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Glamour tinged with sadness
There were nearly three thousand guests in the majestic Lahore Fort to attend the Pakistan Film Awards ceremony, and nobody knew that before the evening was over, they would not be able to forget the night for sometime. The ceremony became a real-life drama when guests saw an award winner breathing his last while coming to the stage. When the tragic death of famous screenplay writer Ejaz Arman was confirmed, the organizers instantly cancelled the show and artists and guests left slowly and quietly with heavy hearts.
The show was organized by the Pakistan Film Promotional Council and was the second awards ceremony presented by this newly formed body, established for the promotion of the local film industry. The first awards ceremony was held in June last year. This time it was held on a massive scale and was well attended by the film industry.
The best thing about the show was that not only the current but many veteran artists also graced the occasion. After many years Mohammed Ali, known as ‘bhaiya’ by the artists, and Zeba were present at the awards show. Mustafa Qurreshi, who has practically left Lollywood, was also there with his wife Rubina Qurreshi. Besides them senior producers such as S. Suleman, Qadeer Ghouri, (Chacha) Ilyas Kashmiri, Aslam Dar and others were also present. The chief guest was W. Z. Ahmed, a famous director of the past.
The night was unusually very pleasant and refreshing because of the cool breeze. The stage was constructed in front of the famous Diwan-e-Aam of Lahore Fort. Director Tajdar Alam had the Diwan-e-Aam lit up as a backdrop of the stage. The show, as usual, started late. There was slight mismanagement regarding seating arrangements. Shaan and his wife had to stand for fifteen minutes because they had arrived late and there was not a single chair empty in the front rows. Provincial minister for law Rana Ejaz was lucky to find a chair in the fourth row.
The show began with the performance of famous film villain, Shafqat Cheema, on the vast stage. He acted on a song, which was a kind of a dua, invoking the blessings of God. Noorul Hasan and Urooje Nasir were the anchors of the show. Both did a satisfactory job but, during the show it was felt that their scripts were a bit lengthy. In the beginning a small film was shown to the audience in which faces of all the late icons of Pakistan film industry were mentioned. It would have been proper if the names were also announced because the audience did not know many of the faces.
Chairman Pakistan Film Council Sohail Butt, in his speech said that this council was formed two years back to fill the vacuum created because of the abolishment of Nafdec by the Government. Senior Vice Chairman of the Council and Managing Director of Imaging Technologies Ataullah Farooqui, told the audience that the Pakistan film industry had contributed a great deal as far as entertainment in Pakistan was concerned, and by sponsoring this ceremony wanted to recognize their efforts. Syed Awais Ahmed, Country General Manager of Kodak Pakistan Limited said that he was proud of the fact that his organization was associated with the Pakistani film industry from the first day. He also emphasized that the industry should adopt a more practical strategy to face the present challenges. The best thing about the show was that all the award winners received cash prizes. There were 23 categories and besides them 10 junior artists and technicians were also given cash prizes of ten thousand rupees each. It was for the first time that the efforts of extras and other minor artists were recognized.
Ajab Gul’s Khoaiy ho tum kahan won the most awards — best film, best director (Ajab Gul), best heroine (Meera), best writer (Agha Hasan Imtasal), best dialogue writer (Ejaz Arman), best screen play writer (Ejaz Arman) and best editor (Qurban). Moammar Rana won the award of best actor for his performance in Syed Noor’s Dil deewana hai. Resham was declared best supporting actress and Babar Ali won the award of best supporting actor. Tafoo was declared the best music director. The interesting thing to note here was that the jury totally ignored the music of film Moosa Khan by Jawwad Ahmed, which was very popular with the masses. Naseebo Lal won the award of best female singer whereas Nafees was given the award of best male singer. New talent awards went to Asma Lata and Raza. Baba Khadem received the award of best art director and Ashraf Sherazi was declared best choreographer. Late Kamran Mirza was declared best cinematographer and Syed Afzal Hussain won the award of best sound recordist.
There were some very interesting performances by the film artists. Meera performed magnificently on the remix of Noor Jehan’s famous song, Mundiya Sialkotia.
Umer Sharif’s parody of Mohammed Ali was very funny and even Mohammed Ali seemed to enjoy it the most. The skit done by Raja Haider and Umer Sharif was also very enjoyable. Raja Haider did a good job performing the role of Akber the Great. There were some exchange of words between Umer Sharif and Noorul Hasan. For the first time on stage Umer Sharif appeared uneasy when Noorul Hasan, in retaliation, talked about his wig. The audience was amused but Umer Sharif looked upset. The other artists who performed during the show were Ahsan Khan, Arbaz Khan, Sonu, Khusboo, Megha, Ghurya and others.
There was more than one incidence which made the show quite morbid. First showing of all the late artists made everyone slightly nostalgic. Then the speech made by veteran actor, Ilyas Kashmiri was about death. The announcement of Murid Hussain, a junior technician and recipient of the special cash award, who had died the same day made everyone grim.
One must commend the organizers for arranging a show for the betterment of the film industry, and though there were some very unusual incidents that evening, one hopes that it does not deter them in arranging the awards ceremony next year.
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