PESHAWAR, July 5: Expressing deep concern over the sale of pirated and obscene films, the Tele-film Makers’ Association has urged the government to make laws to curb the sale of pirated and obscene movies. “We are ready to pay fee to the censor board, but the government should legislate to put brakes on the trade and screening of vulgar films,” said the association’s president Sherdil Khan at the launching ceremony of the telefilm, Toofani Shipa here at the press club on Tuesday.
Mr Khan said that after imposition of a ban on musical performance at the Nishtar Hall most of the theatre performers switched to tele-films but their business started going down the dumps because of the sale of pirated and obscene movies.
“We want the government to streamline the business. About 200 artistes in the province are associated with tele-films,” he said. He said scores of actors and actresses had left the city for Lahore and Karachi.
He said 40 producers in the city released at least 200 films each month and on an average 12,000 copies of each of those were sold but the number of pirated copies was much higher.
He said pirated DVDs of the films were being sold in the NWFP and Afghanistan but there was no law to check the trade.
Mr Khan said some non-professional people released vulgar films which brought a bad name to the business.
He said filmmakers were ready to pay a fee to the censor board so that it could review each movie before it was released.
Mr Khan said most of the famous film stars like Asif Khan, Jehangir Jani, Javaid Babar, Saeed Rehman Sheeno and Alamzeb Mujahid also performed in tele-films.
He claimed: “Our competition is with Indian films. We can compete with them but we need the government’s patronage.”
Tele-film Distributors’ Association President Musafar Khan said about Rs200,000 were spent on the making of a two-hour film, but thousands of pirated copies reached the market a day after its release.
He said artistes were invited from Karachi, Lahore and Quetta to perform in the films, which increased the cost. Initially, the business earned profit but now it was on the decline, he said.
“We have suffered huge losses and we are weighing options to give up this business,” he said.
Artistes Welfare Association Zoom President Tariq Jamal said tele-films were seen as a substitute to theatre, which had been closed.
He warned that hundreds of artistes would face starvation if the government failed to regulate the tele-film business.
Artistes Fauzia Javaid, Ghazal Gul, Nadia Khan and Rani expressed concern about vulgarity in the films and said they were trying to present programmes that could be watched by families.
