The Rock Star and the Mullahs

A public ban on music gradually takes an effect in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, after a radical alliance of right-wing religious parties gain power in local elections the previous year.

Several music and film stores are closed, musicians have been harassed and vigilantes routinely tear down posters and torch tapes, decrying them as "un-Islamic".

Salman Ahmad is mobbed by men who ask for his autograph and then start singing the tune with which his band hit the big time - "Jazba-e-Junoon".

As the film proceeds, Ahmad also meet the maverick preacher, Maulana Bijli, a critic of Western powers, weak Muslim governments and pop music.

Ahmad sees the ban on music as part of his battle between Islamic extremists like those who rule the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province and "moderate modernists" such as himself.