Bollywood is killing our film industry, say Pakistan’s actors

Bollywood is killing our film industry, say Pakistan’s actors

Bollywood’s star power is killing off ‘Lollywood’, Pakistan’s struggling movie industry in Lahore, according to actors, directors and cinema owners who accuse India of poaching its best actors and hijacking screens.

Pakistan's actors claim Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai are killing their film industry , AFP Hundreds of Pakistani cinemas have closed in the past decade while Lahore now produces only about 20 films a year - a fraction of the 1000 or so movies made in Mumbai’s $1.3bn industry.

However proposals for closer ties between the two cities’ studios have been met with horror in Pakistan, where industry figures fear it would hasten the talent drain.

Pakistan opposition leader Nawaz Sharif cleared of hijacking charge Ghulam Mohiuddin, an actor and director who has starred in more than 400 films, said Lollywood was being swamped by hundreds of new movies from India, made with budgets way beyond the means of Pakistani movies.

“We have some good cinemas but we can’t provide so many good, new films.

People are used to good technical movies and they don’t want the smaller budget films,” he said.

The 1960s marked the high point of Pakistan’s film industry, when Abbot Road in Lahore filled with smart art-deco cinemas playing the latest colour offerings to packed houses.

Today, the heart of movieland is dead. Fourteen of the theatres have closed - some flattened to become car parks while others have been converted into shopping malls — leaving six tatty, run-down fleapits with leaking roofs and dodgy sound systems.

The 1998 hit Choorian briefly revived the industry. Its tale of a city boy who falls in love with a country girl promised to another was dismissed by critics as derivate, but it proved a huge hit with movie audience who loved the way it pinched a proven Bollywood formula.

However, in recent years some of Pakistan’s hottest talent has moved to Mumbai. Ali Zafar, one of the country’s biggest pop stars, made his Bollywood debut this year in Tere Bin Laden as an ambitious young reporter who fakes an interview with the al Qaeda leader.

Add in a stagnating economy and criticism of Lollywood’s bawdy movies by islamic groups, and neighbouring India seems an attractive destination for young stars.

More than 20 million Indians go to see a film every day and the industry has gone global with crossover hits such as Monsoon Wedding and Bride and Prejudice filmed in the UK.

Actresses like Shilpa Shetty, who appeared in Celebrity Big Brother, are now household names in Britain.

This week, Nilofar Bakhtiar, who chairs the Pakistan Senate’s standing committee on culture and tourism, suggested strengthening ties with Bollywood to help revive Lollywood’s fortunes.

“Indian cinema is extremely advanced and we want Indian filmmakers to work with us. We also want training opportunities for our actors and directors in India,” she said at the South Asia Film Festival in Goa this week.

But the suggestion would lead to a faster exodus of talent to India, said Qaisar Sanaullah Khan, secretary of the Cinema Owners Association.

He said Bollywood had been draining talent from Lahore’s studios for years.

“It has always been one way. We just cannot afford to pay the sort of money that they do,” he said.

“The Pakistan film industry is completely finished. In the 1980s we were producing up to 100 movies a year. Now there are no studios and our cinemas are closing.” He said he always tried to screen locally-made pictures at his Metropole cinema, one of the more luxurious left on Lahore’s Abbot Road. “But if there are none then it has to be Hollywood or Bollywood.”

Source Telegraph Uk

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