Film industry upset with LSA nominations, controversies brewing up

The nominations for the 14th season of Pakistan’s grandest and much awaited award show, Lux Style Awards (LSA), are finally here. And like every year, this year too, Lux would be celebrating the accomplishments of Pakistan’s entrainment arena for last one year.

But like every time in past, Lux, this year too has managed to surround itself with some controversies. Most serious of which are related to its nominations for Pakistani films.

While an enough space has been given to the big names of last year, including Na Maloom Afraad, O21, and Dukhtar, the nominations have missed it on some other significant names to hit cinemas last year.

But the space or no space isn’t really the main issue. At least for the very first controversy that is surrounding it.

Jamshed Mahmood (Jami), the director of one of last year’s biggest releases, O21, seems not happy at all with the awards for nominating his film in its film related categories. He is of the view that Lux had no right at all to nominate his film when it wasn’t even submitted to them.

When contacted by Galaxy Lollywood for his comment on the matter, the director whose upcoming film Moor is releasing on 14th August this year said, “The proper way for an award submission is submissions first. Director or producers are contacted or Directors and Producers contact the awards. But here without proper contact or any contact for that matter, our film is nominated. We have no issues with LUX but there has to be a proper way for these kind of nominations.”

It is relevant to mention here that Lux had asked for the portfolio submissions with a deadline of 8th February 2015 for its different categories. A prospective nominee, as per this criteria, has to first submit the portfolio of his/her work, and only then it is considered for the awards.

But portfolio submission or not, as per the released nominations, it seems like the award jury didn’t care much for the portfolios and kept the selection process entirely at its discretion. Thus, a major snub for films like Tamanna and The System.

Since we couldn’t manage a comment by the team of The System regarding its film submission, we won’t further comment on it. But people at Tamanna’s camp seem seriously upset with LSA’s ignorance towards their film, even after a formal submission by ARY Films (Tamanna’s distributing partner) to the awards.

Talking exclusively to Galaxy Lollywood, this is what the producer of Tamanna, Sarah Tareen, had to comment on the issue, “In a country which has a handful of films that hardly make up an industry, it is criminal to ignore films and filmmakers who are contributing to the ‘revival’ of cinema. Tamanna has been appreciated internationally and locally for its music which won the best music for Rahat Fateh Ali’s track ‘Koi Dil Mein at the London Asian Film Festival Awards held at BAFTA and Salman Shahid and Omair Rana’s performances were appreciated by critics and the audience along with the cinematography. It is disappointing that our local awards chose to ignore a local film which has won accolades and appreciated internationally. It’s actually shameful on LSA part.”

It is definitely a valid point from her side since the film’s song, Koi Dil Mein, in the voice of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, gathered numerous praises both locally and internationally. And despite the film as whole not getting much positive reviews, the acting of its two lead stars, Salman Shahid and Omair Rana, was equally applauded wherever the film toured.

Sarah furthermore added, “We have a long way to go in ‘reviving’ cinema and making films is just a part of it. It is about educating a mindset. I am certain that the jury members in these awards hardly comprise of people with a cinematic background, our film journalists don’t know how to critique films and there is absolutely no meritocracy to monitor and measure success or quality of films. There has to be a system in place to judge the films and monitor cinema as an industry. Only then we can hope for a ‘revival.'”

So submission or no submission, selection or no selection, the film industry doesn’t seem to be too happy with Lux Style Awards. A remedy on part of LSA perhaps? Or at least an official clarification.

Addition: It is worth mentioning here that even after much try, no one at LSA could be reached to speak on behalf of the award management on the subject in focus.