Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Filmbar's screening of "Nobody Knows" at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) at 5:00 pm on Saturday, October 11, 2025

Filmbar's screening of "Nobody Knows" (2004) at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) at 5:00 pm on Saturday, October 11, 2025. Kindly note change of timing to 5:00 pm.

Four siblings live happily with their mother in a small apartment in Tokyo. The children all have different fathers and have never been to school. The very existence of three of them has been hidden from the landlord. One day, the mother leaves behind a little money and a note, charging her oldest boy to look after the others. And so begins the children's odyssey, a journey nobody knows. Though engulfed by the cruel fate of abandonment, the four children do their best to survive in their own little world, devising and following their own set of rules. When they are forced to engage with the world outside their cocooned universe, the fragile balance that has sustained them collapses. Their innocent longing for their mother, their wary fascination toward the outside world, their anxiety over their increasingly desperate situation, their inarticulate cries, their kindness to each other, their determination to survive on wits and courage. 

The screening will be followed by tea and an informal discussion. Lift is operational.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

Monday, October 6, 2025

The October 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The October 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. S Zulfiqar Gilani: Political Narrative of Pakistan: Problems, Costs, Challenges.
2. Vijay Prashad: It would be fine to help make Mexico a happy place.
3. Ray Nunes: From Marx to Mao – and After – II: Programme of the Cultural Revolution.
4. Thomas I Palley: A History: How the US exploited fractures in the post-Soviet Order – II.
5. Mahmood Mamdani: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism – III: Afghan jihad fed into global Islamic war.
6. Kriti Shah: The Baloch and Pashtun nationalist movements in Pakistan: Colonial legacy and the failure of state policy – IV: Nationalism, religion, political and economic representation.
7. Navid Shahzad: Pakistan Here and Now: The Language of the Heart – III: At the crossroads of poetry and politics.

Rashed Rahman
Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)
Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)


Monday, September 15, 2025

Filmbar and RPC's screening of "I Am Cuba" at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) on Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 6:00 pm

Filmbar and RPC's screening of "I Am Cuba" at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) on Saturday, September 20, 2025 at 6:00 pm.
This study of Cuba – partially written by renowned poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko – captures the island just before it made the transition to a post-revolutionary society. Moving from city to countryside and back again, "I Am Cuba" examines the various problems caused by political oppression as well as by great discrepancies in wealth and power. Beginning in Havana in the pre-Castro era, we see how foreigners contributed to the city's prostitution and poverty; this sequence features dreamy, hallucinogenic camera work that creates a feeling of unease and dislocation. Then, in glorious images of palm trees and fertile land, the film looks at the sugarcane fields in the countryside, and the difficulties faced by peasants working the land. Finally, back in the city again, leftist students battle the police and a corrupt government – and pay a high price for their rebellion.

An informal discussion and tea will follow the screening.

Address: Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

Rashed Rahman
Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)
Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

 

Monday, September 1, 2025

Filmbar and RPC screening of Ingmar Bergman's "Autumn Sonata" (1978) at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC)

Filmbar and RPC's screening of Ingmar Bergman's "Autumn Sonata" (1978) at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) on Saturday, September 7, 2025 at 6:00 pm.

Leonardo, the long time partner of Charlotte, a world renowned concert pianist, has just passed away. Because of Leonardo's passing, Charlotte's daughter, Eva, formerly a journalist, has invited her mother for an extended stay at the country home where she lives with her minister husband Viktor. Despite not having seen Eva in seven years as Charlotte is absorbed solely in her own life, Charlotte agrees. Upon arrival at the parsonage, Charlotte learns that her other daughter, Helena, is now living there with Eva as well. Helena, who is mentally disabled, used to be institutionalized until Eva decided to look after her herself starting two years ago. In some respects, Eva taking care of Helena replaces taking care of her son Erik, who accidentally drowned when he was four. Eva takes solace in believing that Erik is still a major part of her life despite his death. Charlotte also has not seen Helena in quite some time, and Eva surmises that if Charlotte knew that Helena was there, she probably would not have come. Despite telling Eva otherwise, Charlotte in private does mention her displeasure at seeing Helena there. As Eva spends more time with her mother, who she believes is a calculating woman whose actions always have a meaning behind them, her feelings from childhood re-emerge, of which she tells her mother and which she knows have shaped the unhappy person she is today. That unhappiness also has affected the way she views her marriage. Charlotte, in turn, explains the reasons for the way that she is in life.

Address: Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign showroom).

The screening will be followed by an informal discussion and then tea. Lift is functional.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)

The September 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out

The September 2025 issue of Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) is out. Link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com

Contents:

1. Ray Nunes: From Marx to Mao – And After.
2. Thomas I Palley: A History: How the US exploited fractures in the post-Soviet Order.
3. Reading Karl Marx illegal.
4. Mahmood Mamdani: Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism – II: The Cold War after Indochina.
5. Kriti M Shah: The Baloch and Pashtun national movements in Pakistan: Colonial Legacy – III: The Conflagration of Pakistan’s Northwestern border.
6. Navid Shahzad: Pakistan Here and Now: The Language of the Heart – II: Exile, yearning and loss.

7. S Zulfiqar Gilani: Authoritarian-Dark Triad Personality and Politics in Pakistan.

Rashed Rahman

Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)

Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook).

Cells: +92 302 8482737 & +92 333 4216335

Email: rashed.rahman1@gmail.com 

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

Business Recorder Column August 26, 2025

Six accords and a hangover

 

Rashed Rahman

 

Bangladesh and Pakistan have been estranged ‘brothers’ off and on since East Pakistan broke away with Indian support in 1971. Although Pakistan recognised Bangladesh in 1974, paving the way for Bangladesh founder and then Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rehman to participate in the Islamic Summit that year in Lahore, we chose to brush the whole episode of 1971 under the carpet and forget about it. The Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report to look into the whole affair was suppressed. Succeeding generations were not told that Bangladesh was once East Pakistan. This collective, contrived amnesia naturally meant we failed to learn any lessons from that tragic debacle.

It was expected that the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina Wajed would open the floodgates of rapprochement between Islamabad and Dhaka. And so it has proved. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s visit to Bangladesh and meetings with Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus and Foreign Affairs Advisor Mohammad Touhid Hossain have yielded six instruments. These include an agreement to abolish visas for diplomatic and official passport holders, strengthen bilateral ties, boost trade, expand youth-to-youth and cultural exchanges and the revitalisation of regional cooperation through the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Direct shipping and flights between the two countries are on the agenda. SAARC, however, has been largely defunct for many years because of the gulf between Pakistan and India, and the present state of South Asia does not offer much optimism regarding its revival.

According to the Bangladeshi The Daily Star, however, all this bonhomie also carries within its fold differences on the outstanding, unresolved issues, mostly dating from 1971. These revolve around Bangladesh’s long standing demand for a formal apology for the events of 1971, the repatriation of stranded Pakistanis (mostly Biharis) and a return of assets covering its share in undivided Pakistan. Mr Dar, on the other hand, argued that these issues had already been “resolved twice”, in 1974 when Pakistan recognized Bangladesh, and in 2002, when President General Pervez Musharraf visited the country. Mr Dar did not reveal what was ‘settled’ at these two dates, but pleaded instead for brothers to clean their hearts (i.e. forget about it). Bangladesh, however, has not forgotten. How can it, when such an inhuman tragedy was foisted on it, Pakistan has never acknowledged it, nor offered recompense. The Biharis sided with Pakistan in that fratricidal conflict, and were then abandoned to a miserable existence on the periphery of Bangladeshi society, tagged with the label ‘collaborators’. Pakistan’s military was accused of widespread atrocities. Estimates of the resulting deaths vary greatly, from hundreds of thousands to millions. No accurate reckoning is available. Reports of rape and torture too were widespread. The Pakistani authorities, post-1971, did not accept or even acknowledge these claims.

But it seems now, in changed circumstances, that Pakistan, at least, and to some extent Bangladesh, do not want these differences to stand in the way of the new strategic reordering of the triangular Pakistan-India-Bangladesh knot. Dar’s visit comes 13 years after the last Pakistani foreign minister’s visit. In the intervening years, Sheikh Hasina was in power and relations between Dhaka and Islamabad were frosty, to put it mildly. It remains to be seen whether the past narrative can now be rewritten, moving beyond historical grievances towards pragmatic engagement, despite the shadow of 1971 still looming large. Pragmatic engagement will probably revolve centrally around economic interests and trade. Pakistan has expressed an interest in Bangladesh’s textile and leather industries.

While economic engagement and cooperation may be central to the ‘new beginning’ hoped for in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations, it behoves us to expand people-to-people contacts between the current generations of both countries, so that they can light the fire of historical reconciliation, brotherhood and respect, which were so rudely destroyed half a century ago, drowning with them the vision of Pakistan according to its founders in the Bay of Bengal.

 

 

 

 

rashed.rahman1@gmail.com

rashed-rahman.blogspot.com

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

RPC and Filmbar's screening of Michael Haneke’s "The White Ribbon" (2009) at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) on Saturday, August 23, 2025, at 6:00 pm.

RPC and Filmbar's screening of Michael Haneke’s "The White Ribbon" (2009) at the Research and Publication Centre (RPC) on Saturday, August 23, 2025, at 6:00 pm.

"The White Ribbon", directed by Michael Haneke, is set in a small German village just before World War I. Behind the town’s strict order and religious devotion, strange accidents and acts of cruelty begin to surface, revealing a community shaped by repression, harsh authority, and silence. Haneke shows how the rigid discipline and blind obedience forced on children plant the seeds of future violence, hinting at the roots of fascism. Filmed in stark black and white, the movie is less about solving the mystery of the crimes and more about uncovering how hidden tensions and unspoken brutality shape history.

This movie is not only a portrait of a community on the brink of history, but also a meditation on innocence, cruelty, and the unspoken tensions that shape human relationships. Through its stark imagery and unsettling silences, the film examines how fear, secrecy, and moral rigidity can fracture trust and distort childhood itself. At once intimate and universal, it raises questions about memory, guilt, and the weight of the past. 

Join us for the screening, followed by tea and conversation.

Address: Research and Publication Centre (RPC), 2nd Floor, 65 Main Boulevard Gulberg, Lahore (Next to Standard Chartered Bank, above Indesign Showroom).

Lift is functional.

Google Maps Pin:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/9PnxcnwqZNZKCpZq9

In case of a query, Please feel free to contact the number given below.
Name: Harris Khan
Contact: 0300 7445453

Rashed Rahman
Editor, Pakistan Monthly Review (PMR) (link: pakistanmonthlyreview.com)
Director, Research and Publication Centre (RPC) (on Facebook)
Email: rashed.rahman1@gmail.com
Cell: 0302 8482737

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