Pakistan emerged on top at the London Asian Film Festival 2012

A night for Pakistan in London.

Pakistani films were big winners at the London Asian Film Festival 2012 held at BAFTA.

Shoaib Mansoor‘s Bol won three awards in the category of the Best Film, Best Female Actor award for Humaima Malick and best New Talent for Amr Kashmiri.

Pakistan music icon Rahat Fateh Ali Khan won the Best Music Talent in Film award for his song ‘Koi Dil Mai’ from Tamanna, the Pakistani film set for release in September. Director Steven Moore, and producer, Sarah Tareen received the award.

Sarah Tareen, Tamanna’s producer from Lahore, described it as great recognition of Pakistani artistic talent. She told The News: “We are delighted that our film has won this recognition. Rahat has won many awards, but it’s the first time that he has won an award for a Pakistani film, which is an important milestone”

Rahat Fateh has already collaborated with Eddie Vedder of the American rock band Pearl Jam and also contributed to the soundtrack of the Hollywood film Dead Man Walking, The Four Feathers and Mel Gibson’s Apocalytpto and is the recipient of the Filmfare Best playback singer 2011 award. He recently completed his UK tour this week performing live on stage in London at the Wembley arena to a huge crowd of more than 12,500 British people, receiving 3 standing ovations at the end of a 4 hour show.

After receiving the award, Humaima Malik, who was accompanied by Amr Kashmiri, told The News, that winning the best actor award was a “fabulous moment” for her, and the fact that the film was nominated in 7 categories. Bol’s line producer Fatima Khan, while accepting the Best Film award, dedicated the award to the youth of Pakistan. She said ‘Pakistani youth were working hard to promote the positive image of Pakistan’.

Festival director Dr Pushpinder Chowdhry in her opening address, said, the organisers wanted to focus on Pakistan film talent this year as it is too often overlooked. She said; “We’re proud to have provided a platform for the amazing talent that comes out of Pakistan and were delighted that Pakistani talent is making its mark in a big way. Other than Bol and Tamanna, our Short Film Competition winner was Sami Khan, a British Pakistani. So we’re very happy to have a good representation of Pakistani talent in this year’s London Asian Film Festival.”