With Academy Award nominations to be announced in a few weeks and more Bollywood movies being made each year than Hollywood ones, one may wonder what is happening with the film scene close to home. Lollywood has dried up it seems, so what is the future of the Pakistani film industry? However, before exploring the future, it's worthwhile to look back into the past.

A thriving film industry

At the time of Partition, there was a brain drain of talented actors and directors from the newly found Pakistan to India and a shortage of filming equipment. Despite these hardships, the first feature film in Pakistan titled Teri Yaad premiered on August 7, 1948 in Parbhat Theatre in Lahore and our film industry was born.

Evernew Studios was soon established and in 1950, Do Ansoo became the country's first silver jubilee status film. Noor Jehan's directorial debut Chanwey was the first film directed by a female, Sassi became the first golden jubilee status film and Umar Marvi in 1956 became the nation's first Sindhi language movie.

Film journalist Ilyas Rashidi launched the Nigar Awards on July 17, 1958 to commemorate filmmaking and the industry went from strength to strength with three major film production centres -- Lahore, Karachi and Dhaka -- prior to the secession of East Pakistan in 1971.

During this time period, international film festivals in Karachi attracted large audiences and some of the best filmmakers in the world, Satyajit Ray, among others.

At the peak of the Pakistani cinema industry in the mid '70s, there were more than 100 movie theatres in Karachi alone and hundreds of films being made every year primarily in Urdu, but some in Punjabi, Pashto, Balochi and Sindhi as well.

Javed Jabbar's Beyond the Last Mountain released in 1976 was Pakistan's first English language film, however, its Urdu version Musafir failed to make the same impact at the box office.

Just as the film industry was blossoming, a more conservative government took office in the late '70s. Aina, a 1977 film that harked back to an earlier era, stayed in cinemas for over 400 weeks at the box office and ran for over four years at a local cinema in Karachi, making it the most popular film in Pakistan to date.

Cut to today...

Today, there are hardly any cinema halls in Karachi and their number is dwindling in Lahore as well. In 1990, there were more than 750 movie theatres in Pakistan and this number declined to 175 by 2002.

According to Arif Baigmohamed, co-founder of Cinepax Ltd. and whose family owned Palace Cinema in the seventies, “What really killed the industry years ago was a lot of government policies including high taxes (exhibition tax was 50-60 per cent of the ticket price), price controls (couldn't pass that onto the customer), video piracy and the arrival of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, all of which combined stalled investment.”

India faced a similar problem but handled it very differently. According to Shyam Shroff, distributor and Cineplex owner of more than a dozen Multiplexes in India, “Even in India, we had the same problem from the 1990s when the video format came in. All our cinemas went through the same difficulty with no one going because they could watch the films at home.

“So, in 1994, we picked up an old cinema and converted it into a modern one and on the other side, producers came up with stereophonic sound (before mono sound) so that the scale became bigger. The combination of a good movie and a good theatre created a magical effect in India and it became a place to go out to. When we brought in Multiplexes, more audiences came. Then, people started making films that appeal to people in Multiplexes.”
In Pakistan, it wasn't until Maheen Zia, Hasan Zaidi, Mehreen Jabbar and Abuzar Khan put together the Karafilm Festival -- the Karachi International Film Festival -- in 2001, originally as a part of Karavan Karachi, that things started to change.

Following the success of the first festival, they decided to constitute it annually and established the KaraFilm Society to organise it.

The impact of this festival on the Pakistani film scene has been critical. According to Maheen Zia, “It has revived Pakistani film culture and introduced Pakistani filmmakers and audiences to international cinema, which as a filmmaker I can tell you is vital for growth and improvement. The festival has also provided a platform for Pakistani films to be noticed internationally. And judging from the growing numbers of films from Pakistan that are entered into the festival every year, I think it is working as an incentive.”

In 2004, following on the heels of the success of KaraFilm Festival, Cinepax Ltd. was founded by Baigmohamed, Matt Heyman and Pir Saad Ahsanuddin, because they wanted to “create a company that offered people a place to go with clean, safe, family environment.”

The previous government had replaced the exhibition tax with a flat rate ticket cost and flat rate tax per cinema; this coincided with the rise of the consumerist culture and an increase in expenditure on luxury goods. It was just the right time, therefore, for the birth of Cinepax.

Resurgence of Pakistani cinema

In recent years, there has been a fledging resurgence of Pakistani cinema. In 2003, Khamosh Paani (Silent Waters) won accolades and attention at home and in various parts of the world. Even though officially India and Pakistan have banned each other's films since going to war in 1965, Khamosh Paani had a limited release in India.
In 2006, Pakistan allowed three Indian films to be shown and this year both Khuda Kay Liye and Ramchand Pakistani debuted in India, with the former being the first Pakistani film to get a wide commercial release in India in over four decades.

Going international

Historically, Pakistani cinema has not made a significant impact on the international film scene. While interviewing Hollywood cognoscenti, it was clear not one of them had ever given the question much thought, and while speaking with Indian producers and directors, they, by and large, were quick to divert the topic to Pakistani television serials, which they admitted were once “far superior to Indian television serials and they wondered why that was no longer the case.”

In addition to the recent critically acclaimed Pakistani films being screened abroad, one of the biggest impact makers of Pakistani cinema on the international scene today is Mohammad Ali Naqvi, who currently lives in New York. He and his sister Samana Naqvi are currently key forces behind TightMedia, an online production company that mainly focuses on making content for larger media houses for the Internet Platform. They plan to include Pakistani films in TightMedia's library.

Naqvi's work brings to light many of the human rights and cultural struggles faced in our country.
His most recent film “Shame” -- a biographical film on Mukhtaran Mai -- has been screened at multiple film festivals around the world and has won awards at both the Durban International and Full Frame Documentary Film Festivals.

The next step

There needs to be a platform for advancing the industry. A film academy? Acting and screenwriting schools? Some means of training and development of future talent in everything from filmmaking to performance to make-up and stunts!

Sheherbano Hussain states, “Two new art schools are the reason behind so many great artists coming up. To really facilitate cinema or film making you need places where people get trained. Adnan Malik, Mehreen Jabbar and Maheen Zia have gone abroad to study and come back. We need in Pakistan an actors' academy or film academy, teaching people how to act, write scripts, produce. We have lots of amateurs here and thanks to new television channels, they have a platform but can't attain high standards because of problems with the infrastructure.”

Director Saqib Malik summarises the dismal outlook most people have in the industry, “The future of our cinema is clearly not bright. Film is a big investment and you need a safe and secure environment so that people are willing to invest and viewers are willing to come to cinemas. Till then, Indian films imported at fairly low rates with very little publicity expenses as people already know about them through the Indian television channels, are filling the void.
“Regional cinema, i.e. Pushto and Punjabi films, which have no competition from Indian films and have much lower budgets, continue to garner viewers. But one can't expect much in terms of groundbreaking themes or technical quality from them as they follow time tested formulas and are made on budgets that can recoup their cost within a very limited cinema infrastructure.”

He continues, “If we want a vibrant and quality cinema scene then we need brave and ambitious investors who will make films keeping the Indian cinema market in mind as well from where the returns can be much greater. If the situation between the two countries stabilises again then we can also do co-productions which can be helpful. And let's not forget that Khuda Kay Liye wouldn't have been made without government patronage, so maybe the government should take the lead. Imported Indian films should be taxed in such a way that the money is used to promote and produce Pakistani films. Right now I see no such thing as a revival of Pakistani cinema.”

In the meantime, KaraFilm Festival has been instrumental in getting star producers like Mahesh Butt to come and recruit our talent like Meera, but these exchanges between India and Pakistan need to have additional avenues for connection so that the momentum does not wane during the non-Kara season. Already, this year the festival has been postponed to next February, so it cannot be the sole source of promoting collaborations.

The resurgence of cinema houses will also be critical. Saqib Malik states, “Successful cinema movements always begin with a thriving market at home. The whole cinema exhibition system has to be revamped so that there are enough cinemas for movies to play in to recover their money, as the Cineplex revolution in India. Khuda Kay Liye has proved that we have an audience, that off-beat films can be successful, but it is still a huge risk and no one has followed up with a similar venture.”

Maheen Zia adds, “Cinema houses are an important link because the success of any local film industry depends on the strength of its box office. The re-emergence of cinema houses due to changes in the government policy indicates that this business is beginning to stir after deep slumber. Better promotion of films through television has also been helping attract audiences.”

Cinepax is eager to capitalise on this, but to really do well they need to be truly family-friendly, safe and culturally friendly, especially for women. As Shyam Shroff says, “In India, families go to Multiplexes. To make money you need repeat audiences.”

Shroff adds, “Honestly speaking, Pakistan has a lot of talent. And the Pakistani audience is richer so you just have to bring the industry to that level.”

“However,” he clarifies, “The film industry has seen numerous changes in the last five years. Multiplexes have come in and now in India the focus for filmmakers is the market outside India. There is not much market at the moment for Pakistani movies outside Pakistan. But, a good movie will always have a worldwide market.”

So, a good movie backed by trained actors, writers and directors that is able to be distributed and seen in family-friendly, clean, safe movie multiplexes is the direction the Pakistani film industry could ideally move toward.

The other side of piracy

Although officially no one is proud of the video piracy in our country, many key people in the Pakistani film industry are very grateful for it.
Maheen Zia, film director and co-founder of Karafilm Festival, states, “I am grateful for all the wonderful foreign films I have been able to see as a result. I understand they make a dent on the business a film makes and I would like to purchase some of them at some stage when I am able to, but at present the costs are really prohibitive. Pricing is something that I think needs to be flexible and sensitive to the economy. DVD distribution with reasonable pricing and quality control are how piracy can be reduced -- it can never be eliminated.”

One industry insider, who prefers not to be named, adds, “Some ways you can argue piracy has hurt the industry, but in a way it has been a means of inspiring filmmakers by exposing them to such a rich library of film history. If you are going to see films by some of the great filmmakers it will certainly benefit you.

“I recently met a famous Hollywood producer on a flight and when I mentioned some of the films I liked, he was happy that pirated videos exist in countries like Pakistan because it gives filmmakers a wider audience and aspiring filmmakers a film library to watch and study.”

However, Mohammad Ali Naqvi, award-winner filmmaker, feels this question is moot. He states, “Piracy will become a non-issue as DVDs become extinct and all media will be accessible online.” n — T. U. D.