Film Screening: The State-Funded, State-Censored Cinema of Jamil Dehlavi at SculptureCenter, NYC
by Saad Khan
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In the mid-1970s, Pakistan’s newly formed National Film Development Corporation (NAFDEC) championed bold, state-backed cinema, only to see those very films suppressed by shifting political tides. Jamil Dehlavi’s Towers of Silence and The Blood of Hussain embody this contradiction: daring works nurtured by the state that later collided with authoritarian censorship.
Towers of Silence unfolds as a boy’s dreamlike odyssey through Zoroastrian death rituals, where silent towers, circling vultures and muted resistance converge in a haunting meditation on love and faith.
The Blood of Hussain recasts the Karbala martyrdom as a modern uprising, using the image of a lone rider and a horse breaking through the earth as powerful symbols of defiance against tyranny.
Recently restored by the British Film Institute, these films reclaim a lost chapter of Pakistani cinema and reveal how fragile the bond can be between state patronage and creative freedom.
July 13, 2025
1:00 PM — Towers of Silence (1975)
Runtime: 54 min
Country: Pakistan
Language: Urdu and English
Format: Feature film
Credits: Jamil Dehlavi (director, writer), Judy Van Hook, Jalal Khan, Ajaz Ahmed
An avant-garde, semi-autobiographical debut, Towers of Silence weaves a dreamlike meditation on Zoroastrian funerary rites across Karachi and New York. Backed by NAFDEC and made while Dehlavi was studying at Columbia University, it blurs ritual, memory, and identity through sparse Urdu and English dialogue. Premiering at the 1976 Festival of the Americas—where it won Best Experimental Film—it never saw a commercial release in Pakistan, surviving instead by whispered reputation and pirated VHS.
3:00 PM — The Blood of Hussain (1980)
Backed by NAFDEC, The Blood of Hussain transposes the seventh-century Battle of Karbala onto a Pakistani village under Zia ul-Haq’s martial law. It follows two brothers—Selim, a Western-educated banker negotiating military loans for the regime, and Hussain, a mystic farmer whose actions ignite a peasant uprising. Banned before completion for its incisive critique of authoritarianism and patriarchy, The Blood of Hussain recasts the Karbala martyrdom as a modern uprising, using the image of a horse breaking through the earth to seek a new rider as a powerful symbol of defiance against tyranny.
RSVP for Towers of Silence
RSVP for Blood of Hussain
Born of state ambition and silenced by its power, Towers of Silence and The Blood of Hussain return to demand reckoning, standing as testaments to cinema’s enduring capacity to subvert authority.
This screening is part of the exhibition Spasial Program by Khajistan in the lower-level gallery of SculptureCenter from June 19 - July 28, 2025. Each screening has a limited capacity. RSVP is first come, first served.
Address: 44-19 Purves St, Long Island City, NY 11101
