Bollywood is killing our Pakistani film industry says one of our actors; our film industry has been hijacked more appropriately. Many of the cinemas have been closed and Lahore only produces 20 films a year which are of extremely low budget whereas Mumbai (Bollywood) produces about 1000 of the fraction with 1.3 billion dollar budget each year.
Our great and famous Pakistani actor Ghulam Mohiudin, who has done about 400 hundred Lollywood films, says that our films have been replaced by Indian high budget films because our public would not like to go for low budget when they have got a far better option to follow.
The legendary Pakistani actors’ mark 1960’s as the golden era of Lollywood when the streets of Lahore were filled with art deco cinemas and packed houses. In the 1980’s, we were producing about hundred films each year which were reduced to 20 a few years ago.
Although now I see the Pakistani cinema rising up with the release of one of the greatest Pakistani movie Khuda Key Liye directed by Shoaib Mansoor a story of a man who was imprisoned for being a suspect of the 9/11 incident and how his brother claims to be the right Muslim. Though some of our Pakistani directors like Syed Noor and Shoaib Mansoor have tried to build up something that can catch the attention of the public but more effort is required.
Today the movie land is found dead with most of them have been made car parks and other shopping malls. In such circumstances no one in the producer’s group dares to bring up money to invest on a film which wouldn’t be watched.
Let’s just imagine if you are given a choice and you have to choose only one i.e. Hollywood greatest movie Avatar and Pakistani film Mein Eik Din Laut Key Ayoonga you will definitely like to go for Avatar just because it is more technical and doesn’t have typical movie idea at least different.
With the release of Pakistani movie Bol we have seen a lot of audience moving around in the cinemas, and the ideas that have been portrayed in the film are quite different far from being certain. With the upcoming cinestar cinemas all around Pakistan there is a vast range of audience seeing entering and spending money.
Now with the advancing in the theatres our producers and directors are more likely to take notice on making movies that would captivate the audience. Pakistani movie Love Mein Ghum produced by Reema Khan, one of our finest Pakistani movie actress, this movie is considered to be of the highest budget this year or over the decade.
The movie has been shot in Malaysia. We have also seen our stars migrating to Bollywood and making films there rather than Lollywood just because they are not provided with the good casting team and good choice and budget. Ali Zafar has worked on a lot of projects abroad like Tere Bin Laden and Mere Brother ki Dulhan.
However the Pakistani small screen cinema has made a worth applaud progress over the years by introducing many channels. These channels have entertained the Pakistani audience here in Pakistan and abroad with extremely good dramas like Alpha Bravo Charlie, Waris, Meri zaat zara e benishan have got the highest audience.
Pakistani Cinema has surely got a lot of potential and talent and it can be taken somewhere else like on the top but in a long time like 2 to 3 decades. However, we can see the all the progress with the release of good films this year.
