Pearl film to open at Karachi film fest

Karachi: The film based on the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl will premiere at a film festival in the city from where he was abducted nearly five years ago.

Infinite Justice by British-Pakistani filmmaker Jamil Dehlavi, is the star attraction at the Sixth KaraFilm Festival that kicked off on Thursday.

"This is the first time a film on Pearl will be screened in Pakistan," festival organiser Hasan Zaidi said in Karachi.

It beats another cinematic effort, A Mighty Heart, still under production, with Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie playing Pearl's wife Mariane, who travels to Pakistan in quest of details about how her husband was killed.

Jolie and Brad Pitt were at various locations in India for the past few weeks after Pakistan in September barred its filming.

The film being premiered at KaraFilm Festival stars Kevin Collins as the Jewish-American investigative reporter and Raza Jaffery as a terror mastermind who kidnapped him to secure the release of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

It is a loose, fictionalised version of Pearl's ordeal, who was abducted and beheaded in Karachi in January 2002, while researching a story about Islamic militants, The Daily Times newspaper said.

A British-born Islamic militant, Ahmed Saeed Omar Sheikh, was arrested and sentenced to death for the killing, while his three co-accused were given life imprisonment.

The death sentence has not been carried out so far.

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