That the Humayun-Saeed-Mehwish-Hayat-starrer Punjab Nahi Jaungi (2017) won a special jury award at the 1st SOC Film Festival held last week in Qingdao, China, is old news now. What is new is that Saeed’s other blockbuster hit, Jawani Phir Nahi Ani (2015), has been selected to be aired on one of China’s leading television networks. An ecstatic Saeed told Gulf News tabloid! that this “shall pave the way for the theatrical release of JPNA 2 [due out on Eid Al Adha this year] and other Pakistani films [in China] in the future.”
He also spoke of prepping for Punjab…’s release in China, “It’s been on my mind for quite sometime. But theirs is a long and complicated process of selecting foreign films [for screening]. Hopefully, because our film got this jury award at the festival, they won’t be able to ignore it.”
For the uninitiated, the five-day festival had sought entries from 12 countries including India and Pakistan. Twenty-three films from the entries were vying for the awards, whereas 55 were up for screening. Aside from Punjab… and Jawani…, the other Pakistani films that were screened at the event included Bin Roye (2015), Parchi (2018), and Chalay Thay Saath (2017).
