Nabeel Qureshi (director)


Nabeel Qureshi is a Pakistani film director, screenwriter and occasional singer best known for making movies that tackle socio economic issues in a thought provoking yet light hearted manner. Nabeel uses a unique style incorporated in his realistic stories, which in turn has gained a lot of critical acclaim. He made waves in Pakistani cinema with his debut feature film, Na Maloom Afraad, where he won an award for best film director following up with his critical acclaimed and his biggest box office hit till date Actor in Law, for which he again won an award for best director. His films topics probe the society to think about topics that are considered unimportant and don't matter in the system.

Early life

Qureshi was born in 1985 in Sukkur, Sindh and moved to Karachi in 2004. he started his career from AAJ TV, where directed promos, after one year he left the job and started studying theatre at National Academy of Performing Arts and was dropped out because of some issues with the faculty in 2006.

Career

Qureshi started his career in mid-2000s by directing ads, cooking shows, television shows and television films.
Qureshi is also the director of comedy news show Banana News Network, which is being aired on Geo TV since 2011, it broadcasts every Wednesdays at 11:05 PM.
In 2012, Qureshi directed the music video of Mohsin Abbas Haider's debut song Beparwah Dhola.
In 2014, Qureshi made his directorial debut with Na Maloom Afraad, which he co-wrote with his college friend Fizza Ali Meerza, who produced the film along with Mehdi Ali through her Filmwala Pictures. The comedy thriller stars Fahad Mustafa, Mohsin Abbas Haider, and Urwa Hocane, released domestically on October 6, 2014 by Hum Films. The film became the box office hit in Pakistan and grossed ₨12.2 crore until March 2015, with a budget of ₨9 crore. At the 14th Lux Style Awards, Na Maloom Afraad won the Best Film award, Nabeel went on to win the Lux Style Award for Best Director and Best Original Soundtrack for the lyrics of "Billi" for his film Na Maloom Afraad, which he shared with Meerza.
In January 2015, Qureshi revealed that he and his writing partner Meerza were working on another project, later named Actor in Law which would be a social satire. The first spell of the film was shot in Karachi in January 2016. The film was released on the occasion of Eid al-Adha on September 9, 2016 to good response from the audience and went on to collect at the box office.
After the success of Na Maloom Afraad, the director-producer duo started thinking about a possible sequel of the film, and producer Fizza Ali Meerza said after nine months of the success of NMA, in an interview with The Express Tribune that, "We'd hopefully like to start working on a NMA sequel, but don't have a timeline in mind at present,". "We don't know if it's going to be a proper sequel or a spiritual successor through which we'll tell a different story this time". Filming began in March 2017 in Karachi, where few scenes were shot. while nearly the whole film was shot in Cape Town, South Africa. The film released on the festival of Eid al-Adha, 2 September 2017 in Pakistan and worldwide. The film collected at the box office.
Later on he directed and co-wrote the social-comedy drama film Load Wedding, starring Fahad Mustafa and Mehwish Hayat: which had released on 2018 Eid al-Adha, and which earned critical acclaim as well worked in the box-office.

Filmography

Films

YearFilmDirectorWriterNotes
2014Na Maloom Afraad
2016Actor in LawSpecial appearance in title song "Actor in Law"
2017Na Maloom Afraad 2
2018Load Wedding
2020Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad Shoot is completed
2020Fatman

Frequent actor collaborations


Actors
Na Maloom Afraad

Actor in Law

Na Maloom Afraad 2

Load Wedding

Total
Fahad Mustafa4
Mehwish Hayat3
Jawed Sheikh2
Mohsin Abbas Haider3
Hania Amir2
Urwa Hocane2
Nayyar Ejaz3
Irfan Motiwala2
Ashhad siddiqui3
Noor ul Hasan2

Television

TV

Singles