Pakistani cinema continues to shine on global stages as filmmaker Shehrezad Maher’s short film The Curfew was showcased at the prestigious Venice Biennale on 4 September 2025. The 19-minute film is the only Pakistani selection at the festival this year, marking another milestone for the country’s film industry.
The cast features Sathya Sridharan, Balinder Johal, Sara Haider, Rajesh Bose, Chris Thorn, and Salwa Khan, with production led by Lindsay Blair Goeldner and Meetra Javed. Dustin Lane handled cinematography, while Ana Novacic designed production. The film is distributed by Fae Pictures and Baby Daal Productions.
The Curfew tells the story of Ayaan, a Pakistani American, who takes care of his ailing grandmother. As they navigate the silence created by a language barrier, they attempt to learn each other’s languages. The film delves into themes of family bonds, communication, and how the colonial past continues to shape the present.
Maher, a New York-based filmmaker, previously won the Islamic Scholarship Fund’s National Film Grant (2023) for this project. Her works have screened at renowned platforms including Visions du Réel, RIDM, LA Film Forum, Anthology Film Archives, UnionDocs, and Experiments in Cinema.
Her feature script Theory of Colors was among the three projects selected for the 2023 Hamptons Film Screenwriters Lab and received both the Melissa Mathison Screenwriters Fund and Cinestory Feature Retreat’s Hagan Hicks Underrepresented Women’s Voices Scholarship.
Notably, The Curfew stands as the sole Pakistani film at the Venice Film Festival 2025, following the legacy of Saim Sadiq’s Darling, which won Best Short Film in 2019.