Shabistan cinema torn down

Property owners plan to construct commercial plaza on site

RAWALPINDI:

One of the oldest cinema halls of Rawalpindi, Shabistan, a symbol of the film industry’s golden years, has been torn down.

Located on Committee Chowk, Shabistan joins scores of cinema halls in Rawalpindi which have been razed to the ground in recent years to make way for commercially profitable shopping plazas.

Spread over 5.2 kanals in the heart of the city, the cinema was considered to be prime real estate. It screened some of the country’s biggest blockbuster films from 1950 to 2010. Shabistan was closed down after its manager, Imtiaz Shah, was murdered.

In recent years, it had been converted into a hall for stage shows which filled more seats than films.

There was a time when Rawalpindi boasted as many as 21 movie theatres. With the downturn of the film industry, nine of these had been turned into shopping plazas, two were converted into wedding halls while another 10 became ruins.

Owners of the Ciros Cinema transformed it into the Ciros Theatre which showcases stage dramas instead.

To many people, the demolition of the last cinema hall symbolises the death of the local film industry.

The crisis of the indigenous film industry and growing demand for the exhibition of modern Hollywood and Bollywood movies in expensive multiplexes have deprived people of the lower-income strata of the cheapest and easily available form of entertainment.

Muhammad Iqbal, who had been working in Shabistan for the past 35 years, told The Express Tribune that he felt every thump of the heavy hammers which pulverised the foundations of Shabistan Cinema - and with it those of the indigenous film industry.

“The pneumatic hammers and excavators were pulling down the place where I had spent my youth, rubbed shoulders with celebrities and film stars,” he said, adding all he now had from the cinema were wet eyes.

Cinema hall workers Aleem Chaudhry, Agha Iftekhar, and Nasir Khan told The Express Tribune that to draw in audiences, modern Pakistani movies have resorted to the use of raunchy dances and explicit dialogues in scenes.

Ashiq Mehmood and Waheed Ahmed, who once used to help manage cinemas, said they have been forced to take up alternative businesses.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 22^nd, 2020.