Home Journal List Journal of Research ( Humanities) Volume LIV Article Details

Filming Pakistan in Zero Budget

Abstract

In 2009-10, I have decided to do the doctorate in the art of filmmaking. Those were the years of extreme decline for Pakistan’s film industry. Pakistani film was almost over and there was no evidence of the resurrection of this destroyed industry. Indeed, the future of film industry was doubtful, and the same could be the case for a film researcher. Most of the friends, after knowing my field of research, often asked me that why would I chose to do PhD in the subject of film. As, according to them, this is one of the obnoxious and intolerable field, as it is ruining the society by offering and promoting sinful and immoral acts. So a PhD in such a field might not be fruitful in this world, as well as hereafter. I started thinking about one of the very basic questions that how this perception about the art of making film was built. The study of traditional Pakistani cinema, ‘established cinema’, has disclosed that the medium of film was facing a control from the very beginning. Indeed, the policy of censorship was rooted in the times of imperialism. The censorship policy of the British rule was executed only to restrain socialist political ideology and nationalistic themes (Pendakur 1996; Shoesmith 2009). The main emphasis of the policy focus of mass media systems during colonial regimes was on furthering administrative efficiency” (McMillin 71). The government of Pakistan had inherited the policies of their colonial masters; hence, they executed similar censorship policies even after Independence. Indeed, 1947 onwards, a control has always been exercised on the cinema of Pakistan through strong censorship policies (Bilal 2015).

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