{"id":654683,"date":"2026-10-14T17:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/654683\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T17:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:26:11","slug":"hazara-town-acquired-by-filmotor-ahead-of-idfa-world-premiere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/654683\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Hazara Town’ Acquired by Filmotor Ahead of IDFA World Premiere"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWorld sales outfit Filmotor has acquired the global sales rights to \u201cHazara Town,\u201d the debut feature documentary by Khadim Dai. The film will have its world premiere in the International Competition at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, known as IDFA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tFilmed over six years, \u201cHazara Town\u201d is a \u201cchronicle of survival, exile and the bond of family,\u201d Filmotor said. Forced from Central Afghanistan by the Taliban in 1998, Dai\u2019s family sought refuge in a walled enclave in Quetta, Pakistan, where the Hazara community continues to face targeted violence. Following a 2013 school bombing that killed 126 people\u2014including Dai\u2019s classmates\u2014his family urged him to flee.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter four failed attempts to reach Australia by boat and years spent stranded in Indonesia, Dai returned to Quetta in 2019 to film his community before their stories faded.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe documentary captures the family\u2019s daily life alongside their gradual, painful dispersal across the globe: his parents relocating to Canada, Dai and his niece taking refuge in the United States, and remaining relatives settling in Australia.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRestrictions on filming kept my camera largely within the home, school and cemetery. I wanted to bear witness to the slow disappearance of my community,\u201d Dai said. \u201cYears from now, someone might find this film and come to know them. I cannot bring my classmates back or restore the years of family separation, but I can pass on something of their lives through cinema. That possibility kept me filming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe producing team said in a statement, \u201cIt is Khadim\u2019s first feature film, but also the first film of its kind made in Quetta, a city in Pakistan far removed from the world\u2019s gaze. We believe the film offers a rare opportunity to encounter the lives, experiences and perspectives of the Hazara people, who remain largely absent from cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHaving tracked \u2018Hazara Town\u2019 since its pitch at Sunny Side of the Doc in 2023, we knew immediately that this was a story the world needed to see,\u201d said Petar Mitric from Filmotor. \u201cKhadim Dai\u2019s deeply personal lens captures raw, human emotion in a way that is both heartbreaking and essential.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHazara Town\u201d is produced by Ilyas Yourish for Congoo (Belgium), and co-produced by Khadim Dai, Graeme Isaac for Mayfan Films (Australia), and Anke Petersen and Lilian Tietjen for Jyoti Film (Germany).<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film will compete for the IDFA Best Film and IDFA Best First Film Award.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe project was developed with support from the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (with Open Society Foundations), the IDFA Bertha Fund Classic, Asian Cinema Fund, DMZ Industry (Special Jury Award), Docs Up Fund, Close Up Initiative, InMaat Foundation, Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), MOIN Filmf\u00f6rderung Hamburg and Documentary Australia, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"World sales outfit Filmotor has acquired the global sales rights to \u201cHazara Town,\u201d the debut feature documentary by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2472,93,77041,61,60,270],"class_list":["post-654683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-documentaries-to-watch","tag-entertainment","tag-idfa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}