Sarmad Khoosat: The Complete Auteur

Sarmad Khoosat has spent his career refusing to stay in one lane. He directed two of the most famous dramas ever made in Pakistan, played a national literary icon on film, wrote and produced his own work, and remains one of the most respected filmmakers in South Asia.

Quick facts

• Born: 7 May 1979
• Profession: Director, actor, producer, screenwriter
• Known for: Humsafar, Shehr-e-Zaat, Manto, Zindagi Tamasha

The director of the moment, twice

Khoosat directed Humsafar (2011) and Shehr-e-Zaat (2012), the two serials that shaped a generation of Pakistani television and turned the dramas of that era into national phenomena. Very few directors can claim to have made the two shows everyone else is measured against.

Acting and Manto

In front of the camera he is just as fearless. His performance as the writer Saadat Hasan Manto in the 2015 film Manto, which he also directed, is among the most praised Pakistani film performances of the decade, and he has since appeared as an actor for other directors as well.

Zindagi Tamasha

His 2019 film Zindagi Tamasha was selected as Pakistan's entry for the Best International Feature at the Academy Awards, taking his work to the world's biggest platform. The film's journey to release was complicated, but its maker's reputation only grew.

Why he endures

Khoosat is the rare Pakistani artist equally at home in television, film and theatre, and he treats all three with the same seriousness. He is considered one of the finest filmmakers of his generation, and he is constitutionally unable to do the same thing twice.

Every project with his name on it is still an event.