Punjabi Film Mango Jutt Opens in Cinemas Worldwide Today as Hareem Farooq Says It Belongs to All of Pakistan

Actor and producer Hareem Farooq’s Punjabi film Mango Jutt opens today, October 16, in cinemas across Pakistan and in the UK, the US, the UAE and Canada. Opposite her, Faysal Quraishi plays Murad Jutt, a strict police officer with a stubborn streak of honesty. Farooq herself plays Noor Jehan, a character she describes as a quintessential Punjabi Jutti. The release is the day the film’s long promotional run — music launch in Karachi, university visits, advance bookings — has been building towards.

A ten-year ambition

Farooq says a Punjabi film had been on her mind for at least a decade. What she wanted, in her telling, was a Punjab people could take pride in on screen, and a break from the old reputation that kept Punjabi films from being treated as family viewing — particularly through the 1990s and early 2000s, when many were criticised for content families could not comfortably watch together. At the Karachi music launch she kept returning to the same point: the film is for all of Pakistan, and its language should not be treated as a limit on who it is for. Mango Jutt was produced under her own banner, Hameem Films.

Action, comedy and a family story

The film mixes action, comedy, romance and drama. Murad Jutt steps in to protect a family from a dangerous former partner, and the central romance grows out of that conflict — a romance Quraishi has said was deliberately kept in a register families can watch together. The cast also includes Shamoon Abbasi, Qaiser Piya, Ayesha Jahanzeb and Honey Albela. Ahead of the release, Mahira Khan posted her support for the team on social media and urged audiences to book early. Farooq, for her part, credits a cast and crew who worked through punishing heat and cold, and says simply getting the film to cinemas already feels like a success.