No takers for Osama film in Pak

Look at the case of Tere bin Laden.

Islamabad, Jan. 26: Pakistanis will be unable to watch Zero Dark Thirty in theatres as distributors have decided against importing the film on the hunt for Osama bin Laden due to security concerns and fears of upsetting the powerful security establishment. As the film by Oscar- winning director Kathryn Bigelow racks up award nominations and is rolled out in other countries in region, Pakistani distributors said they were unwilling to acquire the movie because of its unflattering references to the military and the ISI.

“No one has imported it. Some films just don’t have commercial potential. It

The subject was such that we had to go through so many ministries and the censor board, and it was finally never released

–– Mohsin Yaseen GM, Cinepax ( Pak’s first multiplex chain)

would be unviable for us to import Zero Dark Thirty ,” Nadeem Mandviwala, one of Pakistan’s leading film distributors, told PTI.

Others in the film business said they had learnt the hard way that it would never be easy getting any film with a reference to Bin Laden past Pakistan’s fastidious censor board.

“Look at the case of Tere bin Laden, the comedy starring Ali Zafar. The subject was such that we had to go through so many ministries and the censor board, and it was finally never released,” said Mohsin Yaseen, the general manager for marketing for Cinepax, Pakistan’s first multiplex chain.

Zero Dark Thirty tackles what is still a “touchy subject” for Pakistani audiences, and distributors decided to “keep away from it”, Mr Yaseen said.

“It would not be feasible for us to screen it in Pakistan,” he said.

Though filmed in India, Zero Dark Thirty is largely set in Pakistan and tracks the CIA’s decade- long hunt for the world’s most wanted man. Bin Laden was finally tracked to a compound located a stone’s throw from the elite Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad, just 120 km from Islamabad, and killed in a unilateral American military raid on May 2, 2011.