Written by: Haroon Shuaib
Posted on: January 02, 2023 | 
| 中文
The cast and crew of Joyland
2022 came to an end with that same bitter-sweet feeling that takes over as life turns a new page. Thankfully, 2022 proved to be a year of more gains than losses for Pakistan’s showbiz and entertainment industry. We saw music, undoubtedly the strongest of Pakistan’s showbiz segments, continuing to gain well-deserved attention on the global soundscape. Pakistan’s cinema industry too persisted in getting a firmer footing with both commercials as well as arthouse cinema, seeing some of the strongest presentations in recent years. While the cinema industry world over went through an existential crisis, Pakistanis flocked to the cinemas in droves appreciating the variety of genres that local filmmakers put forward. Pakistan’s actors arrived on the global stage with international productions finally taking advantage of the undiscovered talent pool. In short, Pakistan’s showbiz industry made substantial strides toward global success and a listing of the most notable ones from 2022 is definitely in order.
Shae Gill and Ali Sethi
Arooj Aftab
The fact that Pakistan’s Coke Studio seasons are far ahead of its neighboring countries’ versions, is well-established. The winning streak continued in 2022 with this year’s season once again putting a stamp on Pakistan’s unmatchable musical talent. This time though, no one, not even the makers expected the kind of global impact ‘Pasoori’ managed to create. The Ali Sethi and Shae Gill vocal prowess, beautifully harnessed by Xulfi, created a magical track that literally took the global airwaves by storm. On the home front, Ali Sethi already had a following for his beautiful velvety voice, but his teaming up with Shae Gill made a dream debut with Pasoori. The song had by the end of the year more than 150 million online views, topped the Hum List of Google searches, cracked the Spotify Global list, and was included in the Spotify Viral 50. So contagious was the Pasoori groove that even Britney Spears could not resist adding it to her Instagram story. In our immediate neighborhood, the likes of Arjun Kapoor, Nora Fatehi, Bhumi Padnekar, and Alia Bhatt were swooning over the melody for months.
Pasoori by Ali Sethi and Shae Gill
2022 is also the year when Pakistan’s very own Arooj Aftab bagged the first-ever Grammy for the country. Her rendition of Hafeez Hoshiarpuri’s ‘Mohabbat karnay walay’, a classic melody, made the whole world sit up and take notice in 2021, when former US President Barack Obama featured it on his playlist. In 2022, Arooj’s interpretation of this masterpiece, included in her third album “Vulture Prince,’ secured the Grammy for her in the Best Global performance Category in Los Angeles, where she was also nominated for the best new artist trophy. Arooj Aftab has already been nominated again for the 2023 installment in the Best Global Music Performance category for her track ‘Udhero Na’, featuring Anoushka Shankar. It is apparent that the world cannot get enough of this singing powerhouse and she will continue to make the country proud.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe did a lot right in 2022. Last year it’s ‘Ms. Marvel’ broke some real ground with the protagonist being the first Muslim American superhero with roots in Pakistan. Iman Vellani, essaying the titular role happens to be a Canadian with Pakistani roots. Putting the Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy of Pakistan in the director’s seat for two of the most important episodes of the series, was the next best thing that the studio did. The studio then went on to rope in some of the finest actors from Pakistan for pivotal roles. The fans of the Ms. Marvel series were certainly bowled over as they saw our very own Fawad Khan, Mehwish Hayat, Nimra Bucha, and the veteran Samina Ahmed making us proud in Hollywood. In fact, the episode with Fawad and Mehwish, titled ‘Time and Again’, has been declared by critics as one of the best episodes of any television series that made a mark in 2022.
Mehwish Hayat and Fawad Khan in Ms. Marvel
Actors from Pakistan made some more headways with Ehde-e-Wafa star, Ahad Raza Mir, bagging a role on the Netflix series ‘Resident Evil’ and Humayun Saeed essaying the role of Dr. Hasnat, late princess Diana’s love interest, on one of the OTT platform’s most-watched series about British royalty, ‘The Crown’.
Hamayun Saeed in The Crown
In 2022, Sajal Aly, another leading actor from Pakistan, was roped in for Shekhar Kapoor’s directorial venture “What's Love Got to Do with It?'. Although the film is slated for release in January 2023, Sajal’s performance has already been getting rave reviews from her costars including Lily James and Shabana Azmi, and the producer Jemima Goldsmith. Sajal plays the complex character of a prospective Pakistani bride in an arranged marriage with the lead character of a British Pakistani played by actor Shahzad Latif.
Sajal Aly
‘The Legend of The Maula Jatt’, took director Bilal Lashari almost a decade to complete, and it was worth the wait. The Fawad Khan, Mahira Khan starrer, released to pack houses in October 2022, went on to become Pakistan's grandest, and commercially most successful film ever. In fact, it became the highest-grossing Pakistani film internationally with a global revenue exceeding a whopping PKR 240 crore. The film garnered great reviews and leading names from Bollywood such as Ranbir Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Anurag Kashyap, and Karan Johar also couldn’t remain unaffected by the spell-binding cinematic experience that Lashari created with this magnum opus. The excellent cinematic quality of ‘The Legend of Maula Jatt’ and its commercial success will go a long way in providing the much-needed shot of strength in the arm of Pakistan’s film industry.
Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan in The Legend of Maula Jatt
Joyland, a Pakistani film that set a new standard of artistic merit both for Pakistani cinema and on the global stage, was Saim Sadiq's directorial debut. It was Pakistan's first film to be screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival on 23 May 2022. It competed for the Caméra d'Or, and bagged the Jury Prize and Queer Palm prize for best LGBTQ queer or feminist-themed film. Joyland is also Pakistan's official entry for the 2023 Oscars and has now become the first local film to have been shortlisted in the International Feature Film category for the 95th Academy Awards. The arthouse cinema of Pakistan has finally made a mark on global screens with ‘Joyland’, and finally defined a distinct cinematic language for the country.
A scene from Joyland
As 2022 comes to a close, things are definitely looking up for Pakistan’s showbiz industry. Hopefully, Pakistani musicians, singers, actors, and filmmakers will see much more success in 2023, and will continue to have a global impact.
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