Karachi's single-screen revival: Three new cinema houses to open soon

Pakistan's biggest metropolis Karachi is set to welcome three new single-screen cinema houses, indicating a hopeful shift for an industry that has been in steady decline for decades. For a cosmopolitan city that once boasted 140 single-screen cinemas in the 1980s, the drop to fewer than 30 remaining screens has been a source of long-standing grief for movie lovers. But finally, there is some good news for them. Rather than following the trend of demolition to pave the way for shopping malls, office or residential buildings, three new single-screen cinema houses are all set to open soon in Pakistan's most populous city. Singer, actor and entrepreneur Nadeem Jafri, who is spearheading the project in conjunction with the upmarket Defence Housing Authority, said that two of them are near completion, while work has begun on the third. Jafri admitted on Wednesday that the new cinema houses would all be in the DHA area, but said at least it was a beginning. ''Hopefully, the addition of these new cinemas will help in the revival of the city's cultural, art and entertainment scene,'' Jafri said. For nearly three decades, Karachites have seen the city being stripped of dozens of single-screen cinemas as the local film industry, and then a ban on Indian films, left cinema owners, distributors and exhibitors struggling to keep their business afloat. A couple of high-end multiplex cinema complexes sprang up in Karachi in recent years, with most of them in shopping malls in a city of millions. Their high ticket prices, which go up to 1,500 to 1,800, are beyond the reach of the common man who used to shell out 100 to 150 rupees until the 90s to watch a movie in an air-conditioned single-screen cinema house. Ejaz Farooqui, the secretary of the Arts Council of Pakistan in Karachi, said several people gathered at a recent four-day International Urdu Conference for a session on Cinema and Film in Karachi, where actors, directors, and producers spoke their minds. ''They all said cinema made for the masses was not just entertainment. It was a social pressure valve. Karachi needs more cinema screens, but ones meant for the masses,'' he said. Farooqui said that multiplexes don't represent real cinema and are not meant for ordinary people. Pakistan's seasoned actor, Mustafa Qureshi, now in his 80s, said that films allow people to release their frustration, and it is an emotional outlet for them. Qureshi said when people don't see action and expression, they find other dangerous ways to express themselves. Karachi was once the Paris of cinema houses with over a 100 screens offering affordable entertainment for working-class communities, labourers, students and families. ''Nishat, Prince, Bambino, Naz, Capri, Lyric, Star cinemas, which were all next to each other on M A Jinnah road, have now closed down because our local industry is not producing enough Urdu, Punjabi films and import of Hollywood films is very expensive,'' said Nadeem Mandviwalla, a well-known distributor, exhibitor and producer. Mandviwalla, one of the owners of the Atrium cineplex in Saddar area, said the ban on Indian films had dealt a big blow to the cinema industry. ''People want to watch films on big screens in comfort despite so many options via television and streaming platforms. Watching a film in a cinema hall is a unique experience,'' he added. ''This Eid ul-Fitr, just four new Pakistani films were released, and they were the first local releases of 2026,'' he said. Mandviwalla said that two of the four new releases performed well, which shows people want to come to cinemas. ''For labourers, cinema was an escape,'' Munawar said. ''The real question isn't whether more cinemas should be built. It's who they are being built for.'' Omair Alavi, a noted film critic and reviewer, said the local film industry needs to be revived through government initiatives to save the cinema business, as there appears to be no chance of the ban on Indian films being lifted in the near future, in view of the bilateral ties. Cinema owners admit that the period when there was no ban on Indian films on Pakistani screens was a golden era for them. Since 2019, it has been a struggle for them to survive, they say.

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