A Texastani friend of mine travelled to Pakistan in 1999 and instantly fell in love with our country: the food, the scenery, the buses and especially our people and their sense of hospitality and honour. After 911 he was a witness to the media's misrepresentation of muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular.

While people like me were continously complaining about the media bias, this guy decided to actually do something about it. So with very few resources (a couple of hundred dollars and a camera) and a lot of hope and faith, he travelled back to Pakistan in 2004 with another friend of mine. The documentary linked below is a result of his efforts. Even though this was his first documentary, it still made it to the Sundance fim festival for consideration.

The documentary has 15 parts of roughly 5-8 mins each to ensure easy loading for those with slow connections. The ending (Part 15) is particularly touching and very relevant for every decent person on earth. I have a few requests for all those who read this post

1) Please view all the parts (1-15) in one go. Its around an hour and a half of interesting viewing and some outstanding music

2) Whether you like the parts or not, please give some honest feedback (and rating) both here and on youtube regarding every part, so he can fine tune the documentary for another festival. Constructive critisicm is not just welcome...it is required.

3) Lastly, and most importantly, if you cannot give feedback regarding the different parts then atleast forward the link to as many pakistanis as you can. Encourage them to give feedback as well.

Are you my brother? Part 1
Are you my brother? Part 2
Are you my brother? Part 3
Are you my brother? Part 4
Are you my brother? Part 5
Are you my brother? Part 6
Are you my brother? Part 7
Are you my brother? Part 8
Are you my brother? Part 9
Are you my brother? Part 10
Are you my brother? Part 11
Are you my brother? Part 12
Are you my brother? Part 13
Are you my brother? Part 14
Are you my brother? Part 15

Thankyou.

brother it was amazing documentary i watched all 15 and enjoyed alot.

good work keep it up.

regards

In all honesty, besides the extreme amount of repetitive content, same subjects being conversed about all the time, the documentry never really went anywhere, partly because Andy seems to have had a sensory overload from Pakistani hospitality.

Thankyou brother.

Could you point out the repetitive parts so he can make them less repetitive?

Regarding the documentary not going anywhere, I think his approach was to not dictate the narrative or to put a spin on things, but to let Pakistan and Pakistanis speak for ourselves (whether good, bad or ugly).

He had been to Pakistan before, and hung out with quite a few of us in Austin, so the hospitality bit was nothing new to him. If he does come off like that then please point out the particular parts (and times) and I'll pass the info on to him.

Thankyou for the feedback.

Our mod here, Sobank, has a dedicated documentary thread here at PDF.
From National Geographic/Discovery to BBC/PBS are there.
If there is one that is missing, pm Sobank, he'll post it in his thread.

The political dialogue, whether its the Pakistani Best friend, or the army guy, or for that matter Ali Azmat, the Christian fellow, they all seems to revlove around the same basic struture of unaddressed greivences, and relationships between the east and west. Some scenes such as the childern dancing are repeated often, there is no structure to the documentry, which is fine, its just that instead of being about 2 hrs long, it should be much shorter.

great video loved it thanks

I'll go over the documentary again to see if it is coming out like that. Personally I thought there was enough variety within the general theme of an adverserial east - west relationship to make it more than interesting. The christian musician, the old man from the fishing village and a few other people did talk with admiration and understanding, not with a grieving mindset.



Yeah, I see your point and I agree. It would be better at a shorter running time and without scene repetitions. Thanks, I'll pass on the feedback to Andy.

Glad you liked it. Please pass it on to your friends and leave a comment or two at youtube. Thanks

Was a bit repetetive and rather without commentery,but ofcourse we're talking about an amateur movie here

Are You My Brother?

by the way the other guy usman has he ever been to lums

Very Well done


Glad to have seen it :)

Yeah, Usman went to LUMS for his MBA. How do you know him?

Glad you liked it instant. Please pass it on.

Thankyou for doing that Asad.
Are you the one who left those encouraging comments at youtube?

Yeah, I have no problem with appreciating good effort where it is due.

Thanks for posting this, amigo..

In the second part, there is a guy by the name of shuqaib bhutto. Is he the brother of Junaid bhutto from karachi ? I ask since you said these are your friends.


I have watched the first 4 parts and till now it looks good although I wish he talks to normal Pakistanis in the rest of the documentary rather then these upscale western educated Pakistanis who dont really represent the average Pakistani.

Please check your mail.



LoL. I could almost feel the disdain when I read that bit ( just kidding). You are right though, we western educated upscale Pakistanis donot represent the average Pakistani .... but we love our country just the same. And we could take Andy places and introduce him to people that he could not meet on his own. The main credit for that goes to Usman though. I believe he even tried to arrange an interview with President Musharaf through one of his relatives but the President had some scheduling conflicts.
Saira, I hope that by now you have seen the rest of the documentary and are satisfied that Andy covered all spectrums of Pakistani society, not just us 'burgers' . The interview with the christian musician and the one with the Baloch fisherman are my personal favourites... although I wish Andy could've managed to talk the ISI tracker into giving an interview as well (face hidden ofcourse). That would've been something.

Disclaimer : I must clarify here that I had almost nothing to do with the documentary (due to certain constraints and problems that I had to attend to). It is almost completely Andy's hardwork with whatever resources he could muster out of his pocket and through his connections here. The most I did was translate for him when he was interviewing the Baloch fisherman at Mubarak village outside of Karachi (Ibrahim chacha, may he rest in peace). It was the least I could do for my friend and for my country.

Glad you liked it clutch. Please pass it on.

See the rest of it, he talks to just about everyone, i was surprised as to how good an avg. city dweller can speak english now.

Hello Everyone and Salaam,

This is my first post on this board. My name is Andy and I'm the director of Are You My Brother. I can't thank you enough for the comments. They proved to be helpful.

If anyone is up for it, I'd be happy to discuss any topics relating to the movie.

In the meantime, please enjoy two of my loves: Pakistan and bananas

haha andy, im going to watch the movies now. good reviews :)

Awesome, glad to hear it.

Just a quick story:

So, I'm currently trying to 'get this film out there' and I'm pretty pleased with the feedback on it. I've hit various groups of people around the world with one thing in common, an internet connection.

Today I was at dinner with my Mom and my friend's parents walk in (one of them rolls, actually, because she is wheelchair bound). The mother of my friend is a college professor at a University called Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas (just a few miles north of where I live). She finds out that I've finished the movie and asked me what I wanted to do with it. I told her, "I want people to see it." She immediately said, what do you think about grass roots movements? and I let her know that I was working on some grass roots already. She immediately asks me to show the movie at Southwestern University. She said if I wrote a bio of myself, a synopsis of the movie and sent it to her, she'd get started.

Things are looking up for me, which means they're looking up for you. People want to know about you, know about Pakistan. You'd be amazed at the response people have towards this movie. They all say the same thing here and it always comes with a perplexed look, "I had no idea."

I fought for you guys and gals for 4 years and I'll continue to do it. I believed in the people I met while I was in Pakistan. I believed that you were not what the national media wanted me to think of you. I know one day I'll look back and be amazed at how far Pakistan has come. How in the end, honesty and hard work out lived fast profits and malicious intent. I know, I'll stand amongst you as I have already and the potential I saw will become reality and the new potential will be something greater than I saw. On that day, you too will say, "I had no idea. I had no idea."

For now, I'll keep working on spreading the word about Pakistan and how great it is. Now, ya'll need to make it happen.

Salaam and Fi Amanuullah
-Andy Bhai

^ Thank you for your efforts Andy! They are appreciated.

i liked the film very much but in the last part of the documentry there is alot of empty space that can be filled with random scenes from your trip there was some of that towards the end

I watched the documentary last night and am glad that I got a nice addition in my documentaries collection. Living in lahore and being a Pakistani I appreciate the effort put to make this documentary. Although there were a lot of things regarding the topic which could be accommodated in the documentary and it could be a lot more organized and convincing but considering the limited resources and difficulties, I would say "Thumbs up" for Andy for making this fine effort. Whether two words or two thousand words, the message should be conveyed and that is the purpose well served with this documentary. Andy! you've done a great job and we pakistanis admire your effort and concern. My remarks about this documentary in a couple of words are "Well Done!"

Hello Paki_ryder!

Thanks for the suggestion. The final copy of the movie actually has a montage of footage at the end. Hopefully there will be DVDs in Pakistan available at some point. I've already sent them to Pakistan. Now it's just a matter of them getting duplicated.

andy, try getting it into some film festivals, go along a theme of community cohesion and reconcillation, learning about each other, you might make a name for yourself.

Your in our prayers bro.

Thank you bhai.

If you have any film festivals that you can think of, I would certainly consider entering. Unfortunately, I don't know enough about film festivals to know which one to enter. I know there are thousands.

it was a wonderful documentary, loved it.