted to become an actor but the society doesn’t appreciate it.

Held from 18th to 22nd March, 2019 with a total of 30 students, the filmmaking workshop conducted at The Trust School Wapda town (Girls Campus), and joined by students from The Trust School Green town branch (Boys campus), was an interesting experience. It was led by filmmaker and trainer Fazal Ahmad and Abdul Basit.

The trainers started the workshop with a short discussion related to origin of cameras and how videos were made in the past. In reference to this, the trainers showed them the famous Edward Muybridge’s horse video and explained how movies and videos are made. A portrait activity was also conducted where the students made their self-portraits, representing their personalities and thoughts on paper. Later, the trainers explained the use of cameras and how they are operated and asked the students to capture different emotions from the school surroundings.

The second day was followed by some camera use and basic shots of movies where they were told how different shots are taken and what makes them different from each other.

Located at the heart of Warispura, St. Catherine’s Girls High School welcomed us with open arms as the gates opened to lead us to a spacious ground towards the building. As the team moved towards the hall, we were eyed by exciting faces waiting to know the reason of our presence. A total of 23 students and 5 novices took part in the workshop, completely moving us with their stories.

Where it took us two days to break the ice, this particular workshop ended up being the most inspiring of all. By the third day, we found girls who were learning to ride a motorbike, so they could help/support their father in running errands.

When asked the difference between their regular classes and the filmmaking workshop, one of the students replied that here they ‘learnt,’ but in the classroom they only ‘study.’ It was truly encouraging to watch the young boys from The Trust School, Amir Town Boys Campus grasping everything that was being shared with them at the workshop. Their self-expression and desire to go beyond their systematic surrounding left us all astounded from Day 1. Not only were they vocal about their opinions, they were the only school out of all the rest, who asked innumerable questions regarding films. Their naughtiness, enthusiasm and the desire to learn blended into a rich protein shake that not only strengthened their confidence but also inspired us to interact with them on a different level.

Filmmaking workshop at The Trust School, Amir Town Girls Campus was led by Ammar Aziz and Sehyr Mirza. Despite being an all-girls campus, there still was division of tasks understood to be done by either just boys or just girls. Gender exercises helped the girls in coming up with topics for their films and the strong messages they wanted to send through them.

One of the major stories that were common between the girls was about the extracurricular activities held in school; the issue being that sports is considered to be the boys department and the girls were not given a chance to pursue sports activities as seriously as they were carried out at the boy’s campus.

Dreamland School, situated in the outskirts of Lahore, was not only a challenge in terms of travel, and space, but we had also assumed that given the area, it would be difficult for us to teach the children certain concepts of filmmaking.

The students too were shy and didn’t talk much at first; however, the self-portrait exercise revealed a lot of different sides that caught our attention. Some of the boys expressed that they liked to cook and that they wanted to choose a different field other than engineering, and medical. The girls too shared their desire to do things that they are not normally allowed to do, for example, riding a bike, roaming around till late with their friends and doing things considered to be ‘boyish.’ The story writing exercise highlighted one of the stories in which the boy wanted to play with toys considered to be for girls, but his parents and people around him taunted him for that.

Diversity in terms of students was greatly seen in this particular filmmaking workshop which was led by Ammar Aziz and Sehyr Mirza. The self-portrait exercise in this workshop was quite interesting to analyze. One of the students shared how he felt ’emptiness’ inside him despite having a great family around him. Another girl expressed that she was a mango tree with strong roots among the apple trees with weak roots. All the students very enthusiastically participated and came up with heartfelt stories that they wanted to turn into films. One of the boys of grade 7 wanted to become a make-up artist, but could not even think of pursuing it because his parents did not approve of it. Another highlighted the school security lady who already was an inspiring figure for all the girls and boys at school, and they wanted to highlight her now that they had a chance.

Female fierceness should never be underestimated; whether it’s talking about issues they strongly feel about or trying their best to advocate it in front of everyone. This was exactly the kind of atmosphere during the filmmaking workshop at Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore. A highly enthusiastic bunch of girls were very keen to share how they felt about topics including body shaming, sexual repression of women, sexism in language, child sexual abuse, mental health, different treatment boys and girls, to name a few.

The Filmmaking Workshop in UMT proved to be a fresh, learning break for students who normally study the theoretical forms of filmmaking. The students, both boys and girls, belonged to different departments and were keen to learn the concepts of filmmaking. Gender exercises went extremely well, with students showing some very great acting skills.

A total of 24 students were divided into groups of three to create a skit based on breaking gender stereotypes in just 30 minutes and they came up with very thought provoking ideas that also ended up introducing everyone to some students with immense and unique talent who otherwise don’t share it.

Conducting filmmaking workshop at university level was a totally different experience, yet very similar in some areas. The students of Government College, Faisalabad, both boys and girls, were very hesitant in sharing their stories and experiences, but as our trainer, Ammar Aziz, shared some of his own, the atmosphere went from hesitant to comfortable in just a few moments. One of the boys proudly shared a story of a girl in his university, who despite being visually impaired does everything on her own.

She continues to study no matter the hardships she faces; he went on to reveal that she was his sister. Another one of the boys shared that he loved dancing and wanted to pursue it professionally.

Teachers change lives. There is no doubt about the kind of influence that teachers have on their students. A strong, experienced person can enrich a student’s lives on numerable levels. A teacher becomes the most trusted source of guidance and advice for the students, which puts a major responsibility on them of having that kind of knowledge and experience to cater to the student’s needs. The ‘Teachers Training Workshop’ as a part of Equally Loud Project had the same objective to achieve; to have a discussion about the rights of children, to share the reasons and solutions behind gender experiences of children, to showcase films made by the children during filmmaking workshops, and how those films can have a wider impact on the society. A total of 20 teachers from 10 schools, 2 each from 7 schools of Lahore and 3 from Faisalabad, took part in the workshop. The teachers present were also a part of the 5-day workshop previously held in those 10 schools. The workshop was held at Faletti’s Hotel from 9am to 4pm. It was led by Shoaib Iqbal, founder and director of The Little Art.