A week after the Academy Awards concluded, without even a nomination from Pakistan, it's time to look back at the nation's last submission two years ago.
The Glassworker (2024) was Pakistan's official entry for the 97th Academy Awards. The film was named to the eligibility list for Best Animated Feature in 2024, alongside giants like Pixar and DreamWorks. It did not, however, receive a nomination.
Directed by Usman Riaz, the film itself remains a hallmark for Pakistan's animation industry, as it is the first 2D hand-drawn animation film with compelling themes. It marks a significant leap for the country's animation industry on the global stage.
The Glassworker follows the story of two characters, Vincent and Alliz, from childhood to adulthood with the backdrop of impending war. Vincent is a coming-of-age and aspiring glassblower whose father, Tomas, lives in the fictional coastal town of Waterfront. Alliz is a talented violinist and the daughter of a military colonel.
The two form a close bond and make their way to a world full of distress despite the growing threat of war that directly affects their relationship. It was a story full of themes of love and going on, even if life gets tough. It was a story that Riaz grew up watching and was always moved by the thought of keeping innocence alive in a struggling world.
In a conversation with Deadline, Usman Riaz noted: "I love the craft of 2D animation, specifically hand-drawn animation...and I've been on this journey for 10 years with the singular purpose of making The Glassworker."
He initially thought about pursuing music and even made his way to a TED Talk, becoming the youngest TED fellow ever. While he was there, he saw countless opportunities to make something happen in his own country that had never been done before.
This gave him the motivation to start his own animation studio, Pakistan's first-ever 2D animation studio, Mano Animation Studios. There, he worked relentlessly to shape the hand-drawn animation style into the film that was later submitted for Academy Award consideration. The Ghibli-style animation film was dubbed into several languages to reach the audience it deserved. He incorporated the aesthetics of his favorite animators: Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Walt Disney. He studied them closely and merged their styles into his own creation.
While having achieved a monumental milestone that no other Pakistani animation flick had ever been able to achieve and having screened at major festivals like Annecy and Cannes, the film gained a modest box-office performance. Against the budget of $116,000, the film earned approximately $1.1 million domestically after its release in July 2024, per the Fandom page for The Glassworker.
It could be safely said that its international recognition overshadowed its local financial results. It is a film that took nearly a decade to make with a collection of hundreds and thousands of hand-drawn frames at a time when trained animators, funding pipelines, and production infrastructures were absent. The project officially proved that an animated feature can actually be made when live-action cinema was entirely dominating.
It was a clear shift from 3D/CGI films like 3 Bahadur (2015) to hand-drawn films, as it suggested that such films are now viable, offering a new, artistic path for local filmmakers. The film served up a spectrum of optimism that creative freedom will not be limited when surrounded by regional issues like high taxation, lack of local hardware accessibility, and strict censorship.
Animation, once contributed to be outdated, has now empowered local creators to produce timeless, high-quality content for advertising, education, and entertainment with low overhead costs as compared to CGI, fostering a growing niche for indie talent. The art style has now become an ideal and budget-friendly option for startups that want engaging storytelling within confined budgets.
The film's real strike lies in how it has pushed investors, studios, and young artists to seriously consider animation's future in the region. In a country where large-scale animation has long been constrained by multiple factors, it raises difficult but essential questions: how can studios sustain long production cycles with tight budgets?
Investors are now compelled to re-evaluate risk and return in a space that demands patience but offers long-term creative and commercial potential. Graduation universities might be pondering over future prospects for students who want to learn this craft, and advertising agencies might be toying with the idea of adopting hybrid techniques, exploring co-productivity, and leveraging digital distribution platforms for emerging artists.
Though its box office was modest, the film positioned Pakistan on the global animation map. It highlights how sustained effort over a decade or more can produce something meaningful, particularly in an industry that was once nonexistent locally.
Echoes is an opinion column on film and television from the perspective of a writer based in Pakistan.