Shahbaz Qalandar: A Documentary on the beliefs of the Qalandariyya Sufi Order of Sehwan

Shahbaz Qalandar: A Documentary on the beliefs of the Qalandariyya Sufi Order of Sehwan
Film Screening and Discussion with Directors
Hasan Ali Khan & Shabbir Siraj
About:
The ethnographic film ‘Shahbaz Qalandar’ has been made by independent film makers Shabbir Siraj and Nofil Naqvi, and Hasan Ali Khan, on the religious life of the city of Sehwan Sharif in Pakistan. The script of the film is an adaptation of a research paper by Hasan Ali Khan on the religious creed of the medieval Qalandariyya Sufi Order from which the city derives its religious essence. This is of course something that has become a popular regional phenomenon today in the form of the Dhammal. Other aspects of the Qalandariyya’s religious piety, as they exist on the ground in Sehwan are also covered by the film. Other successful films on Sehwan made by Pakistani and international filmmakers look at the city through the microcosmic lens of popular culture/Sufism, and do not explore the centrality of the Qalandariyya Order to Sehwan’s spiritual life, of which it is the last remaining bastion in this world.