A gritty, self-financed Pakistani film, ‘Jujji,’ based on the true story of a serial killer, has successfully bypassed traditional cinema distribution hurdles to make its global premiere on the international streaming platform, Amazon Prime Video.
The film became available to stream in the United States and the United Kingdom starting November 21.
The film’s director, Habib Shahzad, confirmed to Independent Urdu that he and his small team produced the film entirely through self-funding, without the backing of a major studio or television channel.
Shahzad revealed that ‘Jujji’ is inspired by a real-life incident in Rawalpindi involving a “malshi” (masseur) who murdered his clients while giving them massages.
“When police began finding the bodies, they initially had no leads. They couldn’t understand what was happening,” Shahzad explained. “But they investigated with great ingenuity and apprehended him very quickly.”
Shahzad was captivated by two aspects of the story: the killer’s unique way of killing and the subsequent swift and intelligent police investigation. “When I read this story, both these facets seemed incredibly interesting, and we decided it had to be made into a film,” he said.
The film was completed in 2023 but faced rejection from local Pakistani distributors, who cited the absence of any major celebrity star as the reason for refusing to screen it in local cinemas.
Undeterred, Habib Shahzad began marketing the film in Hollywood. His efforts paid off when the US-based studio ‘Buffalo 8’ agreed to acquire the film for distribution.
The director expressed the surprise of international distributors: “When we started sending the film abroad, they were quite astonished that such a high-quality serial killer film could emerge from South Asia, especially from Pakistan.”
Shahzad is confident in his work, asserting that the film is capable of competing with any crime thriller made globally in terms of quality.
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‘Jujji’ stars Mustafa Rizvi, Anjum Habibi, and Muhammad Arslan, with Habib Shahzad handling both the direction and production.
Following its initial release in the US and UK, the film is scheduled for a worldwide release, including in Pakistan, in January.
