>> Maxine: Britain's largest public film festival, the London film festival is in full swing this
weekend. Three hundred films will be shown over a fortnight, at cinemas around
the capital and unlike Cannes or Berlin, anyone can go to see them.
Our correspondent Nick Higham is at the national film theatre in London
South bank and joins me now
Nick
>> Nick Higham: Yes, Indeed Maxine, the National film theatre or BFI South bank as its called
now and I've come into the smallest of the four cinemas here…very small, just
thirty eight seats, it's one of the cinemas that is being used for screenings in the
festival, now..film festivals of course, are an opportunity to see some of the new
commercial films before they are released, its an opportunity to catch up on the
best in world cinema, and British cinema and I'm joined now by a British film
maker, Shamim Sarif whose also I think a maker I think we could say of World
Cinema films, The World Unseen your new film showing in the festival,
Just tell us what its about briefly
>> Shamim Sarif: It's set in South Africa, in the nineteen fifties…and follows the lives of two very
very different Indian women at that time and they form a very unexpected
friendship and then attraction…but at its core I think is about integrity, its about
finding your voice..and in that way I think the themes are quiet universal
>> Nick Higham: okay we've got a short clip of it, this is the one of your two women Miriam in
discussion with her Husband Omar
>> Omar: If I don't like it, that should be enough
>> Miriam: Its not enough,
It never has been
I just didn't know what to tell you until now
NO!
You have to find a better way of speaking to me
>> Nick Higham: Now what interesting about this Shamim is that you've adapted it yourself
from your own novel, you've written a screenplay and you are directing it...
that’s very unusual
>> Shamim Sarif: It is… I did the on-set catering as well (laughs)
….it's a …it was quite a journey and I think that the transition from novel to
screenplay was in a way the most challenging, because that’s where you have
to decide what..what you keep in to recreate visually, what you've created
mentally in the minds of these characters
>> Nick Higham: But it’s a brave producer who is prepared to take the risk of a untried director
directing her own screenplay
>> Shamim Sarif: It is, I was very lucky with my producers, and our executive producer
Katherine Priestley, Lisa Tchenguiz-Imerman, they were both passionate about
the novel and about the screenplay and the story and they were very…
kind and trusting to feel that I was the person that can maybe bring that
vision and the themes that were so important to them in the book through to the
screen
>> Nick Higham: Okay, Shamim Sarif, both film maker and novelist and story teller, Thank you
very much indeed and from the smallest cinema of the South bank, back to you in the studio
in the studio
>> Presenter: Nick thank you very much indeed. Lets catch up with the weather, Dan Cobalt
has all the detail�