11 February 2005	Friday	01 Muharram 1426

PESHAWAR, Feb 10: The Telefilmmakers' Association on Thursday asked the government to make laws to check the sale of pirated and obscene movies.

The association's president Sherdil Khan told newsmen that after imposition of a ban on musical performance at the Nishtar Hall, most of the theatre performers switched to telefilms but their business was on the verge of collapse because of the sale of pirated and obscene movies.

"We want the government to streamline the business. About 200 artistes in the province are associated with telefilms," he said. He said scores of actors and actresses had left the city for Lahore and Karachi.

He said 32 producers in the city released at least 200 films each month and on average 12,000 copies of each of those were sold but the number pirated copies was higher.

He said pirated CDs of the films were being sold in the NWFP and Afghanistan but there was no law to check the trade. He said some non-professional people released vulgar films, which brought a bad name to the business. He said filmmakers were ready to pay a fee to the censor board so that it could review each movie before it was released.

Sherdil Khan said most of the famous film stars, like Asif Khan, Jehangir Jani, Javaid Babar, Said Rehman Sheeno and Alamzeb Mujahid also performed in telefilms. "Our competition is with Indian films. We can compete with them but we need government's patronage," he said.

Telefilm Distributors Association President Musafar Khan said about Rs200,000 were spent on the preparation of a two-hour film, but thousands of pirated copies reached the market a day after their release.

He said artistes were invited from Karachi, Lahore and Quetta to perform in the films, which increased the cost. Initially, the business earned profit but now it was on the decline, he said. "We have suffered huge losses and we are weighing options to give up this business," he said.

Artistes Welfare Association Zoom President Tariq Jamal said telefilms were seen as substitute to theatre, which had been closed.

He warned that hundreds of artistes would face starvation if the government failed to regulate the telefilm business.

Artistes Fauzia Javaid, Ghazal Gul, Nadia Khan and Rani expressed concern about vulgarity in the films said they were trying to present programmes that could be watched by families.

Director Tawab Sarhadi said the sole theatre hall in the city, the Nishtar Hall, had been closed and there was dearth of work in the Pakistan Television, Peshawar centre, which had forced actors to perform in telefilms.