KARACHI, Pakistan — Award-winning filmmaker Khalid Hasan Khan has unveiled the teaser for his upcoming anti-war short film 'Fury on the Shortwave', a deeply atmospheric and thought-provoking work that examines war not through visuals of battle, but through the invisible yet powerful medium of sound.
With the striking tagline “War Amplified, Hunger Intensified,” the film presents a world where conflict seeps into everyday life not just through weapons, but through voices, signals and the relentless noise of information.
At its heart is a performance by veteran television artist Wali Sheikh, who portrays a man stranded in a city crippled by power outages and fuel shortages. In the darkness, he turns to an old shortwave radio he once brought back from a safari trip in Africa. What begins as a search for connection becomes an unsettling journey through fragmented realities.
Through the radio, he encounters a Peace Radio echoing fading yet resilient calls for humanity and coexistence; a financial channel coldly tracking market instability amid the conflict; and, most intriguingly, an AI-driven radio that delivers contradictory and disorienting responses — at times advocating peace, at others rationalizing war.
The AI radio becomes a central philosophical force, openly sharing the prompts it receives during an escalating regional conflict with global repercussions. Its shifting stance reflects the confusion of a world where even intelligence is shaped by chaos, bias and competing narratives.
The film’s dialogue is sharp, poetic and unsettling. Lines such as “The noise of war cannot silence peace” and “Humanity has to stop war, or wars will end humanity” serve as warnings, resonating against a backdrop of static, interference and emotional collapse.
'Fury on the Shortwave' explores how war today is no longer confined to physical battlegrounds. It is transmitted, amplified and internalized, turning minds into contested spaces and highlighting the psychological toll of conflict.
About the filmmaker: Khalid Hasan Khan is an internationally recognized filmmaker known for experimental storytelling and socially conscious narratives. A producing graduate of the New York Film Academy, his films have screened more than 100 times internationally and earned 26 awards.
