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The Nobles
TYPE: Documentary Feature
GENRE: Documentary
STATUS: Post-Production
LOGLINE
In Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the khwaja sera and trans communities, led by activist Bubbly Malk, build a thriving cafe at a local university, fostering exchange and connection over shared meals. When their economic lifeline is threatened and the cafe is forced to close, the community must find new pathways for survival and connection.
SYNOPSIS
Three Pakistani trans women have built and fostered a thriving community running a cafeteria for an arts school outside Islamabad. But when the cafeteria is forced to close, they set out to rebuild their lives, find security, and search for love while reckoning with their past and present in a country with a complex and unexplored relationship to the 'third gender’.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
As a Pakistani-American and Muslim filmmaker, I use my work as a way to make the community and culture I’m from visible. Records depicting most marginalized communities — whether in film or any other medium — either don't exist, or they’ve been created and manipulated by colonizers or others in power. These actions are what have historically excluded people like myself from carving out a space for ourselves not just within the documentary filmmaking landscape, but within the arts in general.
Because many of our stories have not been archived, or have been destroyed, I want my filmmaking to be a practice of resuscitation—of our present, our historical memory, and our lived experiences. I see this as an act of resistance against cultural destruction. This project has been both challenging and evolving my creative practice because not only is it my first feature, but it is the first film I ever started shooting. It holds a very nuanced place in my heart because as the years have gone on, my artistic practice has shifted and the lens with which I view the material has also changed.
Every artist must navigate between their artistic integrity and the consequences of breaking the mold. I feel that the risk is even higher for filmmakers from marginalized communities: the consequences are more severe, and the mold more rigid. Often, when you’re trying to make a film about your community, you’re expected to tell the story in a certain way, but the conventions that exist for that kind of story weren’t created by your community. This film embodies contradictions because it deals with subject matter that is inherently political, but the material is not totally oriented toward that kind of storytelling. In short, I want this film to be about joy and community.
KEY CREW
Khaula Malik - Director / Producer
Khaula Malik is an award-winning Pakistani-American filmmaker and artist. She is a 2022-23 HBO/Gotham Documentary Development Initiative Fellow where she's developing original ideas under the mentorship of HBO. Her first film How the Air Feels premiered at AFI Docs, won the National Board of Review Student Grant Award, and the Special Jury Award at the Sharjah Film Platform. Her latest film, There Was Nobody Here We Knew, won best short doc at Fayetteville Film Festival and Virginia Film Festival. It was acquired by PBS-REEL SOUTH and is now streaming online. She is currently in post-production on her first feature doc which has been supported by DOCNYC and the Catapult/True False Rough Cut Retreat. She most recently co-produced Apple TV+'s GIRLS STATE, a sequel to the Sundance and Emmy award-winning BOYS STATE. She is a graduate of the MFA program at the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and a program advisor for the True/False Film Festival.
Brit Fryer - Producer
Brit is a Brooklyn-based, queer and trans filmmaker, originally from Chicago’s South Side. He co-directed THE SCRIPT, which premiered at the 2023 CPH:DOX, and he directed CARO COMES OUT, which premiered on HBO Max after winning the Miami Film Festival’s “Knight Made in MIA” Award. Other directing and producing credits include ACROSS, BEYOND, AND OVER; TRANS·IENCE; and Crystal Kayiza’s REST STOP, winner of the 2023 Short Film Jury Award for U.S. Fiction at Sundance. He is grateful to have been supported by the Sundance Ignite Fellowship, Creative Culture, GLAAD, and HBO/Gotham's Documentary Development Initiative.
Fahd Ahmed - Editor
Fahd Ahmed is a British/Pakistani editor and producer based in London. He is the founder and creative director of Studio Amorem. He has edited for the BBC and BFI and was a story editor on the PBS-funded 3-part docuseries, A Town Called Victoria. He has been an editing fellow in the Gotham Edit Lab, Close-Up Initiative Edit Lab as well as the Sundance Story and Edit Lab. He was the producer on the leading multi-series Arab Ramadan show, Kannak Tarah. Recently, he co-produced and edited the feature documentary - Q (Jude Chehab, 2023.) Q has been awarded the Albert Maysles Award.
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