Festivals

Staire fest

Started in 2019, the Satire Fest is our newest addition to the different festivals IRC organizes annually. The concept behind Satire Fest is to bring together Pakistan’s most preeminent editorial cartoonists and artists from traditional and novel art branches. The themes of the festival revolve around concepts such as the role of art as a medium of transformation, adapting to the new age of digital media, the often forgotten yet significant role of the artist in a society and devising ways of survival for an artist in a rapidly changing country. The festival also provides a platform for the artists to showcase their work such as paintings, sketches, visual illustrations and cartoons.  The art exhibitions are held at the Maati Gallery, and are open to public viewing.

vasakh film festival

Vasakh Documentary Film Festival is a platform that uses the didactic tool of documentary filmmaking to engage and interact with the youth on issues prominent in our modern society, as well as present an alternative outlook of Pakistan that the mass media is unable to represent.

Vasakh Film Festival showcases local and foreign documentary films on themes including but not limited to themes such as human rights, equal citizenship, gender equality and religious tolerance. It also provides an opportunity to the aspiring documentary filmmakers to exclusively showcase their work, and network with their contemporary filmmakers from around the world.

IRC organized the first edition of the Vasakh Documentary Film Festival in 2008. Over the last thirteen years, Vasakh has been successful in establishing itself as a safe space where critical thinking, voicing opinion and engaging through dialogue is encouraged for the promotion of a sensitized and critical mass of youth.

interactive theatre

Interactive Theatre Festival is an annual event organized by Interactive Resource Centre since the year 2000. It is a multi-day event which encompasses various community theatre performances on themes of interfaith harmony, fundamental human rights, civic engagement, democracy, bonded labor, gender based violence, countering violent extremism, safe drinking water  amongst others. The performers in the theatre plays are all non-actors, and are mostly members of the local communities, activists, students, teachers and youth.

IRC has been a pioneer of interactive/forum theatre in Pakistan. This is a unique form of community theatre originally developed by Brazilian dramatist Augusto Boal based on the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ developed by educator Paulo Freire.  Over the course of 21 years, IRC has developed over 250 theatre groups all over the country and conducted more than 3000 performances in 13 different languages and has an active network of theatre groups in 80 districts of Pakistan. It has worked on a variety of themes such as

The founder, director and lead trainer of IRC, Mr Muhammad Waseem was the founding member of both Ajoka and Lok Virsa, the leading theatre companies in Pakistan, and is the only Pakistani to have been directly trained by Augusto Boal. Our particular brand of forum/interactive theatre has been widely recognized by the Government of Pakistan as well as IGO’s as a significant tool for advocacy and awareness.