Asif Raza Mir on Pakistani content

KARACHI: Asif Raza Mir has been a household name for decades. His career spans more than forty years in the Pakistani media industry as an actor and the feathers in his cap keep increasing. In May 2021, the actor worked in Gangs of London, a film that was nominated at the BAFTAs. However, the reason why Asif Raza Mir recently became the talk of the town was because he made some hard-hitting statements on why Pakistani content stands where it does today. Some of those statements have resonated with many.

During an interview with VCast Online, the Tanhaiyan actor said, “We sit in drawing rooms and brag about each other. We really don’t go out and compete. We don’t want to compete.”

“How do you think India, which is now providing content for Amazon and Netflix, moved from film to these platforms whereas we have not run any original content on these platforms?” he posed the question. He then answered his own question by explaining how it was “not because of the content, it is because of the quality of the content.” A major takeaway from the aforementioned comments made by Asif Raza Mir explain that Pakistani content is not scarce. It is a matter of how good or bad that content is that is keeping us from going international.

He recalled the golden days from some time ago when Pakistan was producing content that transcended across international waters. “The period that I was in Geo for the first time, we started exporting our content to places like Barbados, Poland, and Australia,” he said. “Our content started going global, even to India for that matter. People loved our content but there was an issue. Quality.”

He also elaborated on the idea that while we may be content with what we have been churning out as an industry, it does not compare with good content by international standards. The veteran actor also explained how healthy competition can keep us on our toes to further the quality of our content.

“When we don’t see competitors and don’t create comparisons, we’ll think our content is great but it is not. It is not great technically. It is beautiful as far as the concept is concerned, great performances, great direction but technically worthless. Our audio is useless. Our visuals are crap. Our editing is not worth talking about.”