Maryam Nawaz says Punjab is establishing a 50-acre 'film city' to bring the glory of filmmaking back to Lahore
The Punjab CM announced that the film city will have special facilities to enable most filmmaking processes to be done in-house.
Punjab’s Minister of Information and Culture Azma Bokhari announced on Tuesday that the provincial government will be taking steps to revive family-friendly theatre performances.
In a video shared by Lahore’s Alhamra Arts Council, Bokhari announced the initiative, saying the government was well on its way to updating the existing laws governing stage performances in the province and will be hosting theatre plays as part of Independence Day celebrations at Alhamra next month.
The minister said she had personally worked on identifying the problems people had with the existing theatre landscape ever since she became part of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz’s cabinet.
“You’ve seen me going to places where public theatre performances are being held, which the public complains is inappropriate and not representative of our culture,” Bokhari said.
“The best news,” she had was that “the revival of theatre will take place at Alhamra” with both senior actors and a number of “passionate” and “very talented” youngsters that audiences could look forward to seeing on stage next month as part of the festivities around August 14.
“Please come and join us in this struggle for good quality family theatre,” the minister said.
In her message, Bokhari also said that a major hurdle in fixing the art form’s environment was old legislation — theatre in Punjab is governed by the 150-year-old Dramatic Performances Act, 1876 which has already been amended by CM Maryam’s government and faces further tweaks.
“The laws regarding theatre performances were made in the 1800s and we’re bringing changes to those laws. We’re working to get cabinet approval for those changes. They will include the registration of artists and strict standard operating procedures for theatres.”
The first show of Alhamra’s family theatre revival initiative, Friends of ‘70s, was revealed on Wednesday.
The play, written by Saeed Anjum and directed by Waseem Abbas, is billed as an exploration of “Pakistan’s rich theatrical heritage”.
The show will run every night at 8pm from Aug 8 to 14. It stars Ashraf Khan, Honey Albela, Qaisar Piya, Usman Raaj, Sheza Butt, Ahmad Mughal, Eman Noor and Meher Chaudhary.