Should we watch Pakistani movies even if they're bad? Hareem Farooq thinks so

Hareem Farooq has been quite the busy bee promoting her upcoming film, Heer Maan Ja.

But it looks like the actor wants unconditional support, be the film good or bad.

During a recent interview with Haroon Rashid of BBC Asian Network, She spoke up about the Pakistani film industry and how the cinema-going culture is declining.

When asked about whether it's okay to say 'support local cinema' even when folks say a film is terrible, she replied, "I'd say that's true. You need to own everything right now."

She went on to say, "Bollywood, Hollywood, Tamilwood, they're centuries old, while Pakistani cinema is probably just six years old. We talk about making something out of our country, and we want to take our cinema abroad.

We want to tell people that what you get to see in the news is not Pakistan or the one you get to hear about from people who don't even know what Pakistan is, right? You need to tell people that this is Pakistan; it is beautiful, it has colours, it has talent, it has everything."

"So, even if there is a bad film, you need to understand and our audiences need to understand, that we don't have the technicians, the writers, or even the actors for films. Everyone is learning and the only reason why people are doing films is passion and it's just purely passion, trust me on this."

We get what Hareem is trying to say about the Pakistani film industry being in it's teething phase. But considering the time that has gone by and the number of films released (last year alone we had over 20 releases), are we really going to support mediocre, even bad content just because it's locally produced?

Also, there will be no motivation for filmmakers to strive to do better if we keep lapping up whatever is served. These patriotic calls help no one in the long run if it means our industry gets in a comfort zone. It's about time they listen to the criticism and improve from there.

We want to support our local industry. We really do. But if in the past few years we get the same kind of films with the exact same problems time and time again, 'support local cinema' won't work anymore.