Fishing for customers

LAHORE: Cinema tickets may have been reduced, but the audience still isn’t biting.

The Punjab government announced a waiver of the 65 per cent entertainment tax which was earlier imposed on the screening of foreign films, but it hasn’t made a huge impact on the audience.

The government’s decision to waive entertainment duty for three years and help cinema owners and film exhibitors sustain their business invited a great deal of criticism from Lollywood. Cinema owners and film exhibitors believe that foreign films net them far more revenue than local films.

An increase in ticket sales was expected as a result of the decision. Tickets at Lahore’s DHA Cinema and Cine Star cinema have been reduced to Rs300, while Cine Gold tickets now cost Rs400. In other cinemas across the city the ticket price ranges between Rs120 and 250. Before the waiver, cinema tickets cost between Rs150 to Rs600.

The management of cinemas in Lahore told The Express Tribune that sales had not been impacted because no good films had released since the waiver was announced. Pakistan Film Exhibitors Association Chairman Zoraiz Lashari, who also owns Sozo World Cinema, told The Express Tribune, “It is not about decreasing prices. It is about good films. If there are no good films, people won’t come to watch them just because the prices are low.”

An official of DHA Cinema told The Express Tribune that the cinema has a capacity of 476 seats, and has seen an occupancy rate of around 20 to 25 per cent since the ticket prices were reduced. “Currently, we are showing Inception, Anjaana Anjaani, Robot and Piranha 3D. New films, including Golmaal 3 and Action Replayy, are set to release soon and we expect to have house-full shows then,” he told.

Officials of Cine Star and Cine Gold also believe that the next slew of releases will boost ticket sales, since even films like Robot (which did very well in India) did not manage to generate a lot of business in Lahore.

According to Zoraiz Lashari, a cinema needs around 26 films in a year to sustain itself. Currently, 22 to 24 Indian movies were being allowed screening in Pakistan. “This is appropriate,” he said. “We also show Hollywood films and sometimes a Pakistani movie manages to release.”

While cinema owners and exhibitors are optimistic about the future, Film Federation of Pakistan Chairperson Sangeeta is strongly opposed to the waiver. “Are we here to promote Indian and Hollywood films or our own? This simply means that Pakistan films will now be screened in second category cinemas where only those people watch movies who cannot afford to buy tickets in cinemas like DHA and Cine Star,” she said. The filmmaker said that cinema owners were businessmen who did not feel for the film industry. “They approached the higher authorities and succeeded in getting their demands met. We were not consulted before this decision,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2010.