PHILANTHROPHY
Shortly before the devastating crash, Haris and his father spoke to GC about their round-the-world escapade. The teenager’s sense of adventure and generosity for others was infectious. “There is a part of everyone that craves discovery and adventure and we have chosen to live out this craving. Breaking out of the routine of day-to-day life requires bravery in more than one form,” Haris poignantly said at the time. For Hiba, the completion of the trip would have cemented her father and younger brother’s names in the history books. “Haris would have been the youngest pilot ever to circumnavigate the world,” she says. US-based co-director and co-producer Amina Chaudary says she was touched by the Sulemans’ story and contacted the family after the accident to offer her condolences. “I sent several condolence messages to Hiba. I urged her to consider documenting and recording everything,” she says. “Hiba invited me to Indiana on what was to be Haris’ 18th birthday and with my DSLR, I filmed the Sulemans putting birthday balloons on his headstone. That moment was touching and convinced me this story needed to be told in a formal documentary fashion.” Chaudary says everything happened “organically”. The filmmaker Beth Murphy, together with Hollywood actor and producer Faran Tahir, came onboard to help make the documentary a reality. The film crew travelled from Indiana to Pakistan, Egypt and Pago Pago in American Samoa to produce the documentary. “The film is very much about a search for meaning—not from understanding Babar and Haris’ death but from understanding the way they lived,” says Murphy. Hiba adds: “Our family is featured in the documentary as the team followed our attempts to recover my father’s body, retrace their steps around the world and come to terms with the accident and what resulted from it.
“I went to oversee a deep sea search for my father three months after the accident. We believed he was dead and that his remains were with the plane.” Haris’ body was found almost immediately after the crash, but Babar’s body is still missing. The crew and family, including Haris’ mother Cookie, Hiba and her eldest brother Cyrus, also attended a ceremony in President House in Islamabad, Pakistan, where the third highest civil award Sitara-e-Imtiaz was posthumously conferred upon the pair in March this year. The family also visited Sargodha in Pakistan, where Babar had spent a significant amount of time in the Pakistan Air Force Academy, where his love of flying first took hold. Chaudary says the Suleman family’s greatest contribution to the documentary was allowing them to accompany them to Pakistan. The documentary, paid for in part by community fundraisers, will be released globally on the anniversary of their death. “Ultimately, the idea is to take this film to places that were of great value to Haris and Babar. That includes showings in Plainfield, Indiana and Pakistan,” says Chaudary. “We hope this documentary will show the world Pakistanis are more than the dry, war-torn country you read about in the news. We hope it will show Muslims are more than the angry, violent terrorists seen on television,” says Hiba. She adds fame was neither her father’s nor Haris’ goal. “In giving their life for the cause of education in Pakistan, they have left behind a legacy and qualities to aspire to.” The documentary is just one of the many ways in which the Sulemans are remembered. Secondary schools were built by the TCF in their honour near Islamabad and Okara in Pakistan. There is also a scholarship in Haris’ name at Plainfield High School where he studied.
The remaining members of the Suleman family (L-R)- Mother Cookie, sister Hiba and brother Cyrus are continuing on their father and brother’s legacy by helping children in Pakistan’s poorest regions. 2015 JULY / AUGUST
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