(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
stands at a point where a superficial decision in favor of its national cinema will first cause the
disappearance of the cinema buildings and ultimately the disappearance of both as the fate of one
is bound to the fate of the other. Historically, the banning scenario of the Indian software import
has not helped Pakistan’s cinema industry but the cinema buildings. These buildings can only be
maintained through funds generation via exhibition of films whether from Hollywood,
Bollywood, or Lollywood.
TABOOED PUBLIC INTEREST
Lollywood neither offers hope nor support to cinemas. Where the cinema industries have
flourished across the world, the Pakistani cinema has lost its beauty to scarcity of form: moral,
mental, and physical over a period of six decades. Here, aging no longer means maturity but
disintegration. The story of this backward journey is well explained by Ramzi (2005) who says,
“There was a time, a few decades ago, when Lollywood held as much appeal for cinema-goers as
Hollywood, and Urdu cinemas were as packed as English ones,” but Pakistani cinema “seem[s]
to be a pathetic form of entertainment today” (Ramzi, 2005). The entertainment values are
compromised for poor form, monotonous content, lack of aesthetics and technical quality. For
these reasons, it hardly constitutes towards popular cinema of Pakistan unlike old days.
In old days, Lahore was the center of culture. After Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras, it was the
fourth major film center of South Asia. A shortage of professionals in the areas of music, theatre,
and films was never felt. Rather, film got plenty of attention from the public, professionals, and
intellectuals. Malik says,
In the pre-Partition secular cultural society of Lahore, one area that attracted greater
attention of creative people was the then emerging glitzy world of entertainment …
About half a dozen film studios existed in the city in 1947… [that were known for]
creative ingenuity and production values (Malik, 2003).
This glorification was made possible with the joint efforts of Hindus and Muslims. The first
provided the funds and the studios and the second, according to Malik, the “ebullient artistic
talent” (2003). Viswanath and Malik say, “Mainstream cinema has been deeply affected by
Partition” (2009, p.61). While some talent remained in Pakistan, the Partition completely drained
the funding by the rich Hindu financier from Lahore’s cinema. Malik says
the cinematic personality of Lahore … suffered much at the dawn of independence, due
to communal riots and the mass exodus of non-Muslim financiers and studio owners to
India. Half of [the] film studios of Lahore were completely gutted.… For a year or two,
film industry in Lahore remained almost at a standstill … [Many] Muslim artistes [who]
had returned … from Bombay… [started to use] theatre as a mode of their creative
expressions (Malik, 2003).
This shifting primarily took place because of a tremendous shortage of filmmakers and financiers
who could provide sufficient work to Lollywood artists during the first decade after Partition.
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