सीर में
माणिक मोती लाल
where did the pearls go?
a film by Ibad and Malika,
from Sindh to Gujarat
سیرَ میںمانک مُوتي لال
seer mein manik moti laal is a cross-border documentary following small-scale fisherfolk families along the coastline shared by Sindh, Pakistan and Gujarat, India, as they navigate season after season living through the absence of their people, those detained on either side of the border
When the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, among its many undrawn lines, was the one at Seer Creek
For generations, fisherfolk on either side of Seer Creek have sought voyages in the Arabian Sea, living and laboring as an extension of their waters
As fish lose life to unchecked industrial waste and are forced into deeper waters, fishermen are left with no choice but to follow them
To fish near the disputed Seer Creek then becomes an inevitable choice between securing a viable catch, or facing the possibility of arrest
Both the Indian and the Pakistani states maintain a punishing military presence near the region, routinely arresting fishermen who find themselves around an undefined border, sometimes on the other side
Of the families we have met in Gujarat and Sindh, we will document the time we spend with some. Between homes, weddings, fishing voyages, fish processing units, storage godowns, union meetings, jetties, and moments of leisure, we want to document the everyday of peoples who continue to negotiate living between their sea and an invisible maritime border
It is no secret that the media that shapes us rests on a bedrock of hate and apathy
It is also no secret that the people of India and Pakistan share a lot more than our states would like for us to remember we do. In the shades of our soil, in the tembers of our tongues, in the waves of our seas, we are interwoven
To make this film, we need more resources
If you are invested, and wish for an Indo-Pak film to come to life, now is the chance to contribute
Our target goal: $8,000
If you have contributed, please leave here your email address so we can stay in touch with you, and share a first cut of the film by June 2027
The money raised will go into hiring a crew, traveling, housing, renting equipment, insurance, securing legal permits, translating and transcribing, compensating fishing unions, and post-production
For local contributors in India and Pakistan, you can also pay using UPI and Easypaisa / Jazzcash / RAAST bank transfer
India
Malika Singh
Pakistan
Ibad Hasan Nayapay
Malika is building a practice in investigative journalism while documenting grassroots resistance movements in North and Central India
Ibad is a filmmaker and researcher from Karachi, Pakistan. He works between fiction and nonfiction, studying bodies of water, displacement and the fragility of borders
