In conversation with 'Maalik' director Ashir Azeem

Ashir Azeem woke up to congratulatory messages the day the ban on his movie Maalik was lifted. The movie was taken off screens on April 27 after the government slammed a ban on its screening.

We talked to Ashir (who shot to fame with the PTV drama Dhuwan) about his film Maalik, the ban and emerging Pakistani film industry when he visited our studios today.

“I was told that the movie was biased towards a particular linguistic group,” he said. “There are people in Pakistan who prosper when they create divisions based on Sindhi, Punjabi, Balochi. What is this? We are all Pakistanis.”

“Maalik does not create division” he added and believes that the allegations behind the movie which resulted in the ban being imposed were of a “weird nature”. “A movie which was cleared by the Censor Board was suddenly banned because an individual had issues,” he said without divulging further details.

Ashir feels that Maalik is a movie that will bring change in the industry and towards people in general.

When asked if he feels that bans of movies create a hindrance for the film industry and the content it wants to portray in the movies, he agreed saying “In my film, you will see different content” which he feels is the reason behind the imposition of the ban in the first place.

Ashir is a person who believes in women empowerment and for him being able to portray that in his films is important to him. “In my film, all women are very powerful characters and you can see that. One of the characters she rides a motorcycle, she handles heavy machinery. There is another girl who is sewing and helping her family. So we are trying to reflect the segments of society both male and female in Pakistan.”

Lastly, Ashir had a message for all the young filmmakers stepping into the industry “story, story, story- focus on that and it will appeal to the masses”.

Indeed a man of wisdom.