Emmy award-winning Indian producer Apoorva Bakshi (Delhi Crime) has joined the team behind The Glassworker, Pakistan’s first animated feature, as an executive producer. Deadline reports that Bakshi is the latest addition to the team working on the pioneering 2D, hand-drawn feature directed by Pakistan’s Usman Riaz and produced by his Karachi-based Mano Animation Studios.
Spanish animation producer Manuel Cristobal, who is best known for acclaimed features such as Wrinkles and Bunuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles, is also among the film’s producers. Paris-based sales outfit Charades is handling global rights.
The film, which is in post-production and is eyeing an August delivery, was one of Annecy’s works-in-progress titles last year. Set in a location loosely inspired by Pakistan, the film revolves young Vincent and his father, Tomas, who owns the country’s finest glassworks. Their lives are turned upside down by a war they do not support. Their relationship is tested even further as Vincent falls in love with Alliz, the violinist daughter of a newly arrived army colonel.
Mano Animation Studios was founded not long ago by Usman Riaz, Khizer Riaz and Mariam Paracha. The studio’s team of artists working on The Glassworker is notably young (average age 27) and gender-balanced (52% women). Initial footage from The Glassworker debuted in 2018 (funded by Kickstarter), and its artistic ambition has attracted a network of collaborators connecting the Pakistan studio to the U.S., U.K., Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Argentina and Peru. The visuals for the movie are inspired by the films of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, of whom Riaz is a huge fan.
Khizer Riaz and U.K. writer Moya O’Sheah (Doctors, The Floogals, Little Princess) collaborated on the film’s script.
“The Glassworker is a truly remarkable project spearheaded by the gifted trio — Usman, Mariam and Khizer, alongside a team of young artists in Pakistan who are igniting a creative revolution in South Asia through their exceptional work,” Bakshi told Deadline. “We are collaborating on a slate of projects which marks my first venture with Pakistani creators in the realm of animation, aiming to cultivate story engineering excellence in a format that has been long underserved in the region and is truly deserving of recognition.”
Source: Deadline.com
