After Indian channels on Pakistani cables, Indian movie stars coming to Pakistan for live shows, looks like Pakistani theater owners want to screen Indian movies in theaters legally.
This seems to be a genuine concern of theatre owners
Pakistani cinema owners threaten shutdown over Indian film ban
Asian News International
Lahore, April 23
The Pakistan Film Exhibitors Association has threatened to close cinemas in the country from the first week of May if they are not allowed to show Indian films.
Cinema owners here are demanding that they be allowed to screen Indian films, adding that Pakistani films are too few and too poor to sustain them.
Zoraiz Lashari, chairman of the exhibitors’ action committee, told Daily Times on Thursday that the body would soon be finalizing a date after a meeting with the Pakistan Film Producers Association on April 24.
“We shall close down cinemas and turn them into shopping plazas or other income generating units instead,” he said.
The exhibitors said the poor quality and insufficient quantity of films produced in Pakistan meant most cinemas had been demolished and converted into plazas and theatres.
The rest were running losses, they added.
There were over 1,500 cinemas in Pakistan in the 1980s, but there are now only 270. More cinemas have shut down recently due to dwindling audiences for Urdu movies. English movies suffer because of cable channels.
Lashari claimed that only 113 Urdu feature films were produced in the last six years - an average of 19 films a year for 270 cinemas. According to the exhibitors, there are 288 stakeholders in the cinema industry - 270 cinemas, 16 Urdu film producers and 2 English film importers.
Exhibitors have reportedly approached the federal Culture Ministry seeking permission to screen Indian films that they had imported before they were banned in 1965.
The exhibitors said that the cinema industry should not be discriminated against in the peace process.
“If Indian artistes can come to Pakistan and perform and if Pakistani artistes can work in Indian films, why can’t we screen the latest Indian films?” Lashari asked.
http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/84963/1/
Bankrupt Pakistan Theaters Seek Indian Releases
Ahmad Naeem Khan
OneWorld South Asia
30 April 2004
LAHORE, Apr 30 (OneWorld) - With the Pakistan film industry in the doldrums, proprietors of deserted theaters are pressing for the removal of a decades-old government ban on popular films from neighboring India.
The Cinema Owners Association has threatened a countrywide shut down of cinema houses on May 8 if its demands are not met.
An association spokesman says the paucity of films has rendered 16 theaters non-functional in the eastern city of Lahore alone. He fears that soon theaters across the country will meet a similar fate.
The production of films in Pakistan registered a worrying decline in the last decade. In 1994, the industry produced 77 films and the number almost halved to 40 in 2003.
Film critic Nawazish Ali says the poor quality of films being produced in Pakistan deters viewers from visiting movie halls.
Member of the Cinema Owners Association Sheikh Akhtar Ali feels Pakistan’s theaters can be rescued only if the present ban on Indian films, imposed during the India-Pakistan conflict of 1964, is lifted.
He complains that though the film industry contributes thousands of dollars to the national exchequer through various taxes and duties on raw film stock, all from the single source of receipts at the box office, it gets nothing from the government.
Riaz Malik, chairman of the Pakistan Film Exhibitors Association, accuses the government of “double standards,” because it does little to check the booming trade in pirated CDs of Indian films, but bars them from cinema halls.
He adds, “For the last 20 years we have been filling our cinema houses with English movies, but cable networks have grabbed even this edge from us.”
The Pakistan Film Exhibitors’ Association’s wants permission to exhibit the 100-odd old Indian films lying in stock with it, import new movies and make co-productions. It is also asking for a reduction in taxes on the industry. The exhibitors believe that if the print is clear, Pakistanis will flock to theaters even to see old Indian films.
Zoraiz Lashari, chairman of the Exhibitors’ Action Committee, claims the country’s film and exhibitors’ bodies have reached an understanding on the way forward if Indian films are allowed in legally. According to it, each theater can guarantee to screen a Pakistani movie for 10-12 weeks to safeguard the businesses of local producers.
Lashari says his association had requested the government to lift the ban at the end of last month.
The authorities are not committing themselves. While emphasizing that a proposal to screen Indian films in theaters is not under consideration, Federal Cultural Minister Raees Munir Ahmed adds that public opinion will be taken into account.
Ahmed blames filmmakers for the plight of theaters, accusing them of making films that are incompatible with the culture and customs of society. The decline in business can also be attributed to a drop in the number of women visiting cinema halls, because of unruly crowds and an abundance of action flicks.
Pakistan Censor Board Chairman Ziaud Din says they have received a request from the Film Exhibitors Association that is being processed. “We have not yet allowed the screening of Indian films,” he holds.
But a censor board official claims the board is preparing a proposal for the government with an eye on lifting the ban.
Pakistani filmmakers are evidently uncomfortable with the idea. Given how their productions are faring, they fear that competition from Indian films will destroy them.
But chairman of the Pakistan Film Producers Association Mian Amjad Farzand claims the objections are on moral grounds.
“This is not a question of business, it’s a question of protecting our culture,” he maintains, quickly adding, “In any case we are (unconditionally) against exhibiting Indian movies in Pakistani cinemas.”
Leading director Syed Noor is more forthcoming about the reasons for Pakistani filmmakers’ reservations.
“Though we have some talent, we cannot compete with India as we don’t have the funds or the equipment,” he admits. But Noor also says theatre owners should not import an alien culture, urging them to be “patriotic, not greedy.”
Many cinemas have turned into commercial plazas or stage theatres. The influx of cable technology, the prevalence of video and CD players and satellite channels have contributed to keeping cinemagoers at home. Rampant piracy and an unrelenting onslaught from satellite and cable TV have reduced the number of theaters in the country by 80 percent from their heyday in the 1970s.
According to the Federal Bureau of Statistics, cinema houses in the country declined from 545 in 1994 to 445 in 2002.
