Documentary Film produced & directed by Shehzad Afzal

Watch Bo Kata Here

"This page forms part of the FilmedUp Archive, documenting Shehzad Afzal’s early Scottish filmmaking period (2004–2007). Each artefact is preserved as part of a sovereign legacy initiative. These early works reflect the lived reality of independent ethnic filmmakers in Scotland — creators working outside institutional support, often overlooked, unfunded, and operating from the margins, yet producing undeniable, culturally significant cinema and creative artefacts.

The Full 10 Yards, Bo Kata, and Pendulum Drift form a coherent trilogy exploring themes of exclusion, resistance, cultural erasure, and colonial decay — a body of work shaped by independence, resilience, and cultural responsibility."

Synopsis

Depicting uniquely the rooftop kite flyers of Lahore, Pakistan, under threat from a complete ban, after a series of tragic fatalities from illegal chemically coated strings.

About the Project

Bo Kata, loosely translated in English means hacked! That is the victory battle cry when kites are eliminated in raging sky duels, sometimes lasting hours. Filmed entirely in Lahore, Pakistan, over three continuous days, Bo Kata is a rare cinematic documentary treat, depicting uniquely the rooftop kite flyers of Lahore, who have been a traditional part of Pakistan's culture and heritage that has lasted for over 400 years. Their sport is now under threat from a complete ban, after a series of tragic fatalities involving children and motorcyclists, resulting in decapitation and dismemberment from illegal chemically coated strings used to fly the kites. The documentary highlights a population that is associated with the mysterious art of kite dueling amidst the political backdrop of an impending ban.

Director Statement

The film delves deep into a subculture that most people in the world are unaware of. I wanted to look closely at the art of kite dueling, and the passion behind it all. Last year, there was much international media furore around Lahore’s Kite Flyers, and it looks certain to continue, as Hollywood has released the film, THE KITE RUNNER, based on the best selling book of the same name. Bo Kata, features a specially commissioned soundtrack, composed by John Walden, one of the UK’s leading composing talents. John has done a fantastic job on the soundtrack. It completely complements the visuals, adding a distinctive flavour to the atmosphere and storytelling on screen, without clouding it. This was an important film for me to complete. Especially now, since it feels more like documenting the last gasps of a dying ancient tradition, succumbing to the modernisation of the world.

Production Details

Privately financed and produced, the documentary was shot during the BASANT festival in February 2004, Lahore, Pakistan, over 3 consecutive days. The film was produced using sustainable practices.

Awards/Nominations

The documentary has been internationally recognised and screened at film festivals around the world and selected for in-competition categories, and was a finalist for the Satyajit Ray Film Foundation Award 2007, in association with the British Council and the British Film Institute (BFI); ceremony held at BAFTA Piccadilly, London, with awards presented by BAFTA and OSCAR winning filmmaker Asif Kapadia.

Bo Kata Digital App

A dedicated Android application called Bo Kata Digital was launched in late 2019 on Google Play and the Amazon AppStore, enabling mobile and tablet viewing of the full film alongside supplementary materials such as film trailers and detailed production notes.

Read about the Bo Kata Digital App here!

BO KATA press articles in Dundee Courier (2007) and Perthshire Advertiser (2009). Detailing the Film Premiere of Bo Kata in Dundee in 2007, and Director Douglas Mackinnon's and Jack McKeown's critical review of Bo Kata, including his award from Sir Sean Connery as an EIFF Trailblazer.

Press Article by The Courier:

String Time, February 09, 2007

String time, By Jack McKeown

FOR HUNDREDS of years residents of Lahore in Pakistan have celebrated spring with the Basant kite flying festival. During the week-long festival, the city's skies are brought to life by thousands of colourful kites. Competitors coat their kite's strings in ground glass and duel, each vying to cut the other's string and bring down his kite. The event is dangerous, however, and there have been over 1500 deaths in recent years.

Dundee born film maker Shehzad Afzal's documentary Bo Kata, which premieres at the DCA tonight, captured the festival in all its glory in the final year before it was banned by the Pakistani Government.

THE CITY of LAHORE, Pakistan, at dawn in February, 2004. The sun rises over the city's flat-roofed buildings, the huge red ball illuminating thousands of brightly coloured kites dancing in the sky.

This is Basant, the kite festival, which has taken place every year for the past four centuries. It's celebrated across Asia, but Lahore is its home and is where the biggest celebrations go on.

The participants, many dressed in gaudy greens and blues to celebrate the coming of spring, do not know it yet, but this year will be the festival's last.

There's an atmosphere of immense good cheer and crowds throng the streets. They've come to see the kite battles, where two kite 'masters' duel until one of them cuts the other's kite from the air. Cries of "Bo Kata!"—which means "hacked"—ring out as the loser's kite falls from the sky.

It's big business, with prize money to be won and pride at stake. Rental rates for city's best rooftops run as high as $4500 a night during the festival.

One of the most successful kite fliers in modern history is Master Ustad, who features in the Bo Kata, filmmaker Shehzad Afzal's documentary about Basant.

As a young man of around 20, he duelled against a local kite master's best apprentice. The contest was the best of 11 duels. The apprentice cut down three of Ustad's kites; Usatd cut down six of his.

He won, and was himself made a master. Master Ustad duelled with kites for the next 42 years before retiring from the sport. During that time he never lost a single battle.

"He is one of the very few undefeated kite master," explains Shehzad(38). "He is quite famous across the whole of Pakistan."

Shehzad, who was born in Dundee and lives in Alyth with his wife and family, has been making films since he was given a Super 8 camcorder as a child. His father was involved in the movie industry, screening films in the 1960s in what is not the Little Theatre on Dundee's Victoria Road.

Shehzad travelled to Pakistan in 2004 and shot the the half hour documentary over the course of 72 hours.

"There have been a lot of deaths, but I didn't want to sensationalise that part of it," he says. "I wanted to show it from the people's point of view, from the point of view of those that participate in it and work in the kite industry."

Fatalities have, however, been a tragic and all too regular by-product of the festival. Since 2000, according to Government figures, there have been 1500 deaths and 10,000 injuries related to Basant. Shehzad says that, according to anecdotal evidence, fatalities may be closed to the 2500 mark.

There are all kinds of ways in which people are killed or hurt during the festival. Many, overexcited by the competitive aspect and forgetting where they are, get careless and fall from the rooftop.

Others are killed by traffic while trying to retrieve kites. Some are injured by falling kites landing on them. The worst, most headline-grabbing deaths are caused by the kite strings themselves.

The strings have wrapped around people's necks, cutting their throats. There have even been several reports of people decapitated by the strings. Some of these deaths, tragically, have been children.

The problem, it seems, stems from kite makers and fliers using illegal materials in their strings in an effort to gain a competitive edge. By law, the only things that are allowed to be added to the cotton strings are starch, which normally comes from the sugar cane, and ground glass.

It may sound dangerous at that, but the ground glass strings are responsible for the very few of the injuries.

"People want to win so badly that they cheat, and a black market has sprung up for illegal kite strings," says Shehzad. "They coat their strings in corrosive chemicals and put wire in them. Clutch cable wire is one of the most common and nasty ways of cheating. It is very fine and can cause extremely harmful injuries."

There are aorund 500 kite-making families in Lahore and they are outraged that these illegal and dangerous modifications have put their livelihoods in jeopardy.

Bo Kata shows the working lives of the string makers who work on the streets. "Most of them choose a quiet lenght of road or pavement where they can stretch out their strings and add mixture to them. They either sleep at the roadside to preserve their spot or they go home, but have someone camped out there 24 hours a day.

"The mixture they use is nothing apart from sugar cane starch and ground glass, which they apply to the strings."

The documentary shows a string maker complaining about the illegal trade. He says that he and the other street vendors use only natural products in their strings.

Look, he says, I'll eat the mixture, before scooping up a palm full of the sticky grey mixture and putting it in his mouth. He chews contendedly.

"I think the mixture already had glass in it. I ate a little bit of it myself," Shehzad admits. "It tasted okay. You could taste little grainy bits which i assume were the glass. It's ground so finely that it won't harm you."

Bo Kata also looks at the participants of the kite duels and captures one humourous exchange between two youths, where one is clearly fed up of beating the other and refuses to duel him again "until Sunday".

Shehzad's shot his documentary at a fortuitous time, capturing the last kite duels before the Government of Pakistan banned them. This year also sees Khaled Hosseini's best selling book about the festival, The Kite Runner, made into a film bby Paramount that will be released in November.

Set in Afghanistan in the early 1970s, it tells the story of two boys who spend their days running kites, before one flees to America ahead of the country's turmoil and the arrival of the Taliban.

Shehzad is hoping he can negotiate a tie-in with Paramount that would allow his documentary to be screened alongside the film, or included on the DVD release.

"It would be great of Paramount were interested in doing something, because my documentary shows the reality behind the fictional world you see in the Kite Runner."

Captions & Event Info

Photo Caption: Bo Kata premieres at the DCA at 8.30pm tonight and runs every evening (times vary) until next Thursday. For more information visit www.dca.org.uk

- Jack McKeown, The Courier

Press Article by Roughcuts Magazine, Feb-Mar, 2007 News Article: Bo Kata Film Premiere.

DCA gets 'hacked', Feb-Mar 2007

DCA gets 'hacked'

Friday 9 February - Thursday 15 February

Bo Kata, the latest and much anticipated film project from award winning Dundee born creative producer Shehzad Afzal, which recently screened at Bite the Mango 2006 World Cinema Film Festival, Bradford, to much critical acclaim, has been selected by Dundee Contemporary Arts Cinema for a week long special screening, premiering on 9 February, through to 15 February.

'Bo Kata', loosely translated in English means 'hacked'! That is the victory battle cry when kites are eliminated in raging sky duels, sometimes lasting hours.

Filmed entirely in Lahore, Pakistan, Bo Kata is a rare cinematic documentary treat, depicting uniquely the rooftop kite flyers of Lahore, who have been a traditional part of Pakistan's culture and heritage that has lasted for over 400 years. Their sport is now under threat from a complete ban, after a series of tragic fatalities involving children, and motorcyclists, resulting in decapitations and dismemberment, from illegal chemically coated strings used to fly the kites.

This documentary highlights the impact the ban will have on a population that is associated with the mysterious art of kite flying.

Bo Kata, features a specially commissioned soundtrack, composed by John Walden, one of UK's leading musical talents.

- Roughcuts Magazine, Feb-Mar, 2007

Press Article by Perthshire Advertiser:

Big County film-maker's award, May 26, 2009

Link to Perthshire Advertiser Full News Article, 26-05-2009, by Johnathon Menzies.

"ONE of the most promising film-makers in Perthshire has had his potential recognised after scooping a prestigious award. Shehzad Afzal, who lives in Alyth, was recently named as one of the 25 “Trailblazers of 2009” by Hannah McGill, artistic director of Edinburgh International Film Festival, at a ceremony in Cannes. Shehzad, who is graduating from the Edinburgh Skillset Screen and Media Academy this year, described his inclusion on the exclusive list as a “real honour”.

He said: “This scheme has gone on to produce some fine film-makers who have developed formidable careers in the industry in a short space of time. “The programme has been a champion for the development of new creative talents and I have to thank them for selecting me. “Film-making is essentially a gregarious business, which can often appear to be difficult to break in to. “But you only have to see the quality of the films those at the Skillset Academy are creating to see how important it is,” he said.

Big-screen veteran, and former Dr Who star, Douglas MacKinnon described Shehzad’s last film, Bo Kata, as: “a beautifully made film with atmospheric music”. The British Film Institute, along with the British Council – in association with the Satyajit Ray Film Foundation – agreed, nominating Bo Kata for best film."

- Johnathon Menzies, Perthshire Advertiser

Press Article by Express Tribune:

Kites in the sky, stories on screen: Basant in Punjabi cinema and music, February 09, 2026

How Lahore’s iconic kite festival lives on through films and music, preserving its colours and memories

Link to Express Tribune Full News Article, 09-02-2026, by Express Tribune.

"Even when kite flying largely disappeared from public life, the festival’s emotional and sensory legacy endured. Pakistan’s music, cinema and popular imagery preserved its memory, keeping alive a tradition Punjabis continue to hold close to their hearts.

Punjabi cinema has approached Basant not merely as a spectacle, but as a lived cultural experience woven into everyday life. Bo Kata (2007), directed by Shehzad Afzal, is a documentary set during Lahore’s Basant Kite Festival. It vividly captures rooftop battles and the distinctive kite-flying culture that once defined the city.

The film’s atmospheric landscape mirrors the rhythm of competition and celebration within the community. Scenes of kite sellers and makers preparing colourful patangs and winding dor (strings) highlight the economic ecosystem surrounding the festival.

A soundtrack by John Walden enhances the lightness and energy of skies filled with kites, reinforcing how sound shapes the feeling of Basant. Filmed during a period when Basant was gradually being banned, the documentary also includes footage of public debates and rising political and safety concerns, foreshadowing the festival’s suspension that would last more than two decades."

- tribune.com.pk

Press Article by Pakeez.com:

Basant in Punjabi Cinema and Music: Preserving Lahore’s Kite Festival Through Art, February 10, 2026

Link to Pakeez.com Full News Article, 10-02-2026, by Pakeez.com.

"Even as kite flying faded from public life due to safety concerns and restrictions, Basant’s emotional and cultural imprint remained. Cinema, music, and popular imagery have continued to celebrate its spirit, keeping the festival alive in collective memory.

Punjabi filmmakers have explored Basant as more than a visual event, presenting it as a lived experience embedded in daily life. Bo Kata (2007), a documentary set during Lahore’s kite festival, captures the city’s rooftop competitions and the intricate craft of kite making.

The film highlights the economic and social dynamics surrounding the festival, from artisans preparing colorful patangs to communities winding dor, the specialized kite strings. Its soundtrack adds rhythm to the airborne celebration, reinforcing the festival’s energetic atmosphere.

Created during a period when Basant faced growing restrictions, the documentary also reflects public debates and safety concerns that eventually led to a suspension lasting more than twenty years."

- Pakeez.com

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Portobello Film Festival 2006 (London) - Film Screening of Bo Kata 30min Version:

Portobello Film Festival 2006, August 13, 2006

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Bite The Mango 2006 (Bradford) - Screening of Bo Kata 30min Version:

Bite The Mango Film Festival 2006, September 23, 2006

Film Festival & Theatrical Release Coverage - Dundee DCA Cinema 2007 (Dundee) - Film Premiere Screening of Bo Kata with filmmaker Shehzad Afzal:

Dundee DCA Cinema, February 9, 2007