Film exhibitors back strike call
KARACHI, March 13: The Pakistan Film Exhibitors Association (South Zone) on Tuesday supported the call for weekly strikes given by its counterpart of the North Region and said the strikes would begin on March 15 and would be observed every Thursday across the country until their demands were met.
“We’ll also observe strike on March 22, 29 and April 5 and will go for a weeklong strike on April 12 when all cinemas in the country will remain shut,” Nadeem Mandviwala, chairman of the PFEA (South Zone), told the media at the Karachi Press Club.
The South Zone encompasses the Sindh and Balochistan market while North Region covers the Punjab and NWFP market.
“We are going for strike to protest against the government’s muddled policy towards the industry, which is based on double standards at the cost of the livelihood of all those belonged to this business,” said Mr Mandviwala.
“The industry is on the verge of total collapse and perhaps this may be our last call for help,” he added.
He said the federal government had been issuing licences to cable operators in an unregulated manner for the last five years. He held the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), which regulates the booming satellite channel business, responsible for muddying the business and failing to take action against the cable operators running ‘illegal channels’.
“The cable operators are operating a dozen of illegal channels of their own on which they are showing latest Indian and Hollywood movies unlawfully and openly violating Pemra’s regulations,” said Mr Mandviwala.
He said the exhibitors tried their best to apprise the government of the gravity of the situation but the official quarters turned a deaf ear and took no action to save the Pakistani cinema.
Despite the fact that more than half of the cinema houses in Sindh and Balochistan have been closed down and most of them razed and replaced with marketplaces, the remaining cinemas are still far more than the number of movies being produced in Pakistan.
According to data compiled by the exhibitors, as many as 61 cinemas have been closed down in Sindh and one in Quetta during the last five years and at present some 49 in Sindh, including 38 in Karachi and five in Quetta, are doing business.
Interestingly, only six Urdu movies were produced last year and the exhibitors believe that the number would further decline this year and the years that will follow.
Besides, the increasing piracy and unlawful showing of Hollywood movies has also discouraged the distributors from investing their moneys in the business.
“Even a Bond movie that I had brought into Pakistan just four weeks after its release in the west could not do business because it had already been shown on the illegal CD and DVD channels of the cable operators,” said Mr Mandviwala.
He demanded that the government devise regulations for legal showing of Indian movies in cinemas because it was the only way to save the dying cinema in the country.
Source: Dawn
Date:3/14/2007
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