Should Celebrities charge for making appearances at Student Run Events?

“Mera aik masla hay…”

“Umm… Maam Im sorry?”

“Aap ko pata hona chahiye.”

“Maam Im sorry I dont know.”

” Asal main, paisay kay beghair main kuch nahi karti…”

This is the conversation that took place between one of my assistants and a leading television actress when we invited her for our event FiLUMS.

For those who don’t know, FiLUMS is an annual film festival that takes place at LUMS in February and is completely run by the students. What makes this festival even special is that it is one of the largest student based film festivals in Asia! When there is a a film festival , celebrity presence is always a must. So me and my External Relations team took upon this task and started inviting celebrities for workshops, discussion sessions and appearances. It was during this that I realized how important money is to celebrities and how low they are willing to go for money…

Almost half the people we contacted would not make an appearance unless we would “give them something.” A yesteryear actress of Pakistani film industry had a 10 minute conversation on the phone, the entire point of which was that “Aap Kuch toh dain na, itna bara event kar rahay hain.” What stunned me was that the said actress was so persistent and was refusing to hear anything that I would say. Moreover it would have been better for her rather dead career to come to such a festival and interact with the media. But all she wanted was money, even at the cost of all the media buzz her appearance could create and maybe resurrect her career to some extent.

However everyone is not so open about the “money factor”. A leading superstar of the Pakistani film fraternity had this to say when I invited him to Filums for a workshop:-

“Hi Momin my apologies for the delayed response as it has come to my knowledge that a lot of film research projects are funded by the US AID . So we have decided to not do any appearances in lectures or workshops without a minimum fee that to be used for rebuilding the Pakistani film industry so it would be kind on your part to support as we have always supported your call Regards”

Now this is as clever as a response can get. Trying to play the blame game and showing how much the said actor wants to ” rebuild the industry” and how we are the evil ones. Firstly FiLUMS is a completely independent event and has nothing to do with US-Aid at all. Moreover let’s assume just for the sake of the argument that FiLUMS was somehow linked to US-Aid. How much does this star think that he would be paid? Coming and talking to the future film makers of Pakistan and guiding them will help the industry more than charging a fee now won’t it?

But not everyone is in it for the money, there are some passionate film-makers who actually want to work towards the revival and are willing to devote time to the cause. Veteran director Shhzad Rafique, who has been a regular at FiLUMS for the past two years, is always excited to come back. He really wants to share his expertise and want’s to help the next generation. Likewise Shahzad Nawaz was also rather passionate about coming to LUMS and giving away a workshop. He specially flew in from Karachi for  the event, which goes on to show the dedication and loyalty he has for cinema. Murtaza Ali and Seema Hameed, the producer-director duo of the up-coming film Kites Grounded are two people who define the “perfect celebrity guests”. From the moment we invited them to the day of their workshop , they did everything to help us out and to make our work as smooth as possible. They actually wanted to contribute towards FiLUMS and make it bigger and better!

In addition there are others like Seemi Raheel, Bilal Lashari, Omair Rana and others who are also regulars and support students and they don’t charge us a penny!
What do you think. Should celebrities charge for the appearances they make at student run events?