Lahore District - Cinema of Pakistan (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 270. Not illustrated. Chapters: Cinema of Pakistan. Excerpt: The cinema of Pakistan refers to Pakistan's film industry. Most of the feature films shot in Pakistan are in Urdu language but may also include films in Punjabi, Pashto, Balochi or Sindhi languages. Before the Bangladesh Liberation War, Pakistan had three main film production centres: Lahore, Karachi and Dhaka. Dhaka was lost after 1971. The regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, VCRs, film piracy, the introduction of entertainment taxes, and Islamic laws, have been some of the many obstacles to the industry's growth. Once thriving, the cinema in Pakistan now barely exists. The Pakistani film industry is credited with having produced some of the most notable and recognised filmmakers, actors, writers and directors, and for introducing pop music to South Asia. Competition from Bollywood, however, led to the industry's decline, although several Indo-Pakistan ventures are promising to help in its revival. Cinema was introduced to India on 7 July 1896, when the Lumiere brothers' Cinematographe showed six short silent films at Watson's Hotel in Bombay. A few years later in 1898, Hiralal Sen started filming scenes of theatre productions in Calcutta, inspired by English professor Stephenson who had brought to India the country's first bioscope. Harischandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar imported a camera from London at a price of 21 guineas and filmed the first Indian documentary, a wrestling match in Hanging Gardens, Bombay, in 1897. He also filmed the first Indian news film, a record of Ragunath P. Paranjpe's return from Cambridge University upon securing a distinction in mathematics. Bhatavdekar is however best known for filming the Viceroy of India Lord Curzon's Delhi Durbar that marked the enthronement of Edward VII in 1903. It was then that the commercial potential of the Indian cinema w...