Cinema
Umer Marvi
Shaikh Hassan · 1956
Synopsis
Umar, king of Umarkot, seeks a wife and finds none to his liking. Phog praises to him the beauty of Marvi, a girl from a village in the Malir whom he loves himself but who is promised to a boy of her own people, Khet. Umar goes to see her, falls in love with her, asks her father for her hand, is refused and abducts her. Shut up in the palace, Marvi rejects the silks and jewels, faithful to her promise, and pines for her people, the Marus.
Context
The film appeared in 1956, in the time of One Unit, when the merger of the western provinces pushed Sindhi intellectuals to defend their language; Julien Levesque and Camille Bui see in it the construction of a Sindhi identity around a popular heroine. Nighat Sultana played the role of Marvi and Noor Mohammed Charlie that of Phog. The material comes from a legend that the Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai took up in his Risalo; Qazi Abdur Rahim wrote the screenplay.
Who it is for
In Sindhi, in black and white; it helps to know the legend, which the Risalo has made familiar throughout Sindh.
Prizes and reception
The first Sindhi-language feature film shot in Pakistan; according to The Friday Times, the first Sindhi film to run for a golden jubilee.
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