Pakistan, Sept. 13 -- There was nothing obviously wrong with the scene.

A group of people sat around a table. Shahmeer Madni knew why they were there, what the scene was meant to accomplish and where it needed to take the story. He knew because he had written it. Then he had directed it.

But in the edit, none of that seemed to matter.

The scene meandered. It was too long. More troublingly, the power dynamics Shahmeer thought he had captured on set were not coming through on screen. He kept moving pieces around, looking for the version that worked.

The problem, eventually, turned out to be one of order.

"What is the right order of information for an audience?" he says. It is the question Shahmeer returns to whether he is directing one...