KARACHI, Dec 18: Fear of political and economic pressure groups and bureaucratic red-tape stand in the way of free and unhindered collaboration between Indian and Pakistani film-makers.

However, resolute and daring film-makers on both sides of the divide manage to either circumvent or completely disregard the restrictive rules and regulations imposed by the governments of India and Pakistan.

This was the main talking-point on Thursday at the 3rd KaraFilm Festival seminar, titled “Indo-Pakistan collaboration: possibilities, prospects and issues.”

Well-known Indian film-maker Mahesh Bhatt, who has more than 50 movies under his belt, opened the discussion by saying that most Indian film-makers feared that if they made movies with names of stars from Pakistan, certain political parties would start agitating against the movies and send a handful of goons to cinema houses to raise nationalistic slogans, tear out a few posters and scare people away. He deplored that more often than not the entire film industry stood back and watched the whole drama.

Agreeing with Mr Bhatt, veteran actor, producer and director Usman Peerzada said Indian and Pakistani film-makers should make a beginning. “India’s Hindi film industry and Pakistan’s Urdu film industry share a lot. But I feel that instead of jumping headlong into collaboration, Pakistani film-makers would do well to acquire technology from India. We should ask the governments of India and Pakistan to allow us to collaborate with one another for post-production operations,” he suggested.

Anand Patwardan, who has been making political documentaries for nearly three decades, disclosed that he never asked the governments of India and Pakistan for permission to shoot his movies. His 175-minute-long documentary, titled Jang aur aman, was filmed for over three years in India, Pakistan, Japan and the United States.

When asked what ailed the Pakistani film industry, film star Meera, who has over 60 movies to her credit, declared that the reason why the film industry in Pakistan was in bad shape was that it was governed by the Punjabis. As the audience broke into peals of laughter and clapped happily, she suggested that the cinema industry be relocated to Karachi.

Veteran performer and film-maker Samina Peerzada said: “I lost my passion for film-making in Lahore. There was so much negativity there that I stopped dreaming. I came back to Karachi to start dreaming and start film-making.”

Well-known TV producer Sultana Siddiqui, who worked with Pakistan Television for over 25 years before setting up her own production house, said it was a great pity that despite the fact that the Indians and Pakistanis were so close, they were not allowed by their governments to shoot films wherever they wanted to.

Both Mr Peerzada and Mr Bhatt shot down the suggestion of Shahzad Hasan, who worked with Pooja Bhatt in her film Paap, that the Pakistan and Indian film industries were not same. They insisted that initially both film industries had been essentially same. They pointed out that somewhere down the line the clock stopped for the Pakistani film industry which lost its appeal to the audience.

Speaking about her movie Paap, which is being premiered at the ongoing KaraFilm Festival, Ms Bhatt said she had been looking for some unconventional music when she listened to the compositions made by Shahzad Hasan and songs sung by Ali Azmat. She added that both readily agreed to give her their works.

The lead singer of Junoon, Ali Azmat, said both Indians and Pakistanis did not get to see a complete picture of one another. He added that the Pakistanis got to see only the glitzy and glamourous world of India and the Indians saw only gun-totting and intolerant section of Pakistani society.

When a panelist held the shortage of resources responsible for the bad condition of the Pakistani film industry, Elahe Hiptoola, who is one of the executive producers of 120-minute-long feature film 3 deewarein, said: “I believe there is a lot of chest-beating here. It is not easy to get resources and financiers in India. Just pick up your cameras and make movies. That is the only way of excelling in this field.”

Mr Patwardan said he hoped Bollywood was not regarded as a role model in Pakistan. He added that the Mumbai film industry, which turned out a large number of crappy movies every year, was not worth-imitating.

The administrator of the KaraFilm Society, Hasan Zaidi, conducted the discussion.