PESHAWAR: Several cinemas in Peshawar were bulldozed in recent years for commercial gains, depriving thousands of lovers from entertainment.
Peshawar, which was once known as the center of cinemas, artists, and theaters have started losing one of its main entertainment tools including the decades’ old cinemas following it was mostly converted into commercial plazas due to commercialization, growth of social media and terrorism.
The city has lost seven cinemas including those of colonial time because of lack of production of new films of Pashto and Urdu, taxes on cinemas, security issues, rising trend of social media and commercialization.
Peshawar has provided many national and global legendary artists including Bollywood Super stars Yousaf Khan alias Dalip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, lollywood famous actors Qavi Khan, Najeebullah Anjum, Ismail Shahid, Firdus Jamal, and Javeed Babar.
Shabistan (Firdus), Capital, Palwasha, Novelty, Metro, Falak Sair, Sabrina and Ihsrat cinemas were converted into commercial centers or hotels. Other cinemas like Arshad Cinema, Aaeena, Naz, Sabreena, and Shama are mostly deserted due to lack of new movies, pathetic seating facilities, high-production film-cost, and lackluster approach of the government towards film industry in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Gohar Khan Yousafzai, manager Sabrina Cinema Peshawar said that prior of Ramadan he screened two films daily by charging only Rs250 per ticket, saying there are hardly around 50 people in the cinema hall which is discouraging. He added the rising monthly electricity and gas bills, and property taxes have added to financial issues of cinema owners in the province.
Shahid Khan, an eminent Pashto film director and artist said that one of the reasons of dying cinemas in the province was its poor content and outdated cinematography, wrong presentation of Pashto culture and indecency. He said that a quality move needs more than 10 million rupees investment while most of film producers were being asked for production of a movie at two million rupees cost which was insufficient to produce a quality film.
He said Pashto movies have high profit potential due to vast viewership in Pakistan mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Karachi and even in Afghanistan. He asked the KP government to support film industry in the province and take steps on emergency basis.
