A Train Crosses the Desert

Writer/Director: Rahul Aijaz

Producer: Goethe-Institut Pakistan, Media dept., Institute of Business Management (IoBM), Rahul Aijaz

Cast: Tariq Raja, Nadir Hussain, Arshad Shaikh

Assistant director: Iqran Rasheed Mehar

Creative producer: Till Passow

Cinematographer: Ali Sattar

Editor/Colorist: Muhammad Haseeb Halai

Sound designers: Syed Basit Amrohvi, Omer Naeem

Sound recordist: Muneeb Baig

Line producer: Saqib Kanadia

Set decorator: Paras Gul

Gaffer: Chand Mughal

Makeup dept. head: Majid Hussain

Makeup dept. assistant: Arshad Nawaz

Camera/equipment: Media dept., IoBM

Poems ‘A Prison’ and ‘A Train Crosses the Desert’

By Ashraf Aboul-yazid

Sindhi translation by Nasir Aijaz

Official selections:

Kazan International Muslim Film Festival (Tatarstan, Russia, 2021)

South Asian International Film Festival (USA, 2020)

Jaipur International Film Festival (India, 2021)

Asian Film Festival, LA, Hollywood 2020 (USA)

Muestra Itinerante De Cine Mx (MICMX) 2020 (Mexico)

LIFFT India Filmotsav - World Cine Fest 2020 (India)

8th International Silk Road Film Awards - 2020 (Turkey)

Aporia International Village Film Festival (S. Korea, 2021)

Deep Focus Film Festival (USA, 2021)

Divvy Film Festival (Pakistan, 2021)

Festival Angaelica 2023 (USA)

6th Hill Film Festival 2024 (Bangladesh)

Director's Statement:

The film 'A Train Crosses the Desert' comes from a deep personal place for me. I have been inspired and

moved by the idea of death, and particularly suicide, for quite long. Losing my uncle to suicide when I

was 5, and then losing my young cousin to cancer two years ago has had a lasting impact on me. And

somehow both of these losses came together to instill an inexplicable feeling in me. I sometimes call it

guilt. So perhaps this film is an expression of my guilt that I, along with everyone around my cousin, was

helpless. It's also an expression of a contradictory feeling of relief - relief that they are gone.

That is why I chose to write and direct this film.

I personally have been inspired by the works of surrealist filmmakers such as David Lynch, French New

Wave filmmakers and Italian Neorealism. So, I try to balance my words and visuals on a fine line between

neorealism and surrealism. At any point, it could tip either way and it's up to the audience to feel that

push and pull.

With this story set mainly inside one room, I want the audience to feel suffocated in that tight space. I

want the audience to feel they are in the room with these two brothers, one of which is dying and the

dilemma of the other who has to decide whether to try to continue saving him by any means or give in

and pull the plug.

Their lives are at a complete halt and by slowing down the pace of the film (to match the pace of the

characters' lives), the intention is for the audience to feel that they are living with these characters. With

the subject of death, suicide and loss being universal, I feel everyone would be able to relate to this film.

This film has been created as part of the 'Film Talents - Unheard Voices from Pakistan and Afghanistan'

program, sponsored by Goethe-Institut Pakistan. And I am forever thankful to them for giving me this

opportunity and the freedom to work on something that's truly personal and important to me. I hope

that the audience finds this experience painful and heart-wrenching and it moves them as the process of

writing, directing and making this film moved me.

Watch the complete film here: