Imran Raza Kazmi, the producer of upcoming movie ‘Parchi’, is a relatively new name in the Pakistani cinema industry. Although his journey is just on its initial stages, but the good part is that the limited work done by him so far has received a lot of accolades and he is foreseen as a person whose name will be echoed for a very long time in the annals of the Pakistani cinema industry. Talking to this scribe about his journey, Imran Raza Kazmi said that in 2009, he watched a movie ‘Zibah Khana’, which inspired him to make ‘Siyaah’. Osman Khalid Butt, Hareem Farooq and Ahmed Ali Akbar, Azfar Jaffri supported him in his initial venture and he was successfully able to make movie in limited budget of only Rs 700,000 and subsequently later earning handsome profit out of it. “This project boosts my confidence and I decided to make more movies,” said the talented filmmaker. He further added, “We wanted to make ‘Parchi’ after ‘Siyaah’ but Janaan’s script came and we decided to make this movie first and worked on ‘Parchi’ later.” In response to a question about his team, Imran said that he went with the same people again because all of them supported him in ‘Siyaah’ and he felt really comfortable in working with the previous cast. “I have developed a connection with them and we all understand each other very well. Osman Khalid Butt wrote the scripts of ‘Siyaah’ and ‘Janaan’ and in ‘Parchi’, he has ventured into the field of choreography as well,” he said. Talking about the role of Hareem Farooq, Imran said that he wanted to portray women as leaders. For that reason, they depicted Emaan’s character, played by Farooq as a leader of the gang. “Through the character of Emaan, I want to highlight that women are not a show piece but can take charge of their destiny if the situation asks them to do so,” told the versatile producer. “Although this movie is linked with the situation faced by Karachi a few years ago but instead of directly hitting Karachi, we gave the name Debal to the city affected by the activities of criminals,” Imran added. Imran elaborated that as the whole team is a native of Islamabad, so they preferred to shoot the movie in and around Islamabad. “We have selected certain locations on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, which are not shown in any drama or movie previously,” he said. The Volkswagon car is very prominent in Parchi’s trailer and so talking about selecting this car in the movie, Imran highlighted that he had been fond of this car since childhood, so this was the one reason to select this car and secondly they had to fit five people in the car as per the demand of the movie. In this scenario, Volkswagon fit perfectly to their requirements. Imran said that he wanted to portray women as leaders. For that reason, they depicted Emaan’s character, played by Farooq as a leader of the gang. ‘Through the character of Emaan, I want to highlight that women are not a show piece but can take charge of their destiny if the situation asks them to do so,’ said the versatile producer Revealing the challenges faced during the shooting, Imran said that they had planned to shoot a song in two days but unfortunately their set fell and as they were running on tight schedule so they decided to cover up the time lapse by shooting the song in one go. It took them 30 hours to complete the shooting of this song. “Billo hai”, a popular song from this movie sung by Sahara Band, also took more than 24 hours for completion. Talking about the music, Imran said that they had limited avenues for the airing of Pakistani songs. “We in Pakistan are producing good songs as ‘Billo hai’ has already been a hit and a few other songs are an example of good work being done in Pakistan’s music industry. Songs have a strange phenomenon. When you listen to any song for the first time, you don’t like it, but when you keep listening to it, you eventually start liking it. This is the reason that we need to convince people sitting at the helm of affairs in radio, television and web portals to give space to Pakistan’s music so that the more people listen to it, the more they will like it,” Imran said. Imran is of the view that instead of making intense movies, he prefers to make commercial movies and share his message with viewers in a subtle way so that the message is transferred to the masses in a lighter vein without putting strain on them. “In ‘Janaan’, we raised two to three issues including the issue of paedophile and I am delighted that people not only enjoyed the movie but also grasped our message. ‘Janaan’ was the highest grossing Pakistani movie in the previous year and is still the most watched one on Netflix,” he said. Imran sounds optimistic about the future of Pakistan’s film industry. He is of the view that the failure of some movies should not dishearten the makers. “It is a global phenomenon that sometimes the industry gives less successful films as compared to unsuccessful ones. The rise of Pakistani cinema can be gauged from the fact that my film ‘Siyaah’ was put on exhibition on only nine digital screens available in the country but now, just in a brief period of five years, the number of screens has gone up to well above a 100 and this number is expected to cross 300 mark by 2020,” he said. Imran is of the view that Pakistan’s cinema achieved revival and now the focus is about its survival. Talking about his future plans, Imran informed that an office of IRK Films in partnership with Arif Lakhany Films has been established in Karachi. There he is planning to produce two dramas and one film each year. “Our next movie will be a romantic comedy and we plan to start shooting by June 2018,” said Imran. The writer is a public relations consultant. He Tweets at @KhurramZiaKhan and can be reached at kzk1972@gmail.com Published in Daily Times, December 30th 2017.