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"I am sure there was a lobby working against the release of my film in Pakistan", says a visually disturbed and hurt Tony Sandhu, producer of

just released Kaafila.

"It''s hard to digest that the Pakistan Censor board refused to pass the film. The film was made with noble intentions and issue of illegal

immigration which was raised in the film is something that is universal with hardly an India or a Pakistan angle involved", explains Tony, "I don''t

know why this basic fact was ignored and all the energy was spent on finding all the wrong reasons which could have stopped the film from

being screened in Pakistan cinemas."

Would he want to explain what exactly transpired during his visit to Pakistan in the weekend gone by? He walks through the turn of events,

"The promos were being aired for the last 15-20 days and the response was simply overwhelming. The posters were all over and we could sense

that Pakistan was certainly ready to see this film. In fact not just ready, audience out there was craving to watch the film."

So what went wrong? "The way I look at it now, there were pressures from local producers on the Censor board. They didn''t want the film to be

screened in the country since that would have meant doom for the films that were already running there or were about to be release.

Kaafila could have been too strong a competition that would have further impacted the local films", Tony reflects.

"The Censors continued to dilly-dally even as I took all the required papers on Thursday itself. When the film was being shown to the Censors,

the Army people were also invited by them. All the parties just seemed to have got together to hurt the film as much as possible", he says

exasperatedly.

Why? Wasn''t Army happy about the fact that the lead protagonist in the film, Sunny Deol, plays a Pakistani officer in the film? "On the contrary

there were complains that how could Sunny fight on streets with the goons/mafia. Then there were issues around the dress code, incorrect

badge etc. that became a bone of contention for them. More than the basic essence of the film, these were the kind of things which seemed to

have mattered everyone most."

Explains Tony further, "In fact the question raised was around the character of Rashid who plays a Pakistani agent whose job is to illegally

migrate people across people. They were not happy with a Pakistani shown doing illegal activities. In the middle of all this, they forgot that

corrupt agents from India were also shown. And by the way, all said and done, it''s not that such individuals are not present in all parts of the

world."

So what happens now? "Abhi kya kar sakte hain? It''s sad that such an unfortunate incident happened. I had to just take everything in my stride

and come back from Pakistan. They did give me an option of appealing further against the denial of Censor certificate but what was the point? It

all seemed to have been decided anyways. I am just hurt about the fact that when Pakistani people wanted to watch the film, they can''t do so

now on the big screen. Kaafila may have only helped their cinema to grow further."

Well, the film may still be seen in Pakistan, right? One hears that the pirated DVDs of the films are freely available there. "You have heard it right.

That was anyways expected. I know for sure that the response to the DVDs has been roaring to say the least. In the hindsight, I realize that

people who deal in pirated videos also had a big hand to play in the non-release of Kaafila on Pakistani screens. Now because there is no

competition from the big screen, they can go ahead and flood the market with illegal software. Anyways, I have sold the DVD rights over there to

a reputed company there and being big in the market, I am sure they would ensure that piracy is curbed to a big extent", reveals Tony.

Still, non-release of his film coupled with piracy must have resulted in huge losses for the film, isn''t it? "Of course yes", says the dejected film

maker, "I sense at least 10-15 crore going down the drain due to this. But then I am not worried too much about monetary losses. For me, the

loss is more emotional than anything since we have lost a chance to showcase a film which was as relevant to Pakistan as India."