'Filmistaan'- Heart Warming Hug across the Border

FILM: "Filmistaan"; Cast: Sharib Hashmi, Innamulhaq; Writer-Director: Nitin Kakkar; Rating: ****

Hold this film tight. There is an utterly moving sequence towards the end of this lovely parable on cross-border amity where Sunny(Sharib Hashmi), who has strayed into Pakistan, confesses to Aftaab(Innamulhaq) that he is obsessed with Bollywood and wants to be a hero, though he knows he doesn't have it in him.

"Mera asli hero toh tu hi hai," Aftaab tells Sunny sincerely.

For me, that moment sums up the mood of this big-little film. Made at a shoestring budget by fringe talent, the film shows us that true heroes can be found in most unexpected places.

Try this hamlet in the back of the beyond in Pakistan where our Bollywood struggler is locked up by militants who actually wanted to kidnap Americans for ...errrm...negotiations.

And look what they dragged in!

"Filmistaan" would have been an outrageously funny film were it not for the profoundly moving underbelly that it secretes with such fluency and spontaneity. The film could have become a gallery of cliches about Indo-Pak harmony. A sort of Veer-Zara turned into a Veru and Zara-uddin who become friends in Pakistani soil while guns boom all around them.