A history of sorts was made Friday when ‘Goal’ became the first Indian Bollywood movie to get simultaneous release in the cinema halls of India and Pakistan. ‘Goal’, a contemporary story of the Asian community in the UK, told through the dynamic prism of professional football, has already created a tremendous buzz in India.
Pakistan and India share a common passion for cricket and Bollywood movies. The Pakistan cricket team is at present in India and the matches are well attended, and also watched on the TV. The majority of Pakistan’s population watch Bollywood films due to the similarities between Hindi and Urdu languages as well as similar culture. Bollywood films are also watched avidly in South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh and Nepal. Even Afghanistan, African and Arab countries have a huge market for Bollywood films.
” ‘Goal’, released in seven cities of Pakistan, including Lahore and Karachi, along with the rest of the World on Friday, has thus become the First Indian film to have a day and date release in Pakistan. The film, directed by Vivek Agnihotri and starring Bollywood hunk John Abraham (Christian), the glamorous Bipasha Basu (Hindu), Arshad Warsi (Muslim) and Boman Irani (Parsi), was released worldwide on Friday,” reports DNA.
“The Pakistani release for the film came after the producers received a clearance from the Pakistan Censor Board to release the film in the neighbouring country. In Pakistan the film releases with 12 prints across Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala.
“The release of ‘Goal’ in Pakistani theatres makes it the fifth Indian film and the second mainstream film, after the Emraan Hashmi-starrer ‘Awarapan’, to secure a theatrical release in Pakistan. Other films that have in the last couple of years managed to secure a release in Pakistani theatres are K Asif’s 1950s classic ‘Mughal-e-Azam’, Akbar Khan’s ‘Taj Mahal - an Eternal Love Story’ and 1980s hit ‘Sohni Mahiwal’.”
Bollywood produces more than 1,000 films a year and has an estimated audience of 3.6 billion people, more than half the population of the world. Bollywood name is a portmanteau of Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) and Hollywood, the center of the American film industry.
“Raja Harishchandra (1913) was the first silent feature film made in India. It was made by Dadasaheb Phalke. By the 1930s, the industry was producing over 200 films per annum. The first Indian sound film, Ardeshir Irani’s Alam Ara (1931), was a super hit. There was clearly a huge market for talkies and musicals; Bollywood and all the regional film industries quickly switched to sound filming.”
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