ISLAMABAD: Film lovers in Pakistan have for a while been writing obituaries about Lollywood, the country’s film industry, named after the city of Lahore where it is based. At its peak in 1968, the industry released 128 films in one year; last year, only five new local films hit the cinemas.
But very recently a revival seems to have been under way. Three films released over the Eid Al Fitr holiday earlier this month have been box office hits, and September promises more success, with two long-awaited releases.
For this cultural resurgence, we have partly the Pakistani Army to thank.
There’s a lot of online buzz about Waar (To Strike), which is scheduled for release on September 6.
That’s partly because the film tackles Pakistan’s flagging efforts to stem terrorism. The slick, high-budget venture is based on a real-life militant attack by the Pakistani Taliban against a police academy in
2009 and follows antiterrorism police officers as they try to stop subsequent attacks.
But Waar is also getting attention because of rumours that it was financed by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the publicity wing of the Pakistani Army but the film’s director, Bilal Lashari, denies this.
Does the movie present a citizen’s perspective, or is it propaganda by a state that has fumbled trying to deal with extremism?
This is an important question: Despite recent warnings by the Pakistani Army about homegrown militancy, many Pakistanis, including prominent media personalities, empathise with extremist viewpoints.
Long-running allegations that the army provides logistical and financial support to groups fighting US forces in Afghanistan have weakened public support for military operations against militants, including those who explicitly oppose Pakistan even though the country’s security forces have suffered more than 15,000 casualties since anti-Taliban operations began in 2008.
Suspicions that the army is backing Waar are fuelled by the widespread belief that the ISPR partly financed two recent blockbusters, including Khuda Ke Liye (In the Name of God), which tells the story of two brothers, one who is lured by an extremist group, and the other, whom after 9/11 the FBI accuses of being a terrorist.
In 2011, the agency also produced a TV series on the experiences of soldiers and ordinary Pakistanis who worked together to crush Taliban militants in the Swat Valley.
Glorious Resolve, an ISPR documentary about a raid on an infantry outpost in South Waziristan in 2009, was directed by the son of the current army chief. (It went on to win an international award.) And the army runs FM radio stations to counter illegal broadcasts by extremist groups.
This activity is a throwback to the army’s previous forays into show business. In the 1960s, under the military dictator General Ayub Khan, the state used films to promote Pakistani nationalism, and cinemas were required to run pro-army documentaries free of charge.
Then another military dictator, Zia Ul Haq, crushed the industry:
Under his Islamisation policies of the 1980s, films were censored and cinemas demolished.
The ISPR’s return to the movies shows its growing need to build a national consensus against terrorism after more than a decade of obfuscation, as well as its rediscovery of the entertainment industry’s potential as an outlet for its messages.
Pakistanis have been flocking to theaters in record numbers since the former military ruler Pervez Musharraf eased restrictions on the import of Indian films.
But the army’s ways are heavy-handed. Last year, ISPR representatives and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies declared that no scenes ‘against the national interest’ could be screened in the country.
A young director who wanted to shoot a movie to promote peace between Pakistan and India was recently denied permission to film by the ISPR.
Internews
