LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: In the heart of Lahore, behind the city’s glittering façade, lies a reality marked by adversity and aspiration. Kids Fight, a decade‑in‑the‑making documentary, brings this world into sharp focus, following street kids from one of Lahore’s most marginalized neighbourhoods as they confront the relentless pressures of life with determination and grit.
Kids Fight, the documentary that examines the lives of street children through the discipline of mixed martial arts, screened to packed houses at Alliance Française Lahore on January 15th and at Alliance Française Islamabad on January 28th, marking a powerful homecoming for the film.
Both screenings were met with full audiences and extended post-screening discussions, underscoring the film’s emotional impact and its relevance to contemporary conversations around class, systemic neglect, resilience through sports and social mobility in Pakistan.
Set inside an MMA gym in Lahore, Kids Fight follows a group of boys for whom fighting is not merely sport, but survival. Through intimate access and unflinching observation, the film captures how discipline, mentorship, and brotherhood offer a fragile sense of structure in lives shaped by instability and systemic failure.
The post-screening Q&A sessions featured director Sarah Tareen, producer Izmerai Durrani, and editor Abubakar Khalil, and quickly evolved into wide-ranging conversations with the audience. Discussions touched on the responsibility of representation and the systemic gaps that leave vulnerable youth without protection or support and in search for an identity.
Reflecting on the response from local audiences, director Sarah Tareen emphasized the importance of bringing the film home:
“This film was always meant to come back home,” Tareen said. “These boys’ stories are rooted in our streets, our silences, and our contradictions. To see Pakistani audiences engage so deeply to argue, question, and sit with discomfort means the film is doing what it was meant to do.”
Tareen also stressed that Kids Fight avoids simple narratives of redemption:
“This isn’t a story about heroes or miracles,” she added. “It’s about what happens when children are left to negotiate adulthood far too early and how fighting for survival becomes a language when everything else is taken away.”
The Alliance Française screenings drew a diverse cross-section of viewers, including students, cultural practitioners, filmmakers, policy makers, diplomatic dignitaries and general audiences. Many attendees noted how rarely stories of this nature appear in mainstream Pakistani cinema, highlighting the role of documentary film in expanding the country’s cultural and social imagination and responsibility.
Producer Izmerai Durrani spoke about the responsibility behind bringing the film to audiences at home. “For us, it was important that Kids Fight be seen first and foremost by Pakistani audiences,” he said. “These stories are often consumed abroad before they are acknowledged locally. The response in Lahore and Islamabad shows there is a real hunger here for films that engage honestly with our social realities.”
While Kids Fight has already garnered international acclaim through its world premiere at UKAFF 2025 in London and its presentation at the Children and the Media panel at ABU-RAI Days 2025 in Naples, Italy, its reception in Lahore and Islamabad revealed something equally significant: a strong domestic appetite for urgent, socially engaged storytelling.
As the final discussions wrapped up, one thing was clear. Kids Fight has struck a nerve, not because it offers solutions, but because it refuses to look away, insisting that lives too often rendered invisible be seen and heard.
Further screenings and discussions are planned as Kids Fight continues its journey across Pakistan and the globe.
