Berlin-based Iranian filmmaker Schokofeh Kamiz was pregnant when she set out to make a documentary about slain Pakistani peace activist and social entrepreneur Sabeen Mahmud, who was shot and killed in Karachi in April 2015.
Kamiz travelled several times to Karachi to interview Sabeen’s friends, colleagues and mother Mahenaz over the course of the next few years. The result is a deeply moving 60-minute documentary After Sabeen, which has been showcased in film festivals around the world and won international acclaim.
The 2018 film and its filmmaker took centrestage at SAPAN Film Club, organised by South Asia Peace Action Network (SAPAN) last month.
Hosted by eShe founder Aekta Kapoor, the discussion followed an online screening of the film by Vikalp@Prithvi, a collaboration between Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai and Vikalp: Films for Freedom, an initiative founded by acclaimed Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan.
Edited excerpts of the interview with Schokofeh Kamiz during the SAPAN Film Club discussion
Born in Tehran, Kamiz’s work moves fluidly between image and story, drawing on her decades of work in journalism, photography and film. Her practice is often biographical in nature. She explores the space between sociopolitical narratives and personal realms, primarily through quiet observation.
Kamiz was inspired to travel to Pakistan from Germany in the wake of the Sabeen’s death. “She was so important to so many people. Everyone I spoke to had something to say about Sabeen,” she says.
Born in 1974, Sabeen Mahmud was a progressive social worker and a well-known pro-democracy campaigner. She often co-led protests to end sectarianism and religious intolerance in Pakistan.
Sabeen Mahmud
In 2007, Sabeen founded the café The Second Floor (popularly called T2F) in Karachi. The café served as a community space for open dialogue, exhibitions and discussions. T2F frequently hosted liberal social activities and political debates, such as the one held on 24 April 2015 – a discussion on the Balochistan conflict featuring prominent Balochi activists.
Sabeen was shot and killed while driving home from the event. She was 40 years old. Her mother, Mahenaz, who was in the passenger seat, was also critically wounded, but survived to bury her daughter and take forward Sabeen’s message of peace and dialogue.
In Berlin, Kamiz heard about Sabeen’s death from her grieving friends. Intrigued and inspired to know more about this powerhouse of a woman who had touched so many people’s lives, she reached out to Mahenaz a few months later, requesting permission for the documentary.
Schokofeh Kamiz
“I didn’t tell her I was three months pregnant,” Kamiz shares. “I didn’t want her to make her decision based on that. I told her, ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do – I don’t have any money, I don’t have any agenda, I don’t have any concept. But I really want to make this film’.”
That was not Kamiz’s first time in Pakistan. She had visited the country earlier while working with a theatre group on the idea of ‘one-size-fits-all’ democracy.
“Europeans think that democracy is like a jacket, and you can make it for every other country. You just go there and give them the jacket and they have to fit themselves in it. I wanted to do something against that. Democracy is not really perfect, and every country has its complexities,” she says, adding that all countries and political experiences cannot be forced in one direction guided by what is mostly a Western vision. “It will not work.”
A still from the film After Sabeen, depicting Sabeen Mahmud’s face painted along with pro-peace graffiti on a wall
Kamiz is also cynical about journalism in first-world countries. “I don’t do journalistic work anymore in Germany. It’s funny that when you come from suppressed countries to countries like Germany, you have to censor yourself. That’s why journalism is not a profession for me at all in Europe and in countries dominated by white supremacy,” she states.
Kamiz directed, produced, shot and funded the documentary After Sabeen single-handedly, working on it alongside her day job and while raising a young son. The emotional weight of the subject matter, combined with her own life changes, created a unique dynamic during production: “I had to balance being emotional (as a new mother) while staying professional.”
Explaining why she continued to make frequent trips to Karachi despite the challenges, she explains: “The Pakistan issue is very complex. We cannot just capture it in one go and assume we understand everything. I didn’t want to go to Pakistan as an Iranian, born in Iran, living in Germany, making a film about the politics in Pakistan. My point was that, as an Iranian, Balochistan is a common issue, a common cause. So, I saw it as my duty to go. And also because I really wanted to know who Sabeen was.”
Mahenaz Mahmud in a still from the film After Sabeen
Sabeen’s impact came not from grand gestures but from consistent, meaningful actions, says Kamiz. “I thought this is the life I want to live – not necessarily doing ‘big stuff’ but making small meaningful changes in people’s lives.”
Indeed, the documentary captures how Sabeen touched many lives through small but consistent, genuine actions, painting a picture of an activist whose influence extended far beyond formal human-rights work. It also reveals the depth of Mahenaz’s love – as a mother who had to face unimaginable grief and still stand strong.
Kamiz hopes to continue exploring what has happened ‘after Sabeen’. Her documentary stands as both a tribute to a fallen activist and a window into the challenges faced by human rights workers in Pakistan, told through the lens of a filmmaker who was willing to take personal and professional risks to ensure the story would not be forgotten.
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