Last bastion: Faisalabad’s 60-year-old cinema house goes down

Nishat Cinema is being torn down to make way for a shopping plaza

FAISALABAD: Known for their love for cinema, people of Faisalabad have lost another centre of entertainment to rapid development and commercialisation. Nishat Cinema, built about 60 years ago in the heart of the old city on Narwala Road, is being taken apart these days to make way for a shopping plaza.

One of Faisalabad’s oldest cinema houses was sold about six months ago reportedly for Rs180 million to a group of industrialists owned by a ruling party’s provincial lawmaker. The new owners have recently started demolishing the movie house.

Nishat Cinema was famous for screening Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, English films and was in its later years converted into a theatre for staging dramas. The theatre was considerably smaller than the other cinemas of the same age like Nadar, Tariq, Babar and Rio that covered well over six kanals of land.

The three-kanal building is situated at a unique location having roads on all four sides. No other building in the entire city has four facades, which provide the new buyers a massive advantage to build a commercial plaza.

On the front is the busiest dual carriage of Faisalabad – Narawala Road, which goes towards the Bahawana Bazaar. On the right side is the Model Town Road while on the back, a road goes towards the city’s old Christian Town. The road to the left of the building – again a thoroughfare – connects Christian Town with Model Town.

“The old building will be replaced with one of the most modern shopping centres in Faisalabad that will include a theatre as well,” one of the business partners told The Express Tribune.

A dead end

Over the years, many other cinemas in Faisalabad have been demolished and converted into the shopping plazas, transport business, garment factories, schools and petrol pumps. Some of those include Nadir, Tariq, Sangeet, Regal, Novelty, Shehzad, Metropole, Javed, Naaz, Rio, ABC, Odeon and Shadman cinemas.

Commenting on demolishing of Nishat Cinema, a movie enthusiast Muhammad Tufail said cinema culture in Faisalabad was at a dead end just like other cities of the country.

“Firstly the arrival of VCR hit the cinema culture as through people got access to Indian movies within the comfort of their TV lounges,” he said. “Then came the cable TV system that screened pirated English and Indian films with impunity, proving to be the proverbial last straw to cinemas houses.”

Sardar Akhtar, who remained in the cinema business for more than 30 years, said a majority of the cinema owners lost interest in the business and switched over to other trades in recent years. He pointed out the movies these days did not fetch any money and cinemas owners could not earn decent amounts to run their expenses. Film writer Zafar Dogar believed many cinemas became notorious for screening vulgar moves and so the families stopped going to movie houses.

Revival of sorts

On the contrary, Pakistani cinemas have seen a revival of sorts in recent years with families once again taking keen interest in watching movies on large screens. Some top media houses have also jumped into the filmmaking business, boosting the output.

The recent revival may be attributed to not only the production of some quality movies but also the setting up of modern 3D cinemas.

While Faisalabad still has old theatres like Naaz, Shabnum and Minevera, many modern cinemas have cropped up include Cine One, Khinoor, Nagina, Cinepax Hotel One, Taj Mahal Multiplex, Chenab Club Cineplex, Sabina Cinema and Minevera Gold. These are well-furnished cinemas with modern technological settings besides having reasonable tickets.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2016.