It’s no surprise that J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, which was a global phenomenon, cast a magical spell on mesmerised fans for years to come.
Potterheads around the world bonded over mutual appreciation for the whimsical world Rowling created, and a bunch of Pakistanis weren’t far behind, going as far as making their own feature-length version under the banner of Khayali Productions.
Written by Waleed Akram and Umer Dar, The Last Follower and The Resurrection of Voldemort is a labour of love that was shot over the course of five months.
The story revolves around a group of friends many hundred years after the Great War, which happened in the last part of the Harry Potter series.
“Now there’s a new villain in town whose aim is to bring back the Dark Lord and for that, he wants Harry Potter’s wand,” explained Waleed.
Akram added that the movie was inspired by the British and gothic architecture of Government College University (GCU) in Lahore, the corridors and classrooms of which they thought resembled Hogwarts. The complementing costumes were sponsored by Digital Realm.
The cast includes all new faces such as Dar, Mariam Hassan Naqvi, Jazib Akram, Talha Chahour, Sheikh Mubashir, Dua Marium and Habib Chaudhry among others.
Surprisingly, the film was shot with only one camera, two lenses and the budget was sponsored by the actor’s own pocket moneys. Yet, despite being low on resources, the impressive production quality, and team’s commitment was lauded as each screening continued to be packed to its fullest.
“The crowd really loved the visual effects, sound effects, the cinematography but most of all, the production quality,” shared the team.
“The visual effects were the backbone of the project and took almost one and a half year to be finalised.”
Everything from editing, writing to the cinematography and direction was all done by Akram, while visual effects were handled by Zeeshan Hameed and rotoscoping artist was Huraira.
For now, the film will be screened across universities and colleges around town (most recently GCU of course) after which it will be uploaded onto YouTube for viewers across the world.
