Babar Ali grew up on the outskirts of Karachi - on the coastal strip - where life was simple and fun. He witnessed his first murder at the age of ten: an old man shot in the face outside a mosque. Before he was out of his teens, he had witnessed four more murders, including that of a cousin. Babar attended a school where children from poor neighborhoods could receive a decent education and exposure to the outside world. Via an exchange program, he traveled to the United States, where he became acquainted with documentary filmmaking and realized he had stories to tell. Returning to Pakistan, he spent his days learning about filmmaking techniques on YouTube and made his first short film with his classmates and family.
JOHN is Babar’s dream project, an opportunity to explore the factors that lead to violence, death and chaos. JOHN is an important story for Pakistan, the subcontinent and the rest of the world. It’s influenced by world cinema but Bollywoodish at heart.