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A thriving center of art and film, only second to Bombay, where everyone came from all parts of India and later Pakistan to make it big in the Industry; Lahore was once the heart of Pakistani Cinema, but no more. People would come to Lahore, hoping to catch a glimpse of stars like Madame Noor Jehan (a star even in Bombay), Muhammad Ali and Waheed Murad. Bollywood takes its name from Bombay while Lahore gave its name to ‘Lollywood’, the Pakistani film industry.

An Industry producing more than a hundred and fifty films per year in the 1960s and 1970s, came at a stage where it even struggled to produce a meagre two films per year. What went wrong? Are things getting better as we see a dawn of new cinema led by the television industry in Karachi? Lollywood is no more; it is now just the Pakistani film industry.

The Past

Lollywood produced masterpieces such as Armaan, Aina, Sangam, Anjuman at its peak from the 1960s all the way till the 1980s. Voices of Ahmed Rushdie and the images of Zeba Bakhtiyar and Waheed Murad became household names because they made it big via the silver screen. The Industry put out over hundreds of titles every year ranging from light comedy/romance to drama, Science fiction and horror. Cinema houses littered every urban center in the country, even seemingly ‘smaller’ cities such as Multan and Hyderabad having at least ten cinema houses each. Despite not being able to see stars from neighboring India on the silver screen, cinema houses were always packed and also inexpensive (so most people could access them). This has been described as the golden age of Pakistani cinema. Lollywood.

Why did this not continue? Pakistan faced a major shift in its political scene in 1977. The military regime of Zia-ul-Haq brought wide-scale shifts in the film industry. Society needed to be ‘Islamized’, and there was no place on screen for representation of culture and music that did not conform to the traditional religious ethos as defined by the military regime.

Filmmakers were required to have educational qualifications (which included Islamic education, made compulsory by the new regime), rules were set on female clothing to be worn in movies, men and women showing affection on screen was also restricted, movies made on sensitive political topics were not allowed. Music, which formed a fundamental core for each Urdu film was severely restricted.

The industry already suffering from a loss of veterans due to the partition of East-Pakistan faced a storm that it did not survive. The state also freely provided permissions to demolish existing cinema houses to make way for larger multi-purpose ‘plazas’, with room for a cinema which never really materialized. From more than a hundred films, the number of movies slowly decreased as time passed.

Creativity and freedom of expression, the very essentials of theater and cinema, were blocked and therefore films were slowly phased out. With such heavy restrictions on film production, filmmakers took the path of producing violent ‘action’ films. Violent action movies disassociated the general population who wanted to watch quality cinema as opposed to rowdy fighting sequences, going to the theater was now seen as a social ill, it was not ‘family experience’ anymore.

With dwindling cinema houses in the country, increased costs of making films and limited creative avenues available meant that there it was not profitable to make films. This period also coincided with the ‘VCR’ period. Foreign film cassettes (Indian films were banned but were very popular) were smuggled into the country. With the Industry not producing any films, the general public preferred to stay at home instead of going to the theater, foreign films were watched at homes using VCRs, local classics were also enjoyed. The films currently being made, if any, were not good enough.

Cinema houses found it difficult to operate and generate profits and hence slowly shut down. From 750 cinema houses in the country, by 2002 only 170 remained. Those that remained were barely making profits and had extremely poor conditions and no new releases. This was perhaps the last nail in the coffin for ‘Lollywood’.

What then?

In 2007, Shoaib Mansoor (longtime TV director and songwriter) directed and produced a film he named Khuda Kay Liye (In the name of God). This may seem like just another film being made out of the one or two being released every year, Khuda Kay Liye was unique in a way that it was also the first Pakistani film in a very long time that was released in neighboring India. The state had liberalized since the dark era of censorship in the 1980s and this film pushed many boundaries in terms of the issues that were portrayed, Also, read about the negative portrayal of Muslims in films. Khuda Kay Liye was played across 100 screens in India. This release led to the Pakistani government lifting the ban on the release of Indian movies in Pakistan. With Indian movies up for release, operating cinemas was no longer a loss-making venture, state of the art multiplexes started popping up around the country, existing deteriorating cinema houses were renovated and were up and kicking. With an increase in operational cinema houses in Pakistan, filmmakers in the country were now looking at increased opportunities to produce films and potentially make a profit. This is where the old Lollywood became the ‘Pakistani Film Industry’ based in the metropolis of Karachi.

Still, on average not more than 10 mainstream local films are produced in a year. The presence of Indian films proliferated cinema houses all over the country and allowed them to make a profit. English-language films are not popular beyond urban centers of Karachi and Lahore as the wider populace does not speak the language.

The Future

Since 2007, there has been a steady stream of local films entering the market, making successful runs as the number of cinema houses have grown as well. Most local films still aim for Eid releases to generate the maximum number of revenues, though throughout most of the year one would not find a local film screening in their nearest cinema house due to very few of them releasing. The numbers have surely improved over the years, but by any global standard, they are still minimal.

The profitability of running a cinema house is still mostly dependent on foreign films, most of which mean Hindi/Urdu films from across the border as English-Language films do not have a widescale appeal outside of specific urban areas of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. But things have changed since that breakthrough in 2007, after some almost-bans of Indian films by the Pakistani State in 2014-15, now we may be approaching a point of a renewed and probable long ban on content from across the border after growing tensions between India and Pakistan in 2018-19. Pakistani stars have also been banned by the Indian state from working in India -a lot of whom did, because of the larger number of opportunities available there. Pakistani films also never really found screen time in India, an exception being Bin Roye (2015) which released across 80 screens in India.

With a ban on Indian content, there is an unease in the Cinema business in Pakistan. Owing to recent uncertainty, a large under-construction shopping complex scrapped their plans for having a multiplex within their premises to making room for an indoor theme park. As late as 2018, there were only 20 nation-wide local films released in Pakistan, in contrast there were over 55 nation-wide Hindi films released in India in just the first two quarters of 2018. A cinema house cannot exist if it can only release 20 films a year (of which only 10 are box office successes) plus perhaps 20 successful English Language films. See case of Johnny Depp.

Filmmaking is still an expensive business in Pakistan and the chances of not breaking even are still high. There are not enough cinemas screens in Pakistan, the new rise of multiplexes has only been focused in Karachi, Islamabad and Lahore. As of 2018 Pakistan Has Only 161 Cinema Screens. Out of these, over half of them are focused in Lahore only. Local films often depend on gathering funds from via foreign release in order to make a profit, the inability to screen their content in neighboring India (which has over 8000 cinema screens) surely creates many hurdles.

If all of these hurdles were not enough, there are more. There has been a new wave of censorship launched by the state in terms of the cinema of late. Shoaib Mansoor’s Verna (2017) was forced to make very large cuts as it allegedly contained dark themes of violence against women. NaMaloon Afraad 2 and Maalik faced outright bans for some period irregularly across the country for allegedly hosting content contrary to local tradition and being overly critical of the state respectively.

What to do?

It may be not-so-patriotic to screen content from across the border, it however is important for the profitability of cinema houses in Pakistan, which are already very few. Furthermore, the profitability of filmmaking heavily depends on the existence of cinema houses across the country. While the world may be increasingly globalized, local films can only be marketed abroad to an audience who speaks the same language -hopefully the market which exists across the border may someday open.

The hurdles that plague the industry at the moment are similar to those of the past. It is difficult to be optimistic in such times, but perhaps the push of filmmakers in the country will also push the state to recognize the problems at hand. Some cinema houses have also put their weight behind producing their own films to increase their earning and to survive. Yes, it creates a conflict of interest but is nevertheless a note of positive push from within the industry under difficult circumstances. Perhaps the state could subsidize the establishment of cinema houses and production of film and similar media in the country to be able to maintain the weight of the ban on content from across the border.

Lollywood faced much worse than what the Film Industry faces today, there is a great deal of admiration for art and cinema in this part of the world. Perhaps this demand and support from the public at large is one which will guide the industry out of this dark cloud.