(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
The elite and the regular cinema goers constitute two extreme ends of the Pakistani film
audience. The common man has survived the ups and downs of the national cinema, which the
elite neither owns nor visits but criticizes. The actors condemn people who abandon popular
film, but criticize it for what it has become. Quraishi quotes Shaan on this issue who says “those
judging and criticizing Lollywood have no right to take away the happiness or pleasure of a man
on the street whose only avenue for entertainment and thrills is to watch a film in the cinema”
(2004). He strongly condemns martial law, journalists, industrialists, and elite “who have given
up on cinema ... [and believes that] as long as people are watching movies there is hope” (Isani,
2005). Shaan is pointing to the existence of a market for the present Pakistani films, playing
oblivious to the fact that the tremendous shortfall in audience number cannot be blamed on the
elite alone. The audience absence from the theatres has resulted from a general neglect of film,
and the boom of pirated DVDs and cable television that have caused the demolishing of cinemas,
decreasing their number.
THE FUTURE OF BIG SCREEN
The number of cinemas decreased from over 500 in 1970 (Ali, 2006) to 350 in 2004 (Ramzi,
2004c) and 135 in 2009 (F. Jawaid & Jawaid, 2009). Ramzi says, “With prices of property
booming and movies not bringing sufficient returns to even cover costs, one landmark of Karachi
after another in the shape of great movie halls has been demolished” for conversion into
warehouses and shopping malls (2004c). The cinemas are not doing sufficient business or
making sufficient profits to be able to maintain and upgrade facilities. According to Ramzi,
Some cinemas prefer to remain shut because they are not earning enough to even pay the
fixed amount of weekly taxation. Many halls have not run their night show in ten years,
and occasionally even the better halls have been forced to remain shut for the last show
(Ramzi, 2004c).
The absence of Pakistani films of quality is causing the audience and business shortfall. F.
Jawaid and Jawaid say the cinemas “need about 64 films a year, 50 at a bare minimum, and that
is minus the regional releases” (2009). The local industry fails to provide minimum 16 pictures
per screen per annum for the 135 leftover screens. Thus, the exhibitors consider foreign film
import a solution to their immediate problems.
The problems rise because the number of foreign film importers has also dropped due to the
audience shortfall for the mainstream. According to F. Jawaid and Jawaid the number of English
film importers has dropped from 105 to only three or four since the 80s and “the English
audience turnaround is [reduced to] 10 to 15 percent” and the piracy eliminates that too (2009).
Nevile says English film popularity was increasing ever since the advent of talkies in 1931 (n.d.).
The current decrease in its popularity causes shortfall of the imports and the importers. This
reduction affects financial returns and the livelihood of everyone in this business, making it too
difficult to retain and maintain cinema buildings and highlighting inevitability of the permanent
shutting down of the cinemas.
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