Pakistan is not just about militants and mullahs. This independent debut feature film, directed by Hammad Khan and produced by Menhaj Huda (Kidulthood), is inspired by the US genre of small-town slacker films. It focuses on a group of privileged and westernised twenty-something friends who while away their days and nights driving around town, partying, surfing the internet and smoking shisha pipes in the sleepy capital city of Islamabad. As the country outside their small world starts to crack, Hasan and his friends must face up to reality, relationships, internal angst and life choices before it is too late.

The film challenges the images and perceptions of Pakistani youth dominant in international media while also being a “personal love letter to Islamabad and to its young dreamers as they continue to search for their identity and future”.
However Slackistan has generated a string of objections from Pakistani authorities, preventing its release in cinemas across the country. The Central Board of Film Censors (CBFC) objected to several scenes in the film which use bad language, make references to the Taliban and the surrounding religious extremism and insecurity around the lives of the young people in the city.

The filmmaker Khan states, “The censor board’s verdict is oppressive, arbitrary and steeped in denial about life outside their government offices. Maybe the establishment’s view is that young Pakistanis saying words like ‘Taliban’ and ‘Lesbian’ represent a more potent threat than the bullets and bombs that are, day by day, finding increasing legitimacy in the country.”
“Apart from being an undemocratic restriction on the filmmaker’s right of expression, the verdict shows the disdain with which the authorities regard local film culture and liberal ideas, in the face of growing extremism and intolerance.”
Despite this Slackistan has had successful screenings at festivals in London, Abu Dhabi, New York, San Francisco and Goa.