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Reviving Pakistani Cinema

Maula Jatt

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Quit Urdu films for the time being

Pakistans film industry can never ever revive with Urdu films, it'll start with decent quality, Punjabi, pashto, sindhi movies

Cause these languages face no competition from anywhere, Urdu faces direct competition with Bollywood and it's unfair on our filmmakers to compete with that

With decent quality local language films, we'll see more Cinemas popping up

When those Cinemas start popping up , than start making Urdu films cause you'll have infrastructure to release the film and make money

You release Urdu film's now with barely any cinemas, outside of patriotic reasons you offer me nothing but a worse off version of Bollywood
And I'd rather go watch Bollywood or watch Netflix

With local language Cinema, there's no such issue, make a comedy Punjabi movie, everyone would go watch it cause you're not facing competition from anyone really

Same with Balochi, Pashto, Sindhi movies, there's no competition , it's free for all and a unique genre

Most Punjabi, Pashtun, Baloch, Sindhis of the world live in Pakistan, growing these industries will have a side benefit of soft power in our neighboring regions, that's a side benefit not the main point

Urdu film's can grow on the back of local language films not the other way around, if we keep trying this failed strategy, industry will never grow

2- you have to follow the Iranian movie making route or to some extent ("some") Pakistani dramas route

Good, unique, catchy storyline, like bol or even the recent joyland film

Too much censorship in this competitive field is unfair on our filmmakers, calm down on censorship and let film makers experiment

We can never compete with budget nor audiences, what we can compete on is storyline, film making

Too much censorship and overtime no one would dare make something unique

@lastofthepatriots @TNT @fitpOsitive @SQ8 @LeGenD @RescueRanger @Great Janjua @Irfan Baloch @DESERT FIGHTER
 
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Quit Urdu films for the time being

Pakistans film industry can never ever revive with Urdu films, it'll start with decent quality, Punjabi, pashto, sindhi movies

Cause these languages face no competition from anywhere, Urdu faces direct competition with Bollywood and it's unfair on our filmmakers to compete with that

With decent quality local language films, we'll see more Cinemas popping up

When those Cinemas start popping up , than start making Urdu films cause you'll have infrastructure to release the film and make money

You release Urdu film's now with barely any cinemas, outside of patriotic reasons you offer me nothing but a worse off version of Bollywood
And I'd rather go watch Bollywood or watch Netflix

With local language Cinema, there's no such issue, make a comedy Punjabi movie, everyone would go watch it cause you're not facing competition from anyone really

Same with Balochi, Pashto, Sindhi movies, there's no competition , it's free for all and a unique genre

Most Punjabi, Pashtun, Baloch, Sindhis of the world live in Pakistan, growing these industries will have a side benefit of soft power in our neighboring regions, that's a side benefit not the main point

Urdu film's can grow on the back of local language films not the other way around, if we keep trying this failed strategy, industry will never grow

2- you have to follow the Iranian movie making route or to some extent ("some") Pakistani dramas route

Good, unique, catchy storyline, like bol or even the recent joyland film

Too much censorship in this competitive field is unfair on our filmmakers, calm down on censorship and let film makers experiment

We can never compete with budget nor audiences, what we can compete on is storyline, film making

Too much censorship and overtime no one would dare make something unique

@lastofthepatriots @TNT @fitpOsitive @SQ8 @LeGenD @RescueRanger @Great Janjua @Irfan Baloch @DESERT FIGHTER
The problem with censorship is that if you control the subject as taboo(instead of issuing ratings and basically control who is allowed in cinemas) is that you don’t “solve” the problem.

Urdu cinema is in a form of revival but the impact of art films is reduced due to general public idiocy borne out of consumerism.
Much like fast food people prefer slapstick and item numbers in movies because that satisfies their instant gratification monkey. There is also a lack of education in Pakistan in general which means cinema will still resonate more with Haseena Atim bumb before it resonates with some serious social film(although exceptions by Shoaib Mansoor and others do exist)

Same reason that despite its very erudite and powerful satire on Pakistani society and politics, Anwar Maqsoods loose talk did not get as many views as slapstick street comics in Azizi or others.

Because Joyland exists you can address the issues facing that community of people and instead of resorting to violence introduce counseling and opportunities.

The flip side of it is that by pushing art to the side and focusing on commercialization you will end up with the trash that comes out of Bollywood like cookie cutter item numbers and stories with the occasional masterpiece (that also has to have the song and dance item to be relevant).

There are always people who for attention and their need for recognition as “unique” will promote indecency as “art” which in general can be shunned by simply not giving any incentive to services to work for it.

A skit by Key & Peele is one I find most relevant to the LGBTQ madness going on today. Because at the end - people can live their lives, but when you try to shove your views in everyone’s face in order to somehow get recognition it will only invite backlash.
 
Releasing films in Panjabi and other regional languages will certainly invite a more welcoming atmosphere within the average folk and these movies should be a platform to promote local values related to each corner of Pakistan not fcking Joyland type imposition or mein yaha jaungi waha jaungi shet which further creates a huge gap between the average joe and elite liberal gandus just take the film industry of Tamil Nadu and how they are steamrolling Bollywood.

Promote your cultural art not fcking imported shet.
 
Quit Urdu films for the time being

Pakistans film industry can never ever revive with Urdu films, it'll start with decent quality, Punjabi, pashto, sindhi movies

Cause these languages face no competition from anywhere, Urdu faces direct competition with Bollywood and it's unfair on our filmmakers to compete with that

With decent quality local language films, we'll see more Cinemas popping up

When those Cinemas start popping up , than start making Urdu films cause you'll have infrastructure to release the film and make money

You release Urdu film's now with barely any cinemas, outside of patriotic reasons you offer me nothing but a worse off version of Bollywood
And I'd rather go watch Bollywood or watch Netflix

With local language Cinema, there's no such issue, make a comedy Punjabi movie, everyone would go watch it cause you're not facing competition from anyone really

Same with Balochi, Pashto, Sindhi movies, there's no competition , it's free for all and a unique genre

Most Punjabi, Pashtun, Baloch, Sindhis of the world live in Pakistan, growing these industries will have a side benefit of soft power in our neighboring regions, that's a side benefit not the main point

Urdu film's can grow on the back of local language films not the other way around, if we keep trying this failed strategy, industry will never grow

2- you have to follow the Iranian movie making route or to some extent ("some") Pakistani dramas route

Good, unique, catchy storyline, like bol or even the recent joyland film

Too much censorship in this competitive field is unfair on our filmmakers, calm down on censorship and let film makers experiment

We can never compete with budget nor audiences, what we can compete on is storyline, film making

Too much censorship and overtime no one would dare make something unique

@lastofthepatriots @TNT @fitpOsitive @SQ8 @LeGenD @RescueRanger @Great Janjua @Irfan Baloch @DESERT FIGHTER
People are like a horde of sheep. They will keep walking in any direction, as long as they are fed well. In Pakistan, the "leaders" have really no national agenda. They want to keep this horde as confused as possible.
Cinema in Pakistan is primarily affected in the same way as the other fields of commerce. Same insecurity (Piracy, extortion, bribes, anti-social elements, lack of services-based companies etc), irrational economic policies, and a lack of national spirit. Urdu cinema has a huge audience and it really global. Pashto, Punjabi, and Sindhi have also very large audiences, and cinema based on these languages can be a very good starting point for the revival of Pakistani global cinema..

The problem is mainly of leadership in Pakistan and their vision towards Pakistan. At least something will unite us, either India, Urdu, Islam, or something else.
 
Promote your cultural art not fcking imported shet.

Pakistan has yet to decide regarding which culture it belongs to. If it is Arab culture, then it is doing a good job of refraining from producing movies.
The problem is mainly of leadership in Pakistan and their vision towards Pakistan.
Indian Movie's golden era was between 1960's & 80's. when bureaucrats were corrupt to the core and political leaders had no vision for modern India.

Since Indians were by and large poor, cinema was the only source of social entertainment. Movie tickets were dearth cheap and tens of new movies in dozens of regional languages were released along with Bollywood block busters every Fridays. Btw at that time Indias GDP was meagre 60 or70 billion dollars.

Therefore, my suggestion is that Pakistan start producing low budget movies in every Pakistani language for domestic audiences. You have got extremely talented actors, directors and world class singers and musicians. What else do you need?

The real problem in your society is which nobody wants to expose. After Zia, your society has taken a non-reversable turn.

In the meantime, Pakistan can remake tried and tested Indian formula films (without Item numbers of course), the kind of romcoms which bollywood copies from Hollywood and even Tollywood (south Indian cinema)

Regards
 
Good quality content will be rewarded at the box office. Take "The Legend of Maula Jatt" as an example, it's on its 7th week at the box office and it's still making almost double more than other Pakistani movies that released this week. When it was released overseas cinemas consistently kept increasing screenings for it due to high demand. It is still running overseas while other newer Pakistani releases like "Tich Button" and "Zarrar" can bearly get a couple of overseas cinemas to play them.

It is always about content, language is a very small factor. If you make a historic in Urdu with the quality of TLMJ it will make the same amount of money.

Making good content requires talented directors which is hard to find in Pakistan. Good directors don't follow the trends and standards set by their predecessors in the past. Good directors make new trends and set new benchmarks for the industry. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two directors that go beyond the industry limits. The first one would be TLMJ's director Bilal Lashari and the second would be Usman Raiz who is yet to release a film. Usman is going a step further than even Bilal because he's making a movie whose genre doesn't even exist in South Asian cinema. I'm talking about 2D hand-drawn animation.

Pakistan has a small market for movies so if we want the industry to grow we have to encourage them to take risks and be more creative because doing so will make sure that they'll be able to access overseas markets. Over 60% of TLMJ's box office was made overseas, which means that the domestic market is not the only thing that counts. We have to support creative movies that are nothing like bolly and not support bolly inspired movies.
 
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