CWC Global: “In Flames”

In Flames (2023) follows Mariam (Ramesha Nawal) and her mother Fariha (Bakhtawar Mazhar) whose fragile lives in Karachi are thrown into turmoil after the death of the family patriarch. When a manipulative relative exploits Pakistan’s laws around property rights for women, the family faces losing their home. Mariam, distraught at her mother’s neglect, finds herself entangled in a secret romance with a fellow classmate, which spirals into a waking nightmare that bleeds into her reality. As mother and daughter confront coercive social forces and haunting phantasmal threats, they must find strength in one another to survive. Drawing on lived experience, director Zarrar Kahn’s In Flames confronts the consequences of living in the confines of a fiercely patriarchal society as the film illuminates the psychological impact of gendered oppression and the difficulties of being young and in love in Pakistan. A landmark of contemporary Pakistani cinema, In Flames premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight—marking Pakistan’s return to the competition after forty-seven years—and was Pakistan’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards.

Filmmaker Zarrar Kahn will join moderator Muhammad Muzammal (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) for a post-screening discussion of In Flames.

Zarrar Kahn is an award-winning Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker whose works have been screened and awarded in over a hundred film festivals, including TIFF, Locarno, and BFI London. In Flames, his feature directorial debut, premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival as part of the Directors’ Fortnight and has garnered critical acclaim and prizes worldwide, including the Golden Yusr for Best Picture at the Red Sea Film Festival and the Grand Prize – International Newcomer Award at Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival. Born in Karachi, and currently based out of Toronto, Kahn is committed to telling stories that amplify the voices of historically-marginalized communities.

Muhammad Muzammal is a PhD candidate in Film and Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara. He specializes in cultural authorship, national cinemas, and South Asian film history. His dissertation project examines the auteur status of Pakistani filmmakers, discussing how auteurism can serve as a valuable model for studying the entanglement of national culture and power dynamics between viewers, filmmakers, and the nation’s political history. In February 2025, Muzammal taught UC Santa Barbara’s inaugural course on Pakistani cinema, inviting and engaging in discussion with filmmakers such as Jamil Dehlavi and Zarrar Kahn. Muzammal is also a film critic and regular contributor to film magazines such as Indiewire, Reverse Shot, and MUBI Notebook.