Government Funds, Old Faces, Recycled Stories — Is Pakistan’s Film Subsidy System Becoming a Personal ATM for Veteran Filmmakers?

Pakistan’s film industry is in crisis, yet veteran filmmakers are securing government subsidies to produce low-budget films with outdated formulas — raising urgent questions about who this money is really serving.

By Imran Malik | Entertainment & Film Desk | MediaBites.com.pk

Pakistan’s film industry is in deep trouble. Cinema attendance is falling. Quality productions are rare. Young talent is struggling to get a foot in the door. And the government money meant to revive Lollywood is quietly flowing toward the same familiar faces — producing the same tired stories — that audiences stopped watching decades ago.

The latest example occurred at the launch event for veteran filmmaker Ghulam Mohiuddin’s upcoming film, where legendary actress Babra Sharif took to the stage and delivered remarks that inadvertently revealed more about the industry’s problems than its solutions.

Babra Sharif’s Nostalgic Appeal — And What It Really Signals

Sharif recalled a golden era when actors like herself and Nadeem Baig would bring their own food to shoots, change clothes inside coasters rather than demanding hotel rooms, and work selflessly to support filmmakers on shoestring budgets.

She urged today’s new actors to support producers rather than becoming a financial burden — because, she noted, films are being made with “extremely low budgets.”

The appeal was heartfelt. But it raised an uncomfortable question nobody at the launch event asked aloud: if budgets are this low, where exactly is the government money going?

The Subsidy Trail — Veterans First, Industry Last

A clutch of veteran filmmakers, including Syed Noor, Ghulam Mohiuddin, Shehzad Rafiq, and Shaan Shahid, have successfully secured financial support from both the Government of Pakistan and the Government of Punjab for their film projects.

The formula that follows is almost predictable. Productions are launched on low budgets — reportedly in the PKR 50-60 lakh range in some cases. The filmmaker frequently serves as producer, writer, and sometimes lead actor simultaneously. Veteran actresses, including Film Star Saima, are cast in prominent roles. And the resulting films arrive carrying the same narrative DNA that Pakistani audiences first encountered in the 1980s and 1990s.

The critique is not that these filmmakers lack talent. The critique is that government subsidy money, which should be seeding fresh creative voices, is instead being captured by an established network that knows how to navigate government approval processes better than it knows how to connect with modern audiences.

Marriyum Aurangzeb — Minister or Personal PR Machine?

Critics are increasingly directing their frustration at Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, under whose remit Pakistan’s film revival policy falls.

The accusation is pointed: rather than implementing a transparent, merit-based process for allocating film support funds, Aurangzeb has been selectively rewarding filmmakers who serve her personal and political PR interests. The names receiving support, critics argue, are not the names most likely to produce films that will bring audiences back to cinemas — they are the names most likely to generate goodwill events, press appearances, and political optics for the ministry.

There is no publicly available breakdown of which filmmakers received what amounts, under what criteria, with what accountability measures attached. That opacity itself is the problem.

The Oscar Lobby and the Cannes Crowd — Two More Failures Draining Pakistani Cinema

Beyond the subsidy grab, Pakistani cinema suffers from two additional factions that critics argue are equally disconnected from the audiences that matter most.

The first is what industry insiders call the Oscar agenda group — filmmakers who secure funding specifically to produce content that highlights Pakistan’s social problems for international consumption. Their output skews heavily toward documentaries and issue-driven narratives designed for foreign festival circuits and grant applications. Pakistani masses, Pakistani cinema, and Pakistani ticket buyers feature nowhere in their strategic thinking. The goal is international recognition. The local audience is irrelevant to the mission.

The second faction targets Cannes and the international LGBTQ+ festival circuit, producing films calibrated specifically for European programming committees rather than Pakistani multiplexes. Their annual success metric is a Cannes screening. Their annual failure is that nobody in Pakistan watches the result. These filmmakers are perfectly comfortable operating in a permanent loop of international validation while their domestic audience remains entirely unaddressed.

Both factions consume oxygen, resources, and credibility from Pakistan’s film ecosystem while contributing nothing to the central challenge: bringing Pakistani audiences back to Pakistani cinemas.

The Honorable Exceptions — And What They Teach Us

In this landscape of misdirected funding and misaligned priorities, two names stand out as doing something closer to what Pakistani cinema actually needs.

Fahad Mustafa deserves genuine credit. Whatever the critical reception of individual projects, he has consistently attempted to make films for Pakistani audiences — people who buy tickets, sit in cinemas, and want to be entertained. His commercial instincts, star power, and audience awareness represent the direction Pakistani cinema must travel. Zombeid this Eid, whatever its imperfections, was a genuine attempt to give Pakistani audiences something new.

Shaan Shahid presents a more complicated picture. As a director, his instincts have not always translated into commercial or critical success. But critics suggest that if Shaan were to fully step back from the vanity of self-directed, self-starring vehicles and commit to acting in projects helmed by stronger directors, his genuine screen presence could still contribute meaningfully to Pakistani cinema’s commercial revival.

The Generation Pakistani Cinema Is Ignoring — Gen Z

Perhaps the most damaging blind spot in Pakistani film financing and production is the complete absence of Generation Z from every strategic conversation.

Gen Z Pakistani audiences are the most media-literate, globally connected, and critically sophisticated viewers the country has ever produced. They consume Korean drama, Marvel films, international streaming content, and global music simultaneously. They have extraordinarily high standards. They are deeply patriotic but utterly unsentimental about quality. They will not watch a bad Pakistani film out of cultural loyalty.

They are also the generation that will either rebuild the cinema-going habit in Pakistan or abandon it permanently.

No veteran filmmaker currently receiving government subsidy appears to be thinking about them. No ministry policy document appears to have consulted them. And yet they are the only audience whose engagement can actually save Pakistani cinema long term.

Pakistani producers and filmmakers must start building for Gen Z — their storytelling expectations, their visual language, their social media native instincts, and their appetite for authenticity over nostalgia.

What Pakistani Cinema Actually Needs

The path forward is not complicated, even if it is politically difficult.

Government film subsidies must be transparent, merit-based, and publicly accountable. First-time and emerging filmmakers must receive priority access. Veterans must compete on equal terms rather than leveraging political connections. International festival filmmaking and domestic commercial filmmaking require separate funding streams and accountability frameworks.

Most importantly, every rupee of public money spent on Pakistani film must be answerable to one question: will this bring Pakistani audiences into Pakistani cinemas?

If the answer is no, the money should not be spent.