Indian movies pull audience to cinema

Yasir Ilyas

Once a lucrative business, cinema culture in Pakistan has been on the decline for a long time due to a variety of reasons, including poor quality of films, mushroom growth of the cable industry, as well as terrorism. Resultantly, many cinemas have been turned into shopping malls or marriage halls. A time then came when prospects of the revival of cinema grew brighter. Yet, it will probably take some time before cinema culture revives in Pakistan, full throttle.

Filmmakers tend to release their films on occasions like Eid to draw maximum audiences as watching a film in a cinema is definitely one of the items on many people’s agenda on the festive occasion. However, this tactic is not getting the desired results in Pakistan.

Four Punjabi, three Pushto and one Indian film were screened in cinemas this Eid. Not a single Pakistani Urdu movie was released on the occasion. Same was the case with Hollywood movies. Unfortunately, not a single movie, other than the Indian one, succeeded in pulling audiences.

Talking to INFN, Waqas Ibrahim, who was in a multiplex of Rawalpindi with his friends said, “Well, who will be attracted if you are going to show films like ‘Ilyasa Gujjar’ and ‘Ghundi Run’? Such cinema is dead now; this is an era of multiplexes, and such multiplexes would not tarnish their image by releasing films like ‘Taxi 707’ et al.”

“I have come to watch the Indian movie as it was a much-awaited one, and such movies, along with Hollywood blockbusters, should be shown here to revive the cinema culture in Pakistan,” Sohail Abbasi recommended.

A family which had come to watch another Indian movie, said they would definitely promote Pakistani films if Shoaib Mansoor comes up with his film ‘Bol,’ which is expected to release on January 2011. “Coming to multiplex, along with your family, is really fun, but one should not spoil this fun by watching ‘Ilyasa Gujjar.’ Who sees such movies,” Hanif Raja questioned.

Rizwan Azeem, one of the managers of the multiplex, said, “We are focused on providing healthy entertainment to customers. So we only show movies that would entertain people. Being a Pakistani, we will also love to show Pakistani movies with pride but what can we do when people on the other hand are not producing quality work,” he regretted.

There is no shortcut to increasing your business other than improving the quality of your product. So it can only be hoped that it would be Pakistan next Eid to dominate the cinema.