What does it take to become a producer?

The film industry in Pakistan doesn't require educational qualifications or work experience as requirements.

LAHORE: Most job advertisements specify educational qualifications or work experience as requirements but this doesn’t apply to the film industry in Pakistan.

The only thing one needs to become a producer is membership of the All Pakistan Film Producers Association (APFPA).  A producer cannot get the title of a film registered if he/she isn’t a member of the association.

APFPA officials told The Express Tribune that there was no difficult criterion to get the membership of the association. “Anyone who wants to be a producer and become a member of the association gives us a copy of his/her national identity card, pictures and a copy of a national tax number card. We a forward a copy of that to the ministry of culture and that’s it,” they said.

Muhammad Azam, an employee of APFPA, said that the membership fee to become member of the association was Rs5,000. He said that the annual fee was Rs500 and a new member pays an additional Rs500 for his/her card.

He said that many of the 300 registered producers were not ‘active’ as they didn’t make films, but there was no rule to expel inactive members. “Once the number of the registered members used to exceed 1,000. Now 10 to 15 films are produced on average while in the past the number used to be around 100,” he said.

He said that there were some members who did not pay the annual fee for years on end but they were given reminders and not expelled.

When asked that why there weren’t any criteria for membership he said, “Anyone may want to make a film and we cannot just stop him. There isn’t any degree one should have to become a producer”.

A senior film critic who spoke on condition of anonymity said, “The constitution of APFPA deliberately didn’t allow for any expulsions. Many used the association to get the name of a movie registered and never made it. The practice was used just to show the loss in filmmaking and legitimizing ill-gotten money. You can check the record and will know that there are hundreds of movies in Pakistan’s history that were never worked on and the producers used their names to show losses in the business.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2010.