Locating the Storyteller in Silent Waters: Sabiha Sumar’s Cinematic Tale of Shared Histories and Divided Identities

Authors

  • Rahat Imran University College Cork (UCC)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2021.426

Keywords:

Pakistan, Women Filmmakers, Partition, Islam, Auto/Biography, Historiography, Violence, Honour, Identity

Abstract

In her multi award-winning feature film Silent Waters (2003), Pakistani woman filmmaker Sabiha Sumar connects the socio-political traumas of the Partition of India and creation of Pakistan (1947) with the onset of military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization period (1977-1988) in Pakistan. Presenting a story based on real-life events, the film focuses on the impact of religious fundamentalism and nationalism on women in particular. Examining Silent Waters as an example of “history on film/film on history” (Rosenstone 2013), and film as an “agent, product, and source of history”  (Ferro 1983), the discussion identifies and analyzes the filmmaker’s  own tacitly embedded location and participation in the filmic narrative as an experiential  ‘auto/bio-historiographer’, arguing for the value of this new paradigm in Cinema Studies.

Author Biography

Rahat Imran, University College Cork (UCC)

European Commission Horizons 2020. Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) Postdoctoral Individual Research Fellow. 

Department of Film and Screen Media, School of Film, Music and Theatre, University College Cork,Cork,  Ireland.

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Published

2021-12-14

How to Cite

Imran, R. (2021). Locating the Storyteller in Silent Waters: Sabiha Sumar’s Cinematic Tale of Shared Histories and Divided Identities. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 9(2), 231–285. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2021.426

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 2 (2021): Fall 2021

Section

Articles

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