Facepalm: Lahore’s Producers’ Alliance fails to deliver six of seven promised films

Box office failure of Noor Bukhari’s Blind Love discouraged them from releasing more movies

Last year, a group of Lahore-based film-makers joined forces to create the Producers’ Alliance Company (PAC) that came to the fore to act as life-support for the city’s dying cinematic milieu.

With film producer Amjad Farzand Ali elected as chairman and Film Distributors Association Chairman Chaudhary Ejaz Kamran as the company’s secretary, they planned to release seven films in 2016.

Following the disappointing response to their first venture Blind Love, the company failed to roll out more films.

While their primary aim was to revive the film industry, Kamran cited fear of financial loss after Blind Love as the main concern. The company has put the release of more films on hold as of now.

“We tried our best to revive the film industry in Lahore and spent sums of money but it was just our bad luck,” he told The Express Tribune.



“We are not in a position to release another film any time soon since Blind Love was a big flop. This was a huge disappointment and a reason enough to stop producing more films for now.”

The Faisal Bukhari directorial was a mega budget film featuring known actors like Yasir Shah, Mathira, Imran Bukhari and Nimra Khan.

Ali echoed Kamran’s sentiments as well. He revealed that while the company will not shut down any time soon, they do not plan to release a film until they are on the right track.

In the meanwhile, they are in search of good scripts and have already started working on future projects which are currently being kept under wraps. “Our film company still exists and in the future we will launch more film projects but we are not in a position to start new films right now. All producers who are a part of PAC are working on a good story for now.”

In this regard, the PAC team plans to approach cinema owners and request them to be a part of the company so that issues between the different sections of the industry can be resolved mutually.



Kamran lamented the fact that super hit films were released at the time Lahore was the hub of film-making. “We have seen a wonderful period of cinema in Lahore. When we set up PAC, our mission was to produce hit films such as those in the past,” shared Kamran.

“We got Faisal Bukhari on board to direct the film, who is one of the most seasoned directors we have in the country. However, our efforts weren’t fruitful. We understood that the trend of film-making has changed in Lahore and so we hired media experts from Karachi, but being producers we can just invest money in films and nothing else.”

Other prominent PAC members include Chaudhary Zulfiqar Ahmad and Pervaiz Kaleem. Their office is at Royal Park Lahore, which used to be the center of film business two decades ago.
We will soon approach cinema owners and request them to be a part of PAC so that issues between the different sections of the industry can be resolved mutually,” says a senior member of the company.

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