Khan is working on three films including Chuppan Chupai and two others that will go on the floor in December. PHOTO: FILE
LAHORE: He acts, he sings, he dances and he is also producing an ambitious series of short films for TV. That is Ahsan Khan, an actor who began his career almost 15 years ago and is now regularly seen as the leading man in dramas.
During this time, he also bagged an impressive negative role in Udaari, for which he got flak and critical acclaim alike. However, the actor does not want to stop here. Talking to The Express Tribune, Khan discusses his TV show Dukh Sukh that went on air yesterday and his inspiring career trajectory.
“We don’t have film festivals like other countries do where their short films are shown. Since Indian films are currently banned, cinema owners should hold festival for films by new producers and directors to avoid losses,” says Khan. “Festival films are cheaper and they can showcase people’s concepts — when audiences spend on them cinema owners will do it as well.”
Khan feels this would be a win-win situation for all and the industry can pick up this way. We won’t hold our breath for that one, but in the meanwhile, Khan has started working on a festival film of his own.
“Along with that I thought in a restricted budget (for films not dramas), we’ll do seven short stories which is what Dukh Sukh is.” Initially Khan and his co-producer Merajuddin and director Sakina Samo were concerned about which channel would play it but they have now partnered up with Urdu1 for televising the shorts. “Our plays generally have saas bahu problems but this has nothing like that. There is a story about a woman whose husband returns from the dead when she has almost married another man and her conundrum, one about a woman’s struggle to decide which one of her sons is a criminal and another about a schizophrenic husband. For Dukh Sukh, Khan has taken different writers and directors from the field onboard as well as college students. This way they’ll get to know how short films are made and can eventually move on to bigger films.
When Khan shared the news on his social media, industry big wigs showed their support. Mehreen Jabbar said, “There are very few people now who do this. I have always been a proponent of more series and less long drawn out endless TV serials.” Although Khan was too young in the PTV era, he watched the long drawn plays on YouTube. “I would always think about why people don’t make plays like that now and got inspiration from there.” Khan reveals that Dukh Sukh has stories by Manto, Bano Qudsia and classics mixed with new thoughts.
On the other hand, Udaari opened him up to a lot of other drama offers but the redundant scripts did not appeal to him. “I am looking for something off-beat because doing the same roles isn’t fun for me. To do something good it has to be something different, I don’t care about ratings — that was the case with Udaari also.”
While he understands that producers want to invest in safer projects, he feels there should be room for awareness films as well. In the meantime, Khan is continuing with other projects on the side, two of which are being aired currently, including Haasil with Mawra Hocane and a Momina Duraid production with Naveen Waqar. He is also working on three films including Chuppan Chupai and two others that will go on the floor in December.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 24th, 2016.
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