December 16 marks the 45th anniversary of the secession of the eastern wing of Jinnah’s Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh. Much has been written about the traumatic events of the time and the political repercussions of the country being cleaved into two.
But the loss of East Pakistan was not just devastating on a psychological, economic or political level. In very real terms, it also affected Pakistan culturally and socially. One of the things lost in the discourse is how the events of 1971 affected Pakistan’s film industry.
Asif Noorani, the editor of Pakistan’s most widely circulated English language film magazine Eastern Film from 1963 to 1970, re-visits the golden age of Pakistani cinema.
Imagining South Asia 