World Ka Centre (Center of the World, 2002) — Directors’ Cut

Coming soon — available on the Khajistan Portal.

World Ka Center is about a group of lower-middle-class friends in Lahore spending their final day together on 9/11, as one prepares to leave for a flight to the United States that night.

Directors and writers: Faisal Rehman, Bilal Hasan Minto
Runtime: 60 minutes
Country: Pakistan
Language: Urdu, with English subtitles
Format: Made-for-TV film
Production company: Turun Talky
Original Broadcaster: Geo Television (late-night slot, single documented airing)
Awards: Special Jury Award, Kara Film Festival 2002; Third Prize, Best TV Film and Director
Distributor: Khajistan Releasing

Synopsis: World Ka Center is a made-for-TV fiction film set over a single day in Lahore on September 11, 2001. The story follows a group of working-class friends who are spending their final hours together before one of them leaves for a flight to the United States that night. As they move through the city, sharing bootlegged drinks, smoking hash, and watching a blue film in a cramped room, their fragile brotherhood unfolds under the quiet pressure of a police-like presence that shadows their movements.

In nearby homes, the film shifts to the interior lives of women. A housewife passes the time moving between television channels and VCD shops in search of Bollywood films, while a young girl remains in her room reading Urdu digests and listening to FM radio. Their routines stand in contrast to the men’s fleeting sense of freedom.

Aired only once on Pakistan’s newly launched Geo Television, World Ka Center lingers on the textures of everyday life in Lahore on a historic day, revealing private desires, small rebellions, and the overlooked rhythms of a city on the edge of global events.

Themes: Urban alienation, Friendship and youth culture, Class struggle and socioeconomic precarity, Masculine intimacy & homosocial bonds, Censorship and moral policing, Escape, desire and disillusionment

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