Bailout package for Lollywood

Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif has announced a special package for the welfare of artists and promotion of the Pakistani film industry.

A statement released by the PM office, said: "Reviving the film industry was the top most obligation. Recent history is witness to the fact how enemies of Islam and the country targeted the innocent minds with misleading concepts which promoted terrorism in the nation. To extricate the youth from that horrible situation as well as terrorism, we are trying to provide alternate avenues of entertainment to them."

The industry had peaked in the mid-1970s. The industry, based in Lahore and sometimes called Lollywood, Until 1979, Pakistan's film industry was churning out an average of 50 to 80 films a year, had been slowly strangled during the military dictatorship of the 1980s, partially because of Islamization and new censorship laws. It had once turned out 80 films a year, but in 2003 not a single Urdu-language film was released.

But last year's showing of around 25 films confirmed that the industry was back - at least until politics intervened. 

Experts say 70 per cent of the business comes from Bollywood and Hollywood. Pakistan’s film industry fears it may suffer a 70 per cent business loss if India-Pakistan ties worsen and Bollywood films are banned in the country.

An expert also said that any such ban will result in “going back to the days where our screens were shut down and converted into shopping malls or apartments because there weren’t enough movies.”

Since Indian films were allowed to be imported and screened the cinema industry business has picked up rapidly in Pakistan with some Bollywood blockbusters even grossing the 100-crore rupees mark in Pakistan.

One potential cause is backwardness in technology. Out of the 83 screens in Pakistan, approximately 50 are in cineplexes and the rest are standalone cinemas. Only two out of the 33 odd standalone cinemas are equipped with the technology to screen films made using digital cameras – the rest still use 35mm reels.

This in effect means that new films can only be released on about 52 screens. With three to five films released every week (including Pakistani, Indian and Hollywood titles), many of which have international star power as their greatest advantage, Pakistani films are pushed off the cinema roster quicker than they would like, and as a result do not get the screen time they require to secure their ROI.

Additionally, local producers feel that film distributers (many of whom are also cinema owners) are biased towards Indian films because they require a lower investment and offer a greater and more certain ROI.