Ashir Azeem opens up on how he fought for his movie Maalik

Transcript

00:00Let me tell you one thing. First of all, he is a patriotic legendary, Asher, and what

00:14he has shown is very close to our, I mean, what to say, like politics, everything. My

00:22role, particularly, which I played in the movie, is very close to some of the facts

00:30of our life in our region, you know. So, I don't know, I have to say that it is a movie

00:39to see and you will just really feel and enjoy how the people works over there, how the politicians

00:48are doing over there, how they misuse, you know, the rights and the powers. So, let it

00:56be very clear that we have shown, Asher has shown the facts of life. I don't know, I have

01:03to say or not. It mirrors the society that you live in, basically. So, whatever we are

01:08showing in the film is from, is based on real life events of what Pakistan is confronting

01:14today, you know, and we just try to put it across. But, it's not, we have not targeted,

01:22as I said earlier, not targeted any particular party, any particular individual. It's a work

01:28of fiction.

01:29No, it shouldn't be and that's exactly why I decided to take the legal route. I was initially

01:40advised by friends to, you know, come to some kind of a compromise, a settlement, let's

01:44go meet people and say, okay, well, how can we settle this, meet in the middle? I said,

01:50there's nothing to meet in the middle, right? I have done nothing illegal and I refuse to

01:56remove a single frame from the film. Once it has been approved by the censor, three

02:02censor boards, why should I remove a single frame from the film? So, if it's going to

02:09be banned, let it be banned. But, we are going to stick to the principle and if somebody

02:15has to fight this battle in the country once, well, then let it be me.

02:19It was the first time that the federal government stepped in to ban a movie that has been cleared

02:23by the censor boards.

02:24And they don't have the authority because in a country, there's been a constitutional

02:29amendment and cinemas and censor boards are purely provincial subjects. But, yet they

02:34somehow stepped into it and I'm glad that they've taken it right up to the Supreme Court

02:39because now, let it be settled for once and for all.

02:43But the movie has been screened in Pakistan, as we speak, in certain provinces?

02:47No, all across.

02:48All across. So, that's a victory of sorts for sure. Brilliant.

02:51Not just for me, it's for everybody who's going to be producing movies and future directors

02:58and future movies because you can't live in a situation where your film has been approved

03:03by censors and then one fine morning you find out, hey, it's been blocked by somebody.

03:07Why?