What Will People Say (2017)
What Will People Say (2017)
What Will People Say (2017)
(Hva vil folk si, Iram Haq, Norway/Germany/Sweden/France/Denmark 2017, 106 min., DCP, Norwegian, Urdu w/subtitles)
Rochester Premiere. Sixteen-year-old Nisha leads a double life. Out with her friends, she’s a typical Norwegian teenager. At home with her family, she is the perfect Pakistani daughter. But when her father catches her alone with her boyfriend, Nisha’s two worlds brutally collide. To set an example and escape the judgment of their peers, Nisha’s parents send her to live with extended family in a small town in Pakistan. There, in an unfamiliar country surrounded by people she barely knows, Nisha must adapt to a rigid culture that denies her the freedoms she once enjoyed. A tense and moving drama about women’s rights, immigrant identity, and familial duties, the film is based on director Iram Haq’s own experiences as a young Pakistani woman in Norway. Eighteen-year-old Maria Mozhdah makes an astounding debut as Nisha and veteran actor Adil Hussain (Life of Pi) turns in a nuanced performance as her father.