Daily Times

Currently on air on A-Plus, ‘Deedan’ is Amin Iqbal’s latest directorial work shot in the beautiful valley of Hunza. Written by Attiya Dawood and starring Sanam Saeed, Mohib Mirza, Tipu Sharif, Huma Nawab, Hassan Noman, Rashid Naz, Ajab Gull, Minsa Malik, Laila Zuberi and many others, ‘Deedan’ is a kind of a folk-tale narrating the troubles a man and a woman have to face as a result of falling in love with each other as dwellers of a remote, small village.

Watching ‘Deedan’ is an experience of watching not only breath-taking locations of Hunza Valley, but also looking at crystal-clear cinematography incorporating scenes that are bright without being glaring, making the drama serial a project that has made use of updated visual techniques.

The director says, “Films, serials and commercials have been made, no doubt, in these areas but none of them has exposed the location the way it has been done in “Deedan”. We had to walk thousands of miles to explore areas which could be used for shooting.”

The director also has to tell that for people departing from plain areas, experiencing the mountainous land and its troubles along was a difficult experience. According to him, the cast and crew had to face uninvited weather conditions not suitable for work. At times, the team would face serious light issues that would rise in the middle of scenes.

“With these light issues, it is difficult to work on a drama that has to show a series of events in a continuity,” says Amin Iqbal. “We even had to pray for everyone to stay healthy and fit, for any sort of health problem meant travelling a long way again to reach the necessary medical aid.”

The team of ‘Deedan’ was surrounded by five glaciers as well which have also been represented in the serial but walking towards them would be journeys of long hours for the team filled with thorny bushes which would even injure the members.

The director credits the producer and his whole team for being supportive throughout despite all these challenges and it is owing to these problems that made ‘Deedan’ a hard-work in the real sense of the term and due to the support of all the crew and actors that Amin Iqbal considers ‘Deedan’ his personal favourite work. His real happiness lies in the fact that the appreciation the serial has received has sufficed for the troubles the team went through.

Published in Daily Times, January 7^th 2019.