Is Pakistan's Film Industry Dying?

Left to right: Hand painted movie poster, Peshawar, Pakistan, 2006 (photo by Jim Henry); The Odeon Cinema, Lahore, Pakistan, 2009 (photo by Rahat Ali Dar for Los Angeles Times).

You've heard of Bollywood, Nollywood, and even Dollywood, but what about Lollywood? Based in Lahore, the second-largest city in Pakistan (and home to the U.S. Consulate), Lollywood produced more than 100 movies annually back in the 70s and 80s. Today, however, "Pakistani cinema has all but vanished," writes Alex Rodriguez in Los Angeles Times. Reportedly, the number of movie theaters in the country has declined from 1,100 in 1985 to just 120 today, and local film production has shrunk to fewer than a dozen movies each year. It's gotten so bad, the theater pictured above has been playing the same movie for three years. The same movie, and evidently not by popular demand!

Most of the usual suspects are blamed, with one that is unique to the country: "VCR, cable television, President Muhammad Zia ul-Haq's Islamization of Pakistani society, and finally DVD piracy." (Emphasis added.) While film industries have weathered changes in viewing habits, it appears that government edicts played a big role in the collapse of the industry: "Many cinemas were shut down, the rest were heavily taxed. New laws that required producers to have college degrees thinned the ranks of movie makers. The message Zia ul-Haq's government was sending to society was clear, [theater owner Jahanzaib] Baig says: 'We were being told that filmmaking was a vulgar and bad business to be in.'"

The theater owner wants the government to clamp down on DVD piracy, while filmmaker Sangeeta, a former movie star, insists that government support is needed to provide badly-needed, updated equipment. Movies from neighboring India also get blamed. Jamshed Zafar, a film producer, points out the much larger budgets for Indian films and complains: "How can we compete?"

Similar cries for help have been expressed for years. In 2003, the BBC reported on the closing of movie houses and the slowing of production -- still around 50 movies per year at the time. Sangeeta was also quoted in that article, believing that the competition from India was overwhelming.

In 2006, our own Matt Bradshaw reported on Hell's Ground (Zibahkhana; pictured), the world's first movie with Muslim zombies, made by Pakistani "film historian and ice cream shop owner" Omar Khan. Monika Bartyzel followed up a few months later, as the director expressed the hope that his movie might inspire fellow Pakistani filmmakers to take more risks. In his review, Scott Weinberg conceded that it was "unwaveringly derivative and preposterously gory" yet provided "a pretty energetically good time," as well as the novelty of witnessing "Pakistan's first gore movie."

Last year, In the Name of God (Khuda Kay Liye) became the first Pakistani film to be distributed commercially in neighboring India in more than 40 years. The New York Times claimed Lollywood had "produced little meriting distribution in India, which is well served by its own film industry, Bollywood" and suggested that Indian movies "have always been hugely popular" in Pakistan.

Ramchand Pakistani, produced independently, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year and also played at the Seattle International Film Festival. Laila Lazmi, writing in Jazbah Magazine: Women of Pakistan, expressed hope for the future: "This film is yet another sign that the Pakistani indie filmmakers may yet succeed in reviving the country's ailing film industry and competing in the international film scene."

Pakistani blogger Adeel Akhter, 26 years of age, despairs that 2009 has been the worst film year in Pakistan's history, blaming the war on terrorism, the lack of power generation, and political problems: "As a result no films have been released this year ... film makers are sitting and waiting for a miracle to happen!"

Will that miracle happen, or will Pakistan's film industry fade into the history books?