Film director Abu Aleeha has revealed on Ahmed Ali Butt’s show Excuse Me that he ran away from home at the age of 13 and travelled to Lahore in pursuit of his dream of making films – sharing the incident publicly for the first time.
Abu Aleeha, known for directing and writing Mera Lyari, made the revelation when Ahmed Ali Butt asked him about the biggest mistake he made in life.
“The mistake is that I came late to this industry,” the director said, adding that his desire to make films had always been deep-rooted.
He said that after running away from home, he made his way to Lahore and ended up at the gate of a film studio. Workers from a nearby orphanage picked him up when they found him without any identification. They tracked down his father, who came there and took him back home.
“I wish I had come earlier,” he said.
Abu Aleeha made his directorial debut with the 2019 film Kataksha and has since built one of the more prolific filmographies in Pakistani cinema. His credits include Javed Iqbal: The Untold Story of a Serial Killer, Taxali Gate, Kataksha, Dadal, Sheenogai, Tevar, Udham Patakh, Shotcut and Super Punjabi.
His latest film Mera Lyari, a sports drama centred on two young women chasing their football dreams in Karachi’s Lyari neighbourhood, was shot on location with a predominantly local cast with 80 percent of the cast, including supporting actors and members of local football teams, being actual Lyari residents.
