Thursday January 23, 2025 – 5pm, Foster 103
Mehak F. Khan, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Notre Dame
This talk explores new developments in contemporary Pakistani film, including the Cannes favorite
Joyland (2022, dir. Saim Sadiq), and Cake (2018, dir. Asim Abbasi), two distinct takes on difficult-to-name
desires across gendered, sexed, classed and casteized social boundaries. It considers why unnameable
desires are so germane to contemporary Pakistani film, and how the everyday is rendered strange in
these global auteurs’ aesthetic and political projects.