PESHAWAR: Senior writer Haji Aslam Khan has brought out a comprehensive book titled ‘Pakhto Filmoona’ on history of Pashto movies.

The book is spread over 600 pages having background information of the first ever Pashto movie ‘Laila Majnoon’ released in pre partition era in 1941 in Mumbai followed by ‘Yousaf Khan Sher Bano’ released in 1971 and the list goes on to 782 Pashto films.

The author said that he had documented complete profiles of film actors, directors, playback singers, musicians, producers, financiers, choreographers, script writers, songwriters, promoters and even cinema threatres along with beautiful and rare photographs and makeup artists.

Earlier, he had published a huge book ‘Tair Hair Awazoona’ that was widely acclaimed by readers and researchers alike.

“The book took me several years to collect rare references including photographs, film posters, storyboards and interviews with senior and surviving artists. Surfing old archives for the scripts was indeed a tough job but I was able to put them together. I hope it will prove a crash course for the film critics,” said Mr Khan.

The book, he claimed, was the first of its kind as it contained authentic information regarding Pashto cinema and almost everything related to Pashto film industry.

“Also my book provides the reasons of the fall and rise of the Pashto cinema, its quality, music, contents, representation and reflection of Pakhtun cultural, social and political life,” said the writer.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2020