Curtain going down on cinema culture in Peshawar

PESHAWAR: Curtains seems to be coming down on the cinema culture in the provincial metropolis, as the number of cine-goers has dropped by nearly 50 percent due to the surging militancy and other problems, a survey conducted by Daily Times showed on Sunday.Earlier, the city had around 14 cinemas; however their number has now come down to 10, as the cinema owners are razing their buildings and constructing commercial plazas.The remaining cinemas are attracting few visitors, as incidents of bombing, suicide attacks, torching and bombing of CD shops and threats to art related activities have scared the general public across the province.At present, most of the cinemas in the city are screening Pashto films, while some are showing English and Urdu films.Sabrina and Arshad Cinemas, Khyber Bazaar, are screening Pashto films but the visitors were thin in presence on Sunday showing lack of public interest in movies.Palwasha Cinema was demolished a few years ago and a multi-storey commercial complex is nearing completion in its place.Cinema Road that runs on the backside of Khyber Bazaar got its name due to location of three cinemas on its stretch. Novelty Cinema was closed down for construction of a commercial plaza, while Tasveer Mahal and Picture House are still operating, but the numbers of visitors has declined.Naz Cinema, Hospital Road, was closed on Sunday, while Firdous Cinema, Grand Trunk (GT) Road; and Capital Cinema, Sadder; were screening a Pushto and Urdu film respectively on Sunday.The buildings of these cinemas are ramshackle lacking proper paint and other facilities for the visitors.Shama Cinema, Pajjagi Road, and PAF Cinema are also screening films. The latter is mostly visited by the armed forces personnel.Adeeb, an employee of Picture House, told Daily Times that the number of visitors had dropped by 50 percent over the past few years due to militancy, computer CDs and rising inflation. He was of the view that most of the cine-goers were labourers or those who had no other source of entertainment.He said cable TC and computer CDs had played havoc with the cinema houses. He said screening of Indian films by some cinemas had also failed to attract people.Home of some of the greatest Bollywood stars including Dilip Kumar, Kapoor family and Shahrukh Khan, Peshawar got its first cinema after World War-I which is nowadays known as PAF Cinema.Later, Cinema de Paris and Deluxe followed. Novelty came into being in 1930 and Capital and Lansdowne (later Falaksair) in 1934. Falaksair was demolished in 2007.