Majid Kabiri and Khurum Khan both from Slough and Mobashar Hassan from Watford, Hertfordshire alongside there colleague Bilal Anwar from West London created Karakoori Productions with a vision to show video content that has creativity, style and importance.
“We launched Karakoori Productions alongside our other colleague Bilal Anwar, we were all determined to make video content that shall not just showcase our talents but also cover different aspects of video production. Following many short films we were fortunate to make a documentary in Syria and Iraq called “The Struggle of a British Muslim,” says Khurum Khan from King Edward Street, Slough.
Going into detail about “The Struggle of a British Muslim” Mobashar Hassan added: “The aim behind The Struggle of a British Muslim was to raise awareness that not all Muslims are extremists and that all religions are amazing but extremism is not part of any religion. As filmmakers we wanted to explore the other side of the news, I felt that Islam as a religion was given a bad name due to the actions of some individuals or there dictatorships. The Islam that was taught to me by my parents, the one I was brought up in was not being shown and this sadly gave all Muslims a bad name. The Aim was to reach out to the people of Iraq and ask how they feel about the war and what their beliefs are on the likes of Sadam and Bin Laden. This gave us first hand insight into what Muslims from the Middle East and more so the people of Iraq feel. It also made me realise as a person that stereotyping is wrong. The documentary premiered in New York and also was shown at Rutgers University, New Jersey.”
Majid Kabiri also from Slough said: “Apart from this we have produced theatre productions and we have worked on numerous music videos for British artists and also in the Asian/Bhangra market we have created many music videos and they can be seen on our youtube channel: Karakoori.”
Road to Indus Valley is the latest documentary from Karakoori Productions below we shall speak more about the documentary and the struggles faced on this remarkable journey.
What made you travel to the Indus Valley and how did this come about? And what about safety?
Mobashar Hassan: I was approached by the organisers of the charity Mercy Worldwide who formed the Aid Team for a special project. The Mercy Worldwide team spoke to me about their mission to distribute Aid to the Indus Valley flood victims by road from England to Pakistan and also leave the ambulances for local hospitals in the region in order to facilitate hospitals, I must say I was really touched, it was heart-warming. I spoke to the convoy leader Amer Nazir and his passion played a major factor to my decision of filming this. At the end for me it was the excitement the adventure of filming a road trip to the Indus Valley in an ambulance and then in the name of charity really pushed me on. Thus, the next part or should I say the hard part was speaking to the team about this project.
Majid Kabiri: I remember when Mobashar came to see us with the idea, at the time I felt that his passion got in the way and he has not looked at the bigger picture, like safety, are we allowed to openly film in these countries, the foundations of the documentary, how many of us can travel and more so how we shall film this? I had many questions for him and in my mind the danger aspect kept playing too as Mobashar mentioned we shall be travelling through Iran, which at the moment is being covered in the news constantly.
Khurum Khan: I also had concerns when Mobashar first proposed the idea, concerns very similar to those of Majid, however at the same time I could see this passion