1 week Ago
Y et another committee has been formed for the promotion of cinema in the country. Over the past decade or two, there has been a flurry of cultural, film and performing arts policies, both at the national and provincial levels. Yet, few have paused to ask what became of those policies or the initiatives they may have launched.
In the race to draft new documents, the slates of previous efforts are wiped clean, leaving little trace or continuity. In some cases, abrupt government dismissals, whether through quasi-constitutional or outright extra-constitutional means, left policies hanging mid-air. In others, when the same parties returned to power after a hiatus, the allure of starting afresh was simply too strong.
The impression, reinforced by savvy insiders, was of making a bold new beginning. In the years following the country’s creation, culture was pushed to the back burner. The challenges of negotiating a cultural identity – of defining what was “mine” and “thine” – led to overreach.
Efforts often crossed the line from curation into cultural engineering. And yet, despite this pressure, tradition proved too robust to be sanitised entirely. Films were made, music was composed, and painting survived, even as a growing lobby deemed much of it un-Islamic or immoral.
The first cultural policy of note emerged under the Pakistan Peoples Party in the early 1970s. Shaped by a socialist ethos, it called for state intervention and support in all sectors, including the arts. Much was achieved during that period, but critics argued that culture under state sponsorship became culture under state control.
Artistic freedom, they claimed, was sacrificed at the altar of propaganda. While these debates echoed globally, hybrid models took shape: many states offered support while still claiming to uphold freedom. In some cases – like India’s parallel cinema or Hollywood’s commercial studios – the private sector became the guarantor of creative independence.
In the race to draft new documents, the slates of previous efforts are wiped clean . The risk of failure, of course, is intrinsic to cinema. For filmmakers, this uncertainty has always been a double-edged sword.
Iranian cinema, for instance, is often critiqued for being shielded from financial risk, but it pays the price in terms of artistic freedoms, with filmmakers navigating a thicket of censorship. In this context, news of the latest development in the Punjab demands attention. An eight-member Punjab Film Fund Disbursement Committee has been formed under the Chief Minister’s Film Fund to support the province’s film industry.
Among the more tangible developments: land for a long-anticipated Film City—including a studio, post-production lab, and film school—has been allocated within the Nawaz Sharif IT City in Lahore’s Central Business District. According to the new plan, the committee will review and approve applications for grant-in-aid to filmmakers who have produced and released at least one film since 2007. The grant is available for both new productions and films that are partially completed and in need of funding for completion.
Applicants will be required to demonstrate ownership, authorship and the necessary rights, whether for original scripts or adaptations, through affidavits or verifiable copyright documents. The committee is also responsible for implementing the broader Punjab Film Policy and determining percentage-based incentives for filmmakers based on box office returns. In addition to evaluating grant applications, the committee will finalise the pre-qualification of film producers and companies, shortlist eligible candidates and oversee the disbursement process.
The question remains: will this committee break the cycle of well-intentioned beginnings followed by swift oblivion, or will it, too, be remembered as just another chapter in Pakistan’s long and patchy film policy saga? The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore.
