PESHAWAR: With the arrival of new Pashto film ‘Zargia Khwarshay’, life seemed to be returning to the Peshawar cinema houses after the Feb 11 incident when the Picture House, an old cinema house located in the famous Qissakhwani bazaar, was attacked with hand-grenades, leaving five movie buffs dead and 30 others injured.

The new film featuring Meera, Shahid Khan, Jehangir Khan, Sidra Noor, Khushboo, Sumbal, Imran and Dilbar Khan will be put on display on April 18 in Peshawar, Karachi, Quetta and Kabul cinema houses.

Talking to Dawn here on Sunday, film director Arshad Khan said: “This new film was to be released in February, but unfortunately, its launch was delayed due to bad security situation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. I am hopeful my production featuring mega stars Meera and Shahid Khan will fetch good business and draw audience in the province because the story and music of the film are quality based.”

He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government should take steps to improve the law and order situation to promote cultural activities in the province. He said that only one Pashto movie was released during the first quarter of the current year owing to the security situation.

Shahid Khan, who is playing a lead role in the film ‘Zargia khwarshay’, said that if the KP government did not take appropriate measures for the protection of cinema business, Pashto film industry (Pollywood) would collapse. He said that filmmaking in this turbulent time was a difficult job, adding that though Pollywood was busy producing quality stuff, it was losing cinema houses, facing another kind of crisis. He suggested that the KP government should help stop demolition of cine-theatres or construct small digital 3D cinepax cinemas that would help promote film industry.

The cinema owners in Peshawar had pulled down black curtains following terror attacks on the cine theatres, demanding foolproof security for their once thriving business. But after striking a clandestine deal with the authorities concerned, the cinema houses in the city once again began to be frequented by trickling visitors overwhelmed by fear of being attacked by grenade hurlers.

“About 11 cinema houses in the city are functional, even in the normal situation; only 30 to 50 cine-goers turn up at shows because of its dwindling business. Owing to spate of terrorism, about 2,000 employees affiliated with cinema business could lose their job,” Sayyad Jamil, a senior cine-worker, told this reporter. Artists and singers’ families literally starve as they have no job and no security. Some have laid their hands on other jobs, he said.

Safdar Khan, a cinema buff, said that the PTI-led government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was least bothered about art and artists’ miserable plight, adding that 95 per cent of artists and singers had been living in rented houses. Families of most of the artists and stage performers literally starve as the KP culture directorate has not arranged even a single show or cultural event in the city’s lone theatre ‘Nishtar Hall’ since PTI came into power. “It shows the apathy of the high-ups towards the artists’ community,” he regretted.

Only three production houses have been left in the field. The royalty of a CD/telefilm was reduced from Rs300,000 to Rs30,000 during just a few months. In Fata, there is no CD market, and no local singer can run an office in the tribal agency, revealed Zarmat Khan Afridi, who previously was dealing in the CD business in Jamrud sub-division of Khyber Agency.

An official in the KP culture directorate wishing not be named told this reporter that a well-articulated cultural policy document was already there and the provincial government could seek the stakeholders’ final advice on its implementation anytime soon. He said that this would address all issues related to the art and artists.

“I hope that this policy will prove beneficial to the artists’ community and boost cultural activities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” the official said.