“Fifth Avenue” is a Cinematic Poem Short Film Featuring Exiled Pakistani Poet Hasan Mujtaba Directed By Sofian Khan.
Directed by: Sofian Khan
Original Musical Score by: Joshua Green
Cinematography by: Bob Blankemeier
Produced by: Capital K Pictures
Additional Film Footage by: Madiha Aijaz
Sound and Mix by: Evan Manners
Trumpet Player: John Lake
“The poem “Fifth Avenue” is part of Hasan’s recently published collection of Urdu and Punjabi poetry. Koel Shehr Ki Katha, released this year by Saanjh Publications Lahore, Pakistan.
The poem recounts one summer day when, sitting on 5th avenue in Manhattan, Hasan witnessed a parade of Hare Krishna devotees making their way down the avenue. Amongst them, he saw a man who looked like Allen Ginsberg — one of Hasan’s favorite American poets. Though it was not him, the sight of this lookalike gave Hasan an important thought. If this American poet once journeyed to India in search of inspiration, why could Hasan, a Pakistani, not come to America and likewise find some spark of beauty to write from. Hence began his journey to create this singular collection of poetry that fuses his new home with images of that which he left behind.”
Excerpts from “Koel Shehr Ki Katha/Tale Of A Cuckoo’s City” by Hasan Mujtaba
(English translation by Manan Ahmed)
Amid the crowd of Hare Krishnas,
an old man who looked like Allen Ginsberg
Amid the riot of saffron color
the cymbals, the drums
whites, blacks, and rainbow colors
in June’s silvery light
silent, alone,
unique
as if he was the exclamation point of this whole philosophy
In the walking crowds of Fifth Avenue
I, a lost child
He, an old man who looked like Allen Ginsberg
Holding his thought’s fingers,
I walked far away
far to the lanes of Sehwan
“in public, I dance”
It seems a vision from a dream.
I take Fifth Avenue
I take the lane of Sehwan
Written on the shores of Indus, I take all of Rig Veda
I take Qur’an
I reject Chagai
I refute Pokhran
I deny the whole of Aurangzeb’s creations.
Home.
when I sing
songs of my exile
I return to my self
But they speak back to me
in the language of bullets
they do not read
what is written on the walls
“A donkey pisses on the General’s Uniform”
Those blood soaked lanes of Delhi
that naked Sarmad
Now your Gaze
Soils the purity of the Holiest, the Righteous
That woman inside me
These vines of grapes
That moon over Hudson
This silvery dusk over Indus
descends like revelation on a Prophet.
Article on the film: http://thewire.in/2015/09/14/video-seeing-the-universe-in-the-sands-of-fifth-avenue-10672/
Website: http://www.capitalkpictures.com/
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