GL Exclusive: Momina Duraid finally breaks silence on the ARY Film Awards-Bin Roye controversy

A lot has been said and written about the impending ARY Film Awards and the entire controversy revolving around Bin Roye’s absence from the nomination list. It all began when reports started to surface stating that HUM Films will not be sending ‘Bin Roye’ for nominations at the awards. However, it was later learnt that this decision was made by the Production house MD Films who did not want their film to be a part of the award ceremony and hence refrained from sending the film for nominations.

What made the story more complex was the fact that films such as Moor and Manto which have been produced and distributed by Geo Films who we all know aren’t the best of friends with ARY were sent for consideration. So the main question was why wasn’t Bin Roye going to the AFA’s? Well I decided to talk to the head honcho of MD Films Momina Duraid and get my answer straight from the lady herself.

‘I believe I have valid reasons to question the authenticity of the awards and I did not want to be a part of any controversies so I just decided that its better that we don’t participate’’ says Momina Duraid on being asked why the film was not sent in for consideration.

For those unaware, the ARY Film Awards are overseen and organized by ARY Digital who also own the film production/distribution company ARY Films. So basically ARY makes/distributes films and also organizes an award ceremony every year to honor the best of cinema where films made by ARY compete with films from outside the ARY banner. I know its kind of a tricky situation and that’s exactly why the credibility of the awards have been in question from the very first year.

‘See channels can be media partners to any industry awards and that’s perfectly okay but ARY itself is a film company and I don’t see how a related party can conduct a fair award.If ARY was only a media partner while the award was conducted by a third party or brand we would not have any problems.’ adds Momina.

‘But an award that is owned and conducted by a related party will always have reliability issues and hence we are not participating to avoid further complications ’ says Momina while closing the argument and to be honest she does make a fair point.

Ironically, a look back at the first ARY Film Awards which took place in 2014, and the results kind of strengthen Momina’s point as almost all the awards were won by ‘Waar’ and ‘Main Hoom Shahid Afirid’ and both these films were backed by ARY. But then again the counter-argument could be that the awards are peoples choice and the people voted for their favorite stars and lets be honest both these films had huge starts with crazy fan following.

But ARY not conducting its second edition in 2015 was a bit of a shady situation and this dampened the authenticity of the awards. The popular belief was that since ARY did not have a single solid release they decided to not go ahead with the ceremony. What do I mean you ask? Well the biggest hit of the year ‘Na Maloom Afraad’ which broke all records that year wasn’t from ARY, Pakistan’s first spy thriller Operation-21 which started industry’s favorite Shaan Shahid was also not from ARY, and lastly the critically acclaimed film ‘Dukhtar’ which was critics favorite worldwide was yet another film which was not from the house of ARY. Get what Im saying?

The argument made by ARY was that the number of films released in 2014 wasn’t enough and doing an award ceremony wouldn’t be feasible so they skipped the awards session for 2015. But then even 2014 session ( which honored films from 2013) was dominated by 4-5 films now wasnt it? Moreover 2014 surely had films like ‘The System’ and ‘Sultanat’ which if nothing else would have helped with the nominations!

Anyhow ARY had declared all these rumors as baseless and re-assured fans that their favorite films from 2014 will be included in the award session that would take place in 2016. But the nominations for the 2016 awards have just been announced and well we dont see any film from 2014 in the nomination list…

So what is your take on this entire controversy? Do you think ARY Film Award are a fair award? What do you think of Momina Duraid’s decision let us know in the comments section.