We are obsessed with Bollywood: Pak director
Shabana Ansari
Wednesday, October 18, 2006 22:21 IST
“We are a nation obsessed with Bollywood,” declares Pakistani filmmaker Mohammed Ehteshamuddin. The director, who is in Mumbai to attend the Third Eye Asian Film Festival, is a Hindi film buff and claims to have watched all the recent releases. “Bollywood movies reach the Pakistani market even before they are released in India. Of course, all this is through illegal means,” he says.
Despite the ban on Bollywood in Pakistani theatres, Hindi films abound, thanks to bootlegged versions circulated openly on the streets and in shops. And that is not all. The film industry across the border repeatedly churns out movies that are heavily inspired by Bollywood. “Bollywood also has a tremendous hold on the masses who emulating their favourite stars,” Ehteshamuddin says.
The filmmaker’s 55-minute movie Shah Rukh Khan Ki Maut, which was screened at the festival dwells into hero worship. “Every teenage boy in Pakistan wants to be Shah Rukh,” he says. Using a star struck protagonist and Bollywood as a metaphor for the growing intolerance over ‘external influences that corrupt’ the youth, Ehteshamuddin makes a bold comment on the social and political situation in his country.
he is absolutely right.