The Pakistani Cinema and the 1971 War: The Politics of Denialism

This paper addresses an ideological construction of denialism in Pakistani cinema, which primarily focuses on the post-1971 war refutations through affirmative interpretations of history. Previously, Pakistani cinema’s recent development and evolution have been appraised and praised for breaking free from the traditional paradigm. The recent development of denialism in Pakistani cinema remains ignored but offers the opportunity to deconstruct and understand the politics of denialism. Taking two Pakistani films, Khel Khel Mein (Nabeel Qureshi, 2021) and Huey Tum Ajnabi (Kamran Shahid, 2023), as a case study, this paper explores what we term Pakistani denialist cinema, demystifying ideological manoeuvring and historical distortions. We argue that films embed denialist and patriotic ideology into depicting historical events, producing a particular history. We argue that the selected films produce an illusionary ‘reality effect’ that hegemonizes the spectators into a denialist perspective concerning the 1971 war.