Bol (film)
Bol (lit. Speak or word(s)) is a 2011 Pakistani Urdu language social drama film written, directed and produced by Shoaib Mansoor. The film stars Humaima Malik, Atif Aslam, Mahira Khan, Iman Ali, Shafqat Cheema, Amr Kashmiri, Manzar Sehbai, and Zaib Rehman in the lead roles. The film marks the debut of singer Atif Aslam and Mahira Khan. It concerns a religious Muslim family facing financial difficulties caused by too many children and changing times, with a major plot involving the father's desire to have a son and his rejection of his existing intersex child. Bol was a critical and commercial success and became one of the highest-grossing Pakistani films of all time. This film was part of a maternal and child health project, PAIMAN (Pakistan Initiative for Mothers and Newborns), implemented by The Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (JHU.CCP) which entered into a partnership with Shoaib Mansoor's Shoman Productions in 2009. The objective of the project was to advocate for women's rights by bringing the focus of media and the elite of Pakistan to family planning and gender issues. The PAIMAN Project Communications Advisor and country representative of JHU.CCP, Fayyaz Ahmad Khan, served as the executive producer of the movie. The film was reviewed by the Central Board of Film Censors in Lahore on 8 November 2010 and received its approval the next day. Bol is set in Lahore and many students from the National College of Arts' (NCA) filmmaking department assisted Shoaib Mansoor on it. Plot
The film starts by showing the protagonist, Zainab (Humaima Malick), about to be hanged. She tells her story to the media right before this happens. She grew up with six sisters, a mother (Zaib Rehman) and a father (Manzar Sehbai). The father always wanted a son so that the son could help with the financial issues of the family; the father does not believe in women being gainfully employed. They have an intersex child (khawajah sara in Urdu) named Syed Saifullah Khan or Saifi (Amr Kashmiri). The father (Hakim) does not like Saifi since he is intersex. Saifi is deeply loved by the rest of his family. Zainab is married to a guy who keeps harassing her for not giving birth. Hence, she comes back to her father's house. Zainab's mother keeps having deceased babies. Zainab arranges a tubal ligation for her. When Hakim (Manzar Sehbai) finds out, he becomes very angry. One day, Zainab sees Saifi dressed in women's clothes and gets very disturbed. Hakim owns a small traditional pharmacy and is approached by a man who asks him to teach The Quran to children since Hakim is a very religious man who has bonds with the mosque. Hakim initially refuses because the man, Saqa (Shafqat Cheema), is running a brothel. Meanwhile, the mosque gives him some money to keep, since they believe him to be trustworthy. Mustafa (Atif Aslam), a neighbour, gets Saifi a job at a place where they paint trucks. There, Saifi is harassed because others discriminate against his identification. One day Saifi is raped. Another intersex, (played by Almas Bobby – who in real life is a transgender person), finds him and takes him home. Hakim overhears Saifi telling his mother and Zainab what happened. Later on, when everybody is asleep, Hakim suffocates Saifi to death with a plastic bag. He must bribe the police officer to keep it a secret with two lakhs. Hakim is forced to take money out of the masjid funds. The masjid asks for the funds, and Hakim does not have enough money. He is forced to go to Saqa's house to get it. Teaching children the Quran is not giving him enough money, so Saqa gives him another option: Hakim must marry and have a baby with Meena (Iman Ali) who is one of the prostitutes and is Saqa's (Shafqat Cheema) oldest daughter. Hakim keeps having girls, and Saqa tells him that it is the men who decide the sex of the baby. Meanwhile, Zainab gets Ayesha (Mahira Khan) and Mustafa married since Hakim found another man at the masjid and wanted to get Ayesha married to that man. Simultaneously, Hakim marries Meena. When Hakim finds out about Ayesha's marriage, he is furious but cannot do anything about it. Meena has her baby, and it is a girl meaning Saqa gets to keep it. Hakim begs Meena to give him the baby so that the child does not have to face a horrible future. Saqa overhears and kicks Hakim out. Later on, Meena comes to give Hakim's family the baby. When Hakim's wife asks who that woman was, he takes the baby and tells her that he married her. She screams at him, and he beats her up. The mother tells the kids what happened, and Zainab insists they all leave the house and move somewhere else to start a new life. At night, Saqa comes to take Meena's daughter, since Meena was not supposed to give it to Hakim. Hakim tries to kill the daughter to keep her from a horrible future. He is killed by Zainab with a fatal knock on the head. They hide the baby. Zainab tells Saqa that Hakim killed the baby and threw her out somewhere; she tells him that she killed Hakim, which is why she is being given the death penalty. Back in the present, a reporter keeps trying to prove that she is innocent but is unable to. Zainab ends by asking why is only killing a sin? Why is giving birth, without any family planning, not a sin? Then she is hanged. The President (Rashid Khawaja) sees the reporter's newscast that ends with that question and schedules a meeting with the topic as the same as the question i.e. jab khila nahi saktey tow paida kiyun karty ho. In the end, the rest of the daughters open up a restaurant called Zainab's Cafe, which becomes very successful. They also raise their new half-sister, Meena's daughter. 