KARACHI: One each of Pakistani, English and Indian film would be released over the New Year with the local movie expected to garner more business, said cinema insiders on Wednesday.

The premiere of Good Morning Karachi, a movie about a lower-middle class girl and her foray into the fashion world, at Cinepax Cinemas, Ocean Tower, on Sunday saw a huge turnout.

“We had invited 500 guests to the screening but 750 people showed up,” said Syed Bilal Ahmed, operations manager of Cinepax. “This shows the hype that has been created around the movie and we are hoping it will earn good business over the weekend,” he added.

Good Morning Karachi, directed by Sabiha Sumar and starring Amna Ilyas in the title role, will be screened on Thursday (today) at Nueplex Cinema in DHA, Phase- 8, Cinepax Ocean Mall, Cinepax Ayesha Manzil and Universe Cineplex at Seaview.

When asked why Atrium Cinema was not releasing Good Morning Karachi, Nawab Hassan Siddiqui, manager of Atrium Cinema and director of Mandviwalla Entertainment, said they would have but the distributor did not approach them. “Now that Pakistani movies of high standard are being made, we definitely want to show them in our cinemas. We had screened Na Maloom Afraad at our cinemas and it did business worth Rs17million.”

The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death, sequel to Daniel Radcliffe’s 2012 horror thriller, will be released on Friday. The story follows a group of schoolchildren and a teacher who escape the World War-II London, and find refuge in a house. The film will be screened at Atrium Cinema, Nueplex, Cinepax Ocean Mall and Cinepax Ayesha Manzil.

Ugly, directed by Anurag Kashyap and described as a riveting and ticking time bomb of a film, will also be shown on Friday at Atrium Cinema, Nueplex, Cinepax Ocean Mall and Cinepax Ayesha Manzil. The film is being noted for the outstanding performance of Tejaswini Kolhapure, sister of yesteryear actress Padmini Kolhapure.

The old cinema houses such as Capri and Bambino are continuing to show the Aamir Khan starrer PK with house-full shows, according to industry insiders. According to Ahmed, PK has been the highest grossing film of the year so far outdoing the enormously successful Pakistani film Na Maloom Afraad that had grossed around Rs7.5 million in Cinepax Ocean Mall alone.

PK, a film that takes potshots at organised religion and its gatekeepers, has so far earned around Rs8.1 million in Ocean Mall. “We plan to show PK for a couple of more weeks,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2015