Filmmaker for cultural exchange with Indi

KARACHI: Allowing Indian movies into Pakistan will bring the cinema industry back on its feet, said Pakistani film producer-director Shehzad Rafique while talking to the Daily Times.

He admitted that since local movies were not helping the cinema business to survive, the inflow of Indian movies will. He said the rebirth of cinema houses would also give local filmmakers a chance to play their movies as well. “What good is making movies, if there are no cinemas to play them?” he said.

Rafique is the producer of ‘Salaakhein,’ the last Urdu-language feature film that was termed a great success at the box office by trade circles. Many proprietors said the movie was doing “fantastically” under the prevailing situation, when cinema houses were folding up because of repeated flops churned out from Lollywood.

A MA in LLB, and 40 years old, Rafique has been around to make such movies as ‘Nikah,’ and ‘Rukhsati.’ ‘Salaakhein,’ was his first venture as director. He pondered that if given the chance to gel together, Bollywood and Lollywood could easily counter Hollywood.

“They have the resources, we have the history and literature. If we combine both these aspects, we cannot only retain the once glorious past we both shared, but also conquer other frontiers,” he said.

He contended that Pakistan’s national language Urdu was the best weapon filmmakers could use here, to match Bollywood’s supremacy.

“The new coloured version of K Asif’s ‘Mughal-e-Azam’ is a hit which is a tribute to our national language,” he said.

Citing an example, he quoted Indian actor Amir Khan, who on his recent visit claimed he was learning the Urdu language back home, after watching the coloured version of ‘Mughal-e-Azam.’ It is said Amir has hired an Urdu teacher.

Rafique said the new breed of Indian writers was running out of ideas. He said several adaptations of either Hollywood scripts or old Bollywood movies were seen in new Bollywood movies. In Pakistan, however, he contended, ideas were original.

The filmmaker said the coming years had a bright future for the local industry since a new crop of filmmakers was making their way into Lollywood. “Filmmakers such as Ajab Gul, Reema, Imran Malik, and in Karachi the likes of Jami, Saquib Malik, Asim Reza, Shoaib Mansoor, Hasan Zaidi, Mehreen Jabbar, etc, could all bring tremendous changes in the industry. You will see a revolution in the next three years,” he said.

Rafique said Karachi would be the hub of Pakistani film industry. He said movies of international standards could be made here, and regional movies of equal status could be made in Lahore. “If the jazba (motivation) of Lahore was to be combined with the Junoon (dedication) of Karachi, nothing would be able to beat Pakistani movies in the future,” he said.

He said the new breed of filmmakers would re-ignite the passion of movies in the people, which old filmmakers such as the late Rauf Shamsie, who made movies such as ‘Aaina’ and ‘Zeenat’ back in the heyday. Coming back to ‘Salaakhein,’ he said he made this movie because the timing was perfect.

“When bad movies are being made, making a good movie is profitable,” he said.

As mentioned above, ‘Salaakhein’ did well at the box office. Cinema owners were content with the response, saying it would have been better had the overall business been better.

Rafique added that time for making a good movie was right now. He said the Pakistanis cinema industry had come to the present sorry state due to the half-hearted dictates of socialism of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and then the subsequent religious government of General Zia-ul-Haq.

“Because of these two eras, our industry became decadent. Then where India had Nehru to support and understand the importance of their cinema, we had no one. Our leader Quaid-e-Azam soon after independence. Nehru did his best to promote his movie industry as a tool to introduce India to the world. We, on the other hand, failed,” Rafique said.

He said the local industry lacked writers with a vision. He said people such as Riaz Shahid, Saifuddin Saif, Hasan Tariq and Khalil Qaiser made movies that had vision in them.