By Noorang Shaheen
Most people walk into Lahore’s Tollinton Market expecting to see a deplorable sight of cages filled with birds, rabbits and puppies. I walked into it with a very different image in my head. I kept wondering what would happen if a film opened with what looked like an ordinary negotiation over a black Labrador puppy, only for the audience to slowly realize that the deal was never about the dog at all. It was about a three-month-old baby girl.
That image became the foundation of Human Friendly (working title), my latest short film exploring child trafficking in Pakistan. But the truth is, the story didn’t begin at Tollinton Market. It had been following (and haunting) me for years.
I’ve always believed that films shouldn’t rush to answer questions. They should ask the ones that are difficult to live with. If someone walks away from my work feeling slightly uncomfortable, questioning something they had previously accepted as normal, then I feel the film has done its job. I don’t make films to tell people what to think. I make them in the hope that they’ll look at the world around them a little differently.
That instinct has guided my work from the very beginning.
Growing up, filmmaking wasn’t the future my family imagined for me. We own a motorcycle manufacturing factory, and there was every expectation that I would eventually work alongside my father before taking on the business myself. It was a sensible path, and one built on decades of hard work. But even as a child, I couldn’t stop thinking about cinema. Choosing filmmaking meant difficult conversations, disagreement and taking a leap into an industry where certainty doesn’t exist. It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was the only honest one I could make.
What has always drawn me to filmmaking isn’t spectacle. It’s people. The individuals who fascinate me most are the ones we often fail to notice: the child weaving through traffic selling flowers, the labourer working through unbearable heat, the street performer trying to preserve a tradition that the world has moved on from. Those are the people I spend time observing, listening to and learning from before I ever begin writing. I need to understand a person’s reality before I can attempt to tell their story.
That approach shaped my earlier documentaries, Buland Abbas and Bhaand Extinction. Buland Abbas follows a young boy who lost his parents and was raised by a transgender guru, finding hope and purpose through his extraordinary talent for the tabla. Bhaand Extinction looks at the disappearing tradition of Punjabi folk comedians and asks why the loss of humour, storytelling and cultural memory matters. More recently, I directed Elaichi, a live-action short exploring old-age love, acceptance and the ache of loving someone without expecting anything in return.
Although each film explores a different world, they are connected by a common thread. I’m interested in people whose stories exist on the margins, not because they are extraordinary, but because they reveal something essential about who we are as a society.
The seeds of Human Friendly were planted much earlier than I realised. When I was still in school, a close relative wanted to adopt a child. As conversations progressed, I remember hearing discussions that slowly shifted from adoption to payment. I was too young to fully understand what I was hearing, but one thought stayed with me long afterwards: how could a human life have a price attached to it?
Years later, that memory resurfaced while I was watching one of Iqrar ul Hassan’s investigative programmes on child trafficking. In one episode, a woman was trying to sell her own child because poverty had left her with no other way of surviving. At one point, she turned to the buyer and calmly said, “You’re nervous because it’s your first time buying one. This is my eighth child.”
I still remember sitting there in silence after hearing those words. For me, that wasn’t simply an interview. It was horror unfolding in broad daylight. It forced me to confront something I had perhaps always known but never fully processed: children were being bought and sold as though they were commodities. Different circumstances, different motivations, but at its core it remained a transaction involving a human life.
Around the same time, I found myself returning again and again to the story of Iqbal Masih, the young boy from Muridke who was sold into bonded labour at a carpet weaving factory after his family took out a small loan they couldn’t repay. He escaped at the age of ten, but rather than simply reclaiming his own freedom, he dedicated his short life to helping rescue other children trapped in slavery, becoming one of Pakistan’s most powerful voices against child labour. He was only twelve years old when he was killed. I have always found his story astonishing—not just because of his courage, but because he refused to accept that freedom meant looking away from those who were still suffering. In many ways, Human Friendly is my tribute to Iqbal’s legacy, and to the countless children whose stories are never told.
As filmmaker David Lynch once said, ideas are like fish. Catching one is only the beginning; what matters is how far you’re willing to take it. That idea stayed with me throughout this process. The more I researched child trafficking, the more I realised that every statistic represented a child with a name, a family and a future that had been stolen. The subject demanded sensitivity, patience and honesty. It wasn’t enough to make a film that shocked people. It had to make them care. That’s why we chose Tollinton Market.
We spent weeks there during Lahore’s unforgiving May and June heat, returning repeatedly to understand the space, speaking with shopkeepers and searching for locations that felt authentic. I wanted the market to become more than a backdrop. I wanted it to feel familiar enough that audiences would recognise it, because the point of the film is that exploitation rarely happens in places that look extraordinary. More often, it hides in places we pass every day.
The film brings together an incredible team of people who believed in that vision. Veteran actors Nayyer Ijaz and Honey Albela bring extraordinary emotional depth to the story, while producers Habib Shehzad and Mahnoor Zaidi have helped shape the project from its earliest stages. Alongside a crew of nearly fifty people, we worked through punishing conditions because we all believed this story deserved to be told with honesty and care.
For all of us, however, Human Friendly has never been just another film. From the very beginning, we wanted it to become a platform for something larger than itself. Once the film is complete, we hope to collaborate with organisations working directly on child trafficking and child protection across Pakistan through community screenings, discussions and awareness programmes. We also intend to use future screenings to raise funds for organisations already working on the ground to protect vulnerable children, because meaningful change cannot happen through cinema alone. Stories can begin conversations, but lasting change requires people who are willing to continue them.
There is a tendency to believe that films end when the credits roll. I don’t see it that way. The most meaningful part of any film begins afterwards, in the conversations people have on the drive home, around dinner tables, or with their children. Those are the moments when stories stop belonging to filmmakers and begin belonging to audiences.
That is my hope for Human Friendly. Of course, I would love for the film to travel to festivals and reach audiences around the world. Every filmmaker wants their work to be seen. But if, after watching it, someone chooses to support an organisation fighting child trafficking, becomes more aware of the exploitation happening around them, or simply refuses to look away the next time they encounter a child in a vulnerable situation, then I will feel the film has achieved something far greater than recognition.
Because behind every statistic is a child who deserved a childhood and behind every headline is a life that should never have become a transaction.
And if cinema has any real power, I believe it lies in reminding us that some stories aren’t asking to be admired…they’re asking us to act.
The author is an award-winning independent filmmaker and the founder of Dusty Reel Creatives, a Lahore-based production house established in 2019. His work spans live-action short films, documentaries, music videos and commercial productions, blending cinematic storytelling with authentic, human-centred narratives. Over the years, he has collaborated with leading brands while remaining committed to telling stories rooted in real-life experiences that spark conversation and inspire change.
Human Friendly is currently seeking funding to complete post-production, festival submissions and community impact screenings. To support the film or explore partnership opportunities, please get in touch with him at: behumanfriendly@gmail.com