The slow and silent death of Pashto film industry

There was once a time when Punjabi films earned more revenue than Urdu films as film-makers concentrated on producing content in regional languages such as Pashto and Punjabi. However, Bollywood’s growing popularity over the years has meant that regional films have taken a backseat since then.

Actor Arshad Hussain, who has worked in various Pashto films and TV shows over the last three decades, believes the industry has suffered from a lack of innovation and original ideas.

“Producers and directors have been using the same stories for 40 years now. Pashto films are only watched on Eid now and that too by only 1% of the population,” he said.

“Unlike Sindh and Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa doesn’t have it’s own censor board and films have to be approved by the federal censor board in Islamabad. KP announced a censor board in 2018 after the 18th amendment but no work has begun on that yet.”

However, Hussain believes that the current lot of Pashto films are too riddled with violence, sexual content and cheap tricks to be approved by a censor board if one is ever formed.

Hussain said he recently went to watch a film with a friend but was disappointed to see that only 34 people had come to watch the film. “The budget of Pashto films is between 70 to 80 lakhs and that is seldom recovered. Only those people who have their own cinemas, set casting members and even their own technical equipment still make films.”

The veteran actor was saddened by the current state of affairs. “Films in regional languages are vital for cultural exchange and to show your culture to the world,” he said. “If films are produced for family entertainment then they show your culture in a good light but producers and distributors want the depiction of unnecessary violence in movies these days.”

Hussain added that cinemas are also in decline in KP, with many being shut down by extremists while the ones that remain are forced to find other shadier means of income. “Cinemas have had to resort to pornographic content and dance shows in between films nowadays. The use of illegal drugs within those cinemas is also very common now.”

The actor harked back to the good old days, stating that the first Pashto film in Pakistan was released in 1954 and featured Yousuf Khan and Sher Bano in the lead roles.

For three decades from then, Hussain feels films were made for family audiences before things took a turn for the worse in 1985 and the decline started.

“Films these days begin on the Kalashnikov and end on the Kalashnikov, which sends a message to the viewers that Pathans love violence even though we aren’t like that. We prefer to keep musical instruments instead of guns, which we only keep to protect ourselves.”

The lack of popularity means that Pashto actors have to make do with peanuts, and Hussain revealed that even actors plying their trade with the premium Pashto channel right now, Khyber Channel, have to make do with salaries of Rs15,000.

The two main government forums, the Pakistan Television Network and Radio Pakistan, have not produced anything in Pashto for 12 years now, he added.

Fellow actor Shahid Khan also echoed Hussain’s sentiments. “The Pashto film industry was already in deep trouble and the coronavirus lockdown has brought a halt to everything, making matters much worse,” he said. “There were four films that were scheduled to be released on Eid but couldn’t be due to the current circumstances.”

However, Shahid believes that not all is doom and gloom, stating that the demand for Pashto films still exists and that people will return to cinemas once the pandemic is over. “The government should let cinemas open with special SOPs since a lot of people, not just actors, are being deprived of their income.”

Shahid also believes that the industry is suffering due to the high number of cinemas that have been shut down by extremists, asking the government to help out the industry by constructing new cinemas.



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