ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Senator Pervaiz Rashid said on Thursday that the government taken several measures to revive the film industry of the country and promote the positive image of the country abroad.
"Films are actually face of any society to promote itself in the world, unfortunately this face was mutilated and our society was gradually driven away from this," he said while responding to questions during question hour in the National Assembly.
He said that the government has been working to support this industry and give it a new life by facilitating it with various incentives.
Talking about the measures taken by the government, he said the entertainment tax has been eliminated, which proved to be the first step to review the film industry.
The minister said that the registration for film-making has also been reduced considerably. Earlier, if anyone wanted to make a film, he had to pay about Rs.100,000 registration fees, which has now been reduced to just Rs.25,000, he added.
He said that the fees paid for censorship of a film to Film Censer Board were also waived off as no fee is now being charged on censorship of Pakistani films, however added that the imported films are still subjected to this fee.
He said that for the promotion of film industry, a fund has also been created by Prime Minister of Pakistan with seed money of Rs200 million.
He said the funds provided by the Prime Minister would be allocated as Endowment Fund and the three fourth of the money will be placed under fixed deposit and the earned interest will be allocated for the financial assistance to the artists.
The minister said that National Film Awards to recognize and appreciate the efforts of the people associated with the film industry and to promote the local film industry is under consideration.
Pervaiz Rashid said that the government arranged international exhibition of four locally produced films which received good appreciation and this activity would be continue to promote the industry.
The minister was of the view that after the 18th Amendment in the constitution, the Film Censer Board have been devolved to provinces adding that there are such boards working in Sindh and Punjab provinces and expected that Khaber Pakhtunkhaw and Balochistan would also set up such boards.
He was of the view that measures have been taken in Sind and Punjab province to review the industry and new cinemas are being made, which promoted the film-making culture.
The minister while highlighting the importance of the film industry said that if there are no films, there would be no cinemas and if you don't have cinemas there would be no investment in this sector as investors would be reluctant to invest in this sector at a place where there is not a proper platform to display.
We will have to rehabilitate cinema, which have been gradually vanishing the minister said and observed that earlier there were thousands of cinemas all across the country which were reduced to just dozens now.
The minister said that the local films would be dubbed or subtitled in other languages for exhibitions in other countries.
To a question, he said that the government has been encouraging the making of all those films promoting the interest of our country, love, peace and brotherhood and rejecting and discouraging prejudice, hatred and sectarianism.
He said the films produced keeping in view these themes have received appreciation at international level.
To a question, he said that since there were less cinemas compared to the demand by the public, so the rates of film-watching are high, adding that when the number of cinemas goes up, it would automatically reduces to ticket prices.
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