Hareem Farooq thinks audience should own films even if they are bad

Producer and actor Hareem Farooq who is currently busy with the promotions of her upcoming film wants people to support local cinema because Pakistan’s film industry is still in infancy.

During an interview with BBC Asian Network, when asked whether it’s okay to say ‘support local cinema’ even if people say it’s a terrible film, she said “I’d say that’s true. You need to own everything right now.”

The Dobara Phir Se actor wants unconditional support for films but she has her reasons for it. “Bollywood, Hollywood, Tamilwood, they’re centuries old, while Pakistani cinema is probably just six years old,” she explained.

She continued “We talk about making something out of our country, and we want to take our cinema abroad. We want to tell people that what you get to see in the news is not Pakistan or the one you get to hear about from people who don’t even know what Pakistan is, right? You need to tell people that this is Pakistan; it is beautiful, it has colours, it has talent, it has everything.”

The starlet added that many people who make films out of passion are still learning.”So, even if there is a bad film, you need to understand and our audiences need to understand, that we don’t have the technicians, the writers, or even the actors for films. Everyone is learning and the only reason why people are doing films is passion and it’s just purely passion, trust me on this,” she said.

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Speaking about representation of women in films, she said that “It’s not just about showing empowered women but it’s more about giving substance to female characters in our films. I think that is what I aim to do. It could be your daily life cute, bubbly heroine as well but she needs to have substance to her. She should not just be there to look pretty.”

As a producer, she shared that she has a certain liberty to produce content that she wants but she has to keep an eye on the market as well.

Hareem wants people to forget reality when they go to the cinema and enjoy entertaining content for two hours. With her third film as a co-producer set for a release, she has taken matters in her hands instead of just complaining that films with good content are rarely made in Pakistan.