Pathaan’s illegal screening in Karachi: Pathaan, a recent Indian hit that is breaking box office records in Pakistan’s neighbor, is currently showing illegally in Karachi—and that too in the Defense Housing Authority.
In response to Indian jets violating Pakistani airspace in February 2019, the organisation of film exhibitors resolved not to screen any Indian movies. Despite four years having passed, no Indian movie has been formally released in Pakistan.
However, a brazen pitch to sell tickets for Rs. 900 Someone placed tickets for the movie, starring Dimple Kapadia and Ashutosh Rana, on at least two well-known Facebook sites.
Soon after, curious people started asking about the film’s quality, the location, etc. Individuals questioned the screening of a controversial Hindi film and were provided with a phone number to call for further inquiries.
While searching for Firework Events on social media, one could only discover a UK-based firm discussing its plans to light up the sky at King Charles’ coronation in England. Firework Events is the company organising the screening.
“Additional Performances on Sunday for Sold Out Movie Screenings”
Then it said they were all sold out for Saturday on the page. On the request of friends, they planned to hold two additional performances on Sunday from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm and 8 pm to 11 pm.
When this scribe called them at the provided number to inquire about the location of the screenings, they responded that they would be in various locations on both days. One was in the Khayaban-i-Shahbaz commercial district, and the other was still unknown.
A young female voice with a phoney American accent responded, “We don’t know yet. There is some construction going on at the venue we intended to play the movie on Sunday.”
Then she messaged to inform me that the Sunday screenings would now be on Friday (Feb 3). She also provided the location, which was the Ittehad Commercial Area, for the Friday event.
The answer given in response to a question regarding the film’s quality was, “Not HD, but pretty good and clear.” The screen was reportedly 8 feet by 10 feet in size. One was told, “It is a projection screen.”
When questioned if they were providing any snacks or if spectators should bring their own, they responded that one could most absolutely buy snacks while viewing.
When checking one of the two Facebook postings selling tickets later, a notification indicating the page no longer existed appeared, while the other one remained active and attracting traffic.