Ahmed Sarym on storytelling, journalism, and filmmaking in Pakistan

How a school-age film fan became a journalist

In this conversation, Muzamil sits down with Ahmed Sarym, a Pakistani journalist, storyteller, and filmmaker who began writing about film while still in school. The episode opens with Ahmed tracing how his interest in cinema started at home, where films were a regular subject of family discussion. Watching movies and then dissecting them with family members was, for Ahmed, the beginning of a critical sensibility - long before he thought of it as journalism.

Ahmed describes attending a film premiere as a young person and finding himself standing near the filmmakers and cast in the same space. That proximity to the industry, he explains, made the world of film feel reachable rather than distant. It was at one such event that he had a brief, informal exchange with a director - he asked a few questions, got answers, and later posted the exchange on Facebook. That post, he says, was effectively his first interview.

Writing online before writing for publications

Ahmed Sarym tells Muzamil that his early writing life was almost entirely online. He started with short pieces - film responses, observations, informal reviews - posted to social media before he had any connection to a publication. The decision to write for an actual outlet came later, and it came from a simple realisation: if he was already writing, he might as well try to place that writing somewhere it would reach more people.

He describes approaching publications and being persistent about it. The process was not straightforward. Ahmed is candid that getting taken seriously as a young writer required repeated attempts and a willingness to be ignored before being heard. Eventually he began writing for outlets including The Express Tribune, and later Dawn Images and The News International - publications that gave his work a formal platform and a wider readership.

Muzamil notes the significance of that trajectory: starting with a Facebook page and ending up in some of Pakistan’s most prominent English-language media. Ahmed’s response is matter-of-fact - he did not wait for permission or for the right credentials. He simply started, and kept going.

The ethics of entertainment journalism

Later in the discussion, Ahmed Sarym raises a question that clearly matters to him: what is entertainment journalism actually for? He draws a line between two kinds of stories. One kind brings something genuinely in the public interest to the surface - it connects people to a wider issue, or gives a platform to a voice that would otherwise go unheard. The other kind uses a public figure’s personal life as material for entertainment without any real justification.

“Are you going into someone’s personal life and making a joke of it,” Ahmed asks, “or are you making news itself into a joke?” The distinction, for him, is not always obvious, but it is always worth asking. He is particularly attentive to stories involving people who are already vulnerable - where the act of reporting can cause harm rather than serve any public purpose.

This ethical awareness, he suggests, came from experience rather than from formal training. Writing about the entertainment industry meant encountering situations where the easy story and the right story were not the same thing.

Finding a role in society as a storyteller

Muzamil pushes Ahmed on the question of what storytelling is actually doing in a society like Pakistan’s. Ahmed’s answer is direct: he sees his work as a way of connecting people whose experiences are not usually placed in the same frame. He describes a mental image he returns to - two women leaving their homes in the same city, one in a BMW and one in a rickshaw, both heading somewhere, both returning unsatisfied. The story, for him, is in what they share despite everything that separates them.

“I pick up things happening in society,” Ahmed says, “and I try to present them in a way that carries a message.” He is careful to add that this does not mean moralising or pushing a particular political line. The goal is to make people feel something, to create a moment of recognition. He references the idea that pop culture - film, television, online content - has the power to shift how a generation thinks, and that this power comes with a responsibility that many creators do not take seriously enough.

Ahmed Sarym is explicit that he does not see a clean separation between commercial work and meaningful work. The question, for him, is always whether the story on screen reflects something real about the society it comes from.

Making Midsummer Chaos with a small team

The conversation turns to Ahmed’s web series, which he filmed largely on location in public spaces with a very small crew. He describes the production as a genuinely personal project - made with close friends, self-financed, and built around stories he felt had not been told on screen in Pakistan.

The practical difficulties were considerable. Shooting in public areas meant negotiating with location owners, working around unpredictable schedules, and making decisions on the fly when plans fell through. Ahmed mentions that filming stretched over a long period, with editing continuing into early the following year before the first episode was ready. “It was a very, very personal project,” he says, and the constraints of self-financing shaped every decision.

Muzamil asks Ahmed what he learned from the process. Ahmed is honest that there are things he would do differently - camera angles he would reconsider, scenes he would approach with more time. But he is also clear that the experience of directing his first proper acting project, working through the full process of scripting, shooting, and editing, was something he could not have learned any other way.

On being young in Pakistan’s media landscape

By the end of the conversation, Muzamil and Ahmed return to the question of what it means to be a young person trying to build something in Pakistan’s creative industries. Ahmed’s view is that the school system and the broader environment are not designed to support this kind of ambition - but that this is not a reason to wait.

He describes a moment when someone told him that what he was trying to do was not possible. His response, he says, was to do it anyway and then say nothing about it publicly - just to have done it, for himself. “When someone told me it couldn’t be done,” Ahmed says, “I just thought: fine. And then I did it.”

Ahmed Sarym’s account across this episode is not one of smooth ascent. It is a story of starting small, being ignored, persisting, making things with limited resources, and finding that the work itself is the argument for continuing.