UKAFF: The Collaborator
02 May 2025
- Directed by Travis Hodgkins
- 124 mins
- Cert 15
This event is part of the UK Asian Film Festival 2025
The Collaborator is a coming-of-age story about a boy growing up during the height of the war over Kashmir. In the early 1990s, young men in villages all over Kashmir are disappearing. Fearing that they are being recruited to become freedom fighters in the war to free Kashmir from India, the Indian army occupies the villages. The boy is forced by an Indian army officer to perform a grim task, to go into the valley where the war is being fought and collect ID cards from the dead, and the boy fears each day that he will find one of his missing friends lying amongst the dead.
Based on the critically acclaimed novel by Mirza Waheed.
The screening will be followed by a post-show Q&A with members of the cast.
UK Asian Film Festival
UK Asian Film Festival – the world’s longest running South Asian film festival – returns this May for its 27th edition.
UK Asian Film Festival has long been a champion of South Asian female-centric cinema and women in film, both on and off-screen. Each year, its programmes challenge patriarchal norms, spark critical conversations, and drive its mission to advocate for gender equality in the film industry.
This year’s theme of ‘Longing and Belonging’ will celebrate films that explore one of the most profound human experiences – the search for connection, identity and purpose. In every corner of the world, people grapple with feelings of longing – the ache for love, the pull of home, the need for acceptance and the pursuit of meaning. Through the lens of cinema, these universal desires come to life in stories of displaced immigrants, journeys of self-discovery, quests for love and the tension between tradition and modernity.
As society moves forward, cinema remains a powerful tool for change – one that sparks conversations, amplifies voices and builds empathy.