'These Birds Walk' Documentary Draws Beautiful Portrait Of Pakistani Street Children And Their Samaritans

Omar fled his rural Pakistani home for the streets of the port city of Karachi, eventually ending up in a house for runaways. The boy is the star in "These Birds Walk," a new documentary about the struggle of Pakistani street children and their samaritans.

As the film is set to be released in New York, HuffPost Live's Ahmed Shihab-Eldin talked to the directors of "These Bird Walk," Bassem Tariq and Omar Mullick.

Young Omar's temporary home in Karachi is run by the Edhi foundation, a network of over 300 centers that provides social services for women, the elderly and orphans founded by Abdul Sattar Edhi, a well-known Pakistani philanthropist.

Often dubbed "Pakistan's Mother Theresa," Edhi is revered in the country. While his foundation provides many of the services Mother Theresa spearheaded in India's Calcutta, the directors of "These Birds Walk" do not entirely agree with the categorization. "I think that's really well-intentioned, but it maybe misses the mark a little bit," Mullick says. "Edhi's not missionary-based and the services that he provides serve the entire country proper," he adds.

While the movie sheds light on both the harrowing conditions in which many of Pakistan's poor live each and every day and the lack of government support for their situation, Tariq says he was surprised by the immense efforts many Pakistanis make to support their less-fortunate countrymen. "People are helping each other and they are doing the best they can with the limited recourses they have," he says.

Watch the full interview with Omar Mullick and Bassem Tariq in the clip above. You can find the trailer for the documentary below: