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Release date: 19 November 2021
Running time: 131 minutes
The IED College is known for many things including its engineering and brilliant students but if there is anything it is not known for, that would be its drama society. Everyone enrolled in the drama society is either here for bunking classes or for their newly developed love interests. Only a few actually have the heart for arts. The college receives an invitation for a theatre competition taking place in Bangladesh. For the sake of formality, they announce the deal to the students but as they guessed, not many are interested until they are told about the fact that whoever participates and goes to Bangladesh for the competition will be excused from the midterm examination and suddenly everyone wants to go. The drama society starts working on the idea for the play when one of them suggests the 1971 war and that’s where the problem begins. A theatre play, from Pakistan to be performed in Bangladesh about the 1971 war. That too in the presence of team from India? No one agrees. The principal opposes the idea, so do the teachers. Even their parents do not want them to do something so risky. The students are forced to drop the idea but when their Bengali guard starts crying while sharing his experience of the war (while researching for the idea), the students decide not to give up yet. Not all students in this theatre groups are driven by patriotism. Some of them have personal reasons too. However, the students start rehearsing and auditioning. One day while acting out a monologue, the sweeper sitting in the last row started criticizing the performance and jokingly showed how it's done. The students bring him on board. The time for the competition closes in. The parents are worried. The teachers aren’t sure either but it is the first time that their college will get to represent the nation, that too in the field of arts. So, no one opposes their participation. The team reaches Bangladesh and soon realizes they aren’t welcomed there. They start feeling the discrimination between them and team India. The Indians are treated as friends. They get along very well with the host team. The team from India is also the defending champion. Their pride about their rich art culture is quite visible. Team Pakistan starts feeling like the underdogs. They start lacking confidence and hence start falling apart. They get in arguments about how they shouldn’t be here. They get in fight with the Indian team and hence further lose respect in the eyes of the Bengalis. The team, on the verge of going back, finds a ray of hope when they call back home to tell how everyone was right about them not going but instead receive love and confidence from the principal, the teachers, their parents and that Bengali guard. He tells them how proud he is for what they are doing and it’s not just a competition but a responsibility on their shoulders. The team gathers courage and gets back together for the sake of performance. For the sake of everyone back home and for the sake of the art. Will they win? Will they lose? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that they come back home with respect and love of the people who didn’t even want to welcome them in the first place. They change perceptions, they win hearts!!!
Original title: Khel Khel Mein
Cast: Javed Sheikh, Ali Zafar, Sajal Ali, Bilal Abbas Khan, Sheheryar Munawar
Director: Nabeel Qureshi
Production: 2021
Age restrictions: 12A
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