LAHORE, July 28: While the Pakistan film industry is passing through its worst crises, artistes working for it have become divided down the line and a number of them have joined hands to form a new organization in opposition to the existing.

The formation of Artistes Association of Pakistan (AAP) was announced by actor and television host Omar Sharif at a press conference here as a parallel setup against Movie Artistes Association of Pakistan (MAAP) headed by veteran actor Yusuf Khan.

Omar Sharif announced office-bearers of AAP that include some leading personalities of cinema with actor director Shan as its chairman and Ghulam Mohyuddin as general secretary. The latter was the MAAP general secretary till a few days back but resigned over differences with Yusuf Khan over policies followed by the association.

The MAAP had obtained a court order against four members of the association against forming an organization but the AAP officials say that they were elected by members of AAP and that the stay order did not apply to all artistes of the industry.

The four artistes did not participate in the press conference and stood outside its venue while Omar Sharif gave details about the AAP to journalists.

A spokesman of the AAP told Dawn that the organization would be working for the amelioration of the industry and would coordinate with government officials to resolve the present crises of the industry.

He said that the government was backing Pakistani cinema and the prime minister and Punjab chief minister had already taken some positive decisions by reducing entertainment duty on films to zero per cent, allocating a major amount for the upgradation of the industry and promising duty-free import of studio, processing and other technical equipment. According to a representative of MAAP, the move to set up a parallel organization was illegal and amounted to contempt of court and that the MAAP would file a case on this issue.

AAP officials maintained that even though the artistes against whom the stay order had been obtained had not received any court order so far, the initiative to form AAP was taken by the community of artistes and not the individuals whose names were reported to have been sighted in the order.

While clash between two groups of artistes appears to have personal angles, MAAP officials contend that the other group favours import of Indian films. Senior members of AAP however maintain that they are not in favour of imports from across the border and their sole aim is restoring prestige and professionalism of the film industry of Pakistan and creating conditions conducive to the production of quality movies. MAAP says it is working for the same end.