VENICE () - A new film set in Indian Kashmir seeks to go beyond stereotypes of the troubled region as either the idyllic background to Bollywood movies or the subject of news program reports and documentaries into the wildness.
"Zero Bridge", by U.S.-born Tariq Tapa in his directorial debut, is a low-keyed, partly-improvised dramatic event about a rebellious Kashmiri teenager wHO turns to petty law-breaking in Srinagar, the summertime capital of the Indian part of the shared out region.
Dilawar, wHO lives with an illiterate uncle after his mother abandoned him, meets an attractive elder woman Bani, and is faced with a dilemma when he realizes that in thievery her passport he has jeopardized her freedom and future happiness.
The film godhead, whose father is a Kashmiri Muslim, believes that in depicting the day-to-day challenges and frustrations of people living in Srinagar, his film could leaven more political than whatsoever documentary or news bulletin.
"If you could come to care about them by the end of the film then I think that that was in a way a more than political act than (what) a well-meaning documentary could achieve," Tapa told reporters on Saturday in Venice, where "Zero Bridge" screened outside the main film festival competition.
"You are scarce humanizing multitude who for so long have been marginalized to an topic or to an exotic location."
Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full but rule in parts, and deuce of three wars between them were sparked by the contravention. Tens of thousands have also been killed there since armed revolt against New Delhi's rule stone-broke out in 1989.
India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring warring groups based in Pakistan fighting for Muslim-majority Kashmir's independence or merger with Pakistan. Pakistan denies the charge, merely says it provides moral support for groups it sees as "freedom fighters".�
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