The Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi has urged the government for playing role to save the film industry of destruction and to develop it as per its claims.
The demand was put forth during a joint press conference of the ACP Karachi and Film Producers Association held at Auditorium I Arts Council Karachi on Saturday.
President Arts Council of Pakistan Karachi M. Ahmed Shah, Directors Yasir Nawaz, Nida Yasir, Adnan Siddiqui, Wajahat Rauf, Shazia Wajahat, Satish Anand, Amjad Rasheed, and Badr Ikram gave briefings.
Speaking on the occasion, President Arts Council Muhammad Ahmad Shah said that there is a conspiracy to destroy the industry, this is a serious problem, our government should prove to be Pakistani, Arts Council Karachi condemns this policy, the rulers have been making claims for the development of the film industry.
Suggestions are given to promote the film industry, the industry came to a complete standstill due to COVID-19, five films have been released after two years, and Pakistani films were doing good business, due to which cinema is re-emerging.
“Our goal is to try to save the film industry,” he said. Chairman of the Film Producers Association, Amjad Rasheed said that we aim to promote Pakistan Film Industry. We tried to talk to the federal government officially but got no response.
Senior actor Javed Sheikh said that the Prime Minister should take immediate action on this issue. Earlier it was said that our films are not good but now the quality of our films has increased. I appeal to the Prime Minister to take notice of this matter.
Actor Adnan Siddiqui said that “Dum Mastam” is my first film as a director and producer. It is not an easy task. You have taken a booking from a foreign movie, that movie would have done the same business even if it seemed later, we had only asked for one week.
Yasir Nawaz said, due to corona, the first shooting started, three or four days later Corona came, at first I thought to bear the loss of three or four days but then I thought how will our film industry move forward if we do that, he said people who have not been in cinema for many years. They went to see our movies. We are supporting the cinemas, so you support us too.
Our movies were taken out and filmed outside. If you don’t want to give even a week, don’t give, but don’t take our movies, Nida Yasir. “There is no Millionaire’s hand behind us. We are spending our earnings on these films. We are not against anyone.
We are demanding our rights. Our films have been taken down, we are getting calls from people, we should be given a playing field, Badr Ikram said that our appeal was to be given three days of the weekend, and we were assured of that.
We did not want to ban any film. We have given five films, the business of which was very good. All our films were full house. “We only wanted four days which we were not given,” said Wajahat Rauf.
We are allowed to complete the week; our rights have been violated by putting out foreign films with five Pakistani films. Shazia Wajahat said that, hopefully, the media will be our voice on this issue, not only ours but hundreds of people are associated with the film industry.
