New documentary on Pakistan's 'Disco Deewane' girl

A documentary on Pakistan's original pop diva Nazia Hassan, who won the hearts of millions across the subcontinent in the 1980s with her ditties, was screened at a film festival in Karachi over the weekend.

Titled A Music Fairy: A Tribute to Nazia Hassan, the 44-minute film in Urdu was screened at the Kara Film Festival, Pakistan's biggest cinema festival. The film was made by Ahmad Haseeb, who directed rock group Junoon's music video Roh ki Pyass Clips of Hassan's most iconic music videos Disco Deewane, Dosti, Tali De Thalayand Tum Meray Ho have been interspersed with rare interviews, recordings of her phone conversations with her brother Zoheb Hassan, television appearances and interviews with her friends, family and individuals who saw her grow as a musician.

Hassan's musical adventure began when she met British-Indian composer Biddu in London, where she grew up and was introduced to Bollywood filmmaker Feroz Khan who was making Qurbani at the time.

The hit song Aap Jaisa Koi Meri Zindagi Main Aye from Qurbani first catapulted Hassan to fame. An upbeat blend of the East and West that is still played at clubs, the song was recorded in England when she was only 13.

The documentary film starts off with Hassan's first interview on Pakistan Television and ends with her funeral. It includes details like Hassan bagging a Filmfare Award when she was just 16 and the singer's original desire for"Aap Jaisa Koi" to be a duet with her brother Zoheb.

In one sequence, Zoheb talks about their first trip to India."We heard that the song had done well but it was only when we came to India, where there were 40,000-50,000 people, that we realised that this was huge," he said.

Biddu, who introduced Hassan, called her the first Asian pop star:" There were folk singers and classical singers but there was no pop star who was young and doing music that catered to the youth. Nazia opened the floodgates to pop music. She was the first Asian pop star."

In one of her interviews featured in the film, Hassan talks about people dismissing"Aap Jaisa Koi." as a fluke." People thought that it was a fluke. Pop music is huge in the West but in India and Pakistan, we didn't have that," said Hassan, who also recorded a duet with Kishore Kumar.

In an interview in 1999, Hassan, who had been diagnosed with cancer by then, said she didn't think it was time for her to die. She also confided to a friend that her marriage was not a happy one.

"Her arranged marriage was a mismatch from the start. Nazia didn't want her private life to become public. For a long time, she didn't say anything, not even to her mother because she was too proud. She was unhappy from the start," the friend said.

Hassan, who had a thin voice with a nasal twang, tied up with her younger brother Zoheb and produced three albums, all of which were big hits. In her later years, Hassan sang about issues such as drugs that had plagued millions of youth worldwide.

She also sang for another Bollywood hit," Disco Deewanee", in 1981. The brother-sister duo released their first album" Young Tarang" in Pakistan in the 1980s. Their last album" Camera Camera" was released in the early 1990s. In the same decade, Biddu remixed some of her tracks with new beats and put them on TV music channels.

Hassan, who had a law degree from London University, did a short stint as a political analyst for the UN in the US. But she had to give up her job because of her illness. In 2003, her parents Muniza and Basir and brother Zoheb set up the Nazia Hassan Foundation, which works to promote harmony and peace amongst communities and encourages the fusion of values and ideas of the East and West