Abstract

This paper investigates the impulses, motives and conditions that are positively associated and problems, hurdles and concerns that are the obstacles in the resurgence of 21st century Pakistani film industry. It also gauges the priorities and concerns of young moviegoers and compares with the priorities and concerns of our young generation of filmmakers. To achieve this end we employed both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and came up with following results that Pakistan’s screen to film production ratio is one of the best in the world. It is vehemently in search of its distinctive identity and plays, sometimes immaturely, with different genres are evidence to it. We see a visible drift from conventional Indo Pak Masala genre to social drama, physical reality, war movies and Wuxia. Production facilities of Pakistani film industry have been significantly improved and in terms of equipment Pakistani film industry is no more far behind Bollywood and Hollywood as it used to be even in the times of Khuda Kay Leay (KKL). Different production processes are gradually becoming worthier; cinematography, sound design and post production effects have been admired whereas viewers are critical about the standard of music, choreography, production budget, code switching, acting, script writing and screen playwright. Researchers found that most of the filmmakers complain about dearth and substandard script and screen play. Moreover, film viewers also complain about lack of originality in the script. Young filmmakers also complain about the dearth of trained human resources, who may use the modern equipment to its optimum level of output. Young viewers more or less face a paradox, they claim that they aspire to see their local culture and local social issues in Pakistani movies, they yearn to see local culture in Pakistani movies but when they are exposed to the choice to select either Pakistani film or Indian, they choose Indian movie hoping to get better entertainment value in terms of visual pleasure; a fact that requires separate in depth research about the psychology of young Pakistani film spectatorship.