KARACHI: At a heated press conference held in Karachi on Thursday evening, Ali Zafar appeared to have given up hope of seeing his debut film - Tere Bin - ever releasing in Pakistan.
Zafar arrived back from India this week and travelled to Karachi to thank the press for their support and discuss the larger issues which had emerged with the film not being cleared for release.
“I directly appeal to the President and the Prime Minister,” Zafar said, “to consider this issue and let the film be screened in Pakistan. If there is a security risk, by that standard we should stop going to mosques, or to schools or anything else. We cannot stop life. It is a 95-minute peace tape and a pro-Pakistan film, and this will generate business for our cinemas.”
The musician highlighted that pirated DVDs of Tere Bin are being openly sold in markets, and that the film is being shown on cable TV channels as well. He waved the pirated DVD and said, “I want you to go watch the film and make a decision yourself.”
Zafar lamented the fact that “If someone wants to legally show a film, they cannot, this piracy is chor bazari.”
“I deserve to fight for this film,” Zafar told journalists. “It is key to show this film in Pakistan because the international media has picked this up as an issue and is saying that ‘Pakistan has limited freedom of expression’ and ‘Pakistan has given into security fears’. If we want to progress then we need to take a stance. We have not been able to create icons in this country because there is no system.”
Zafar referred repeatedly to the fact that the larger issue at hand was about the growth of the film industry in general and how its growth was being stunted. While he believes that “one film cannot revive cinema,” he says it is important to make and show more films so that cinemas could thrive. Zafar said that more cinemas had opened up in Pakistan because of the number of foreign films that were being shown in the country, and says Karachi could become as important a film centre as Mumbai if we could focus on cinema and the arts.
While he has received several Bollywood offers, Zafar denied he was planning to shift to Mumbai, and said while he would travel to any part of the world for work, “my home will always be Lahore.”
He repeatedly referred to the film as a ‘pro-Pakistan, peace tape’ but when asked that the film did not take a direct stance on any issue and should be promoted as a comedy, and not as a pro-Pakistan film, he said, “In India, to make a film that is not anti-Pakistani is pro-Pakistani in itself.” Writer and actor Mohammad Ahmed, who also worked on Urdu diction with the film’s cast, said that they had been very careful to not say anything in the film that was against Pakistan or its ideology.
However, the press conference was dogged with questions of why exactly Tere Bin had been disallowed. While the official reasons cited by the censor board include offensive language and that the film does not portray Pakistan positively, he was at a loss to be able to give any reason for why the film could not be screened. While he has said that he will accept whatever decision the government makes, he does not see any hope for the government changing its stance on the film’s release.
Publsihed in The Express Tribune, July 23rd, 2010.
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