It’s ironic that while the Pakistani film industry has been resuscitated to become a steadily growing business, the country’s award shows are almost at the cusp of a collapse. With TV channels claiming to reward excellence by celebrating their own “achievements” and with no set format for nominations and a significant lack of transparency in the selection process, the credibility of award shows held by these channels remains questionable.
AwardSeason
The Lux Style Awards nominations for 2015 are revised on request of Ahmad Ali Butt; new list places him in the Best Supporting Actor category.
It’s ironic that while the Pakistani film industry has been resuscitated to become a steadily growing business, the country’s award shows are almost at the cusp of a collapse. With TV channels claiming to reward excellence by celebrating their own “achievements” and with no set format for nominations and a significant lack of transparency in the selection process, the credibility of award shows held by these channels remains questionable. The Lux Style Awards, one of the oldest in the country, are subject to controversy every now and then (Read: Umar Sayeed in LSA’s earlier years, Bashir Momin circa 2015), but they are better than the rest because a) they aren’t backed by a TV channel and are therefore impartial, and b) they have always had a proper committee reviewing and shortlisting nominations. This year’s film jury, though, complied nominations under a completely different format.
Unlike every year where jury members from various realms of entertainment sit down through an excruciatingly long day to select, discuss and debate over nominations, this year’s nominations were decided by ballot. “For as long as I’ve been a part, every year the jury would meet, alongside an auditor, and list down nominations only after a proper discussion. However, this time around we were emailed a pre-selected long list and were asked to mark nominees for shortlisting,” one juror revealed on condition of anonymity.
While international awarding bodies including the Academy Awards use the ballot method extensively, it didn’t quite work in LSA’s favour. Actor Ahmad Ali Butt, who made a commendable debut in last year’s successful comedy Jawani Phir Nahi Ani, was nominated in the Best Actor category. According to the anonymous source, Butt was part of the Best Actor category in the pre-selected list only. This was naturally a blunder because while Butt’s performance is worthy of a laurel, his role is not that of a leading character. Soon enough, Butt too felt the discrepancy and sent a written complain to the LSA committee to revise its decision.
“I am truly honoured and thankful to be nominated in ‘Best Actor’ category for my film Jawani Phir Nahi Ani, however I believe that my role in the movie was of a ‘Supporting Actor’ and not the main lead, for which I have currently been nominated and therefore I have officially requested the team and the respected jury members at Lux Style Awards to look into this matter and move my nomination in the appropriate category of ‘Best Supporting Actor’,” he also wrote on Facebook.
According to the latest press release, his nomination has been revised. The review committee felt that adjustments needed to be made and so they have now moved Butt to the Best Supporting Actor category, taking the total count of nominations for the category to six. Interestingly enough, Danish Taimoor has now made the cut for Best Actor for his role in Wrong No. Following Butt’s post, actor Ali Safina had also posted on social media how he felt his role deserved a Best Actor nomination instead of a Best Supporting Actor one but it seems that his case was not considered for deliberation, and perhaps even justifiably so, for Taimoor came across as the lead in Jalaibee.
The question remains whether the ballot process was the right way to go about selecting nominations. Given that our industry is still in nascent stages, producing not more than a dozen commendable films a year, it is best that a committee is formed to not only ensure transparency but also to filter out and limit nominations under each category. As of now, every successful film has a nomination.
Speaking on the choice of method, LSA media manager, Fareshteh Aslam said, “Award shows the world over are judged either by jury, by ballot or by viewers’ choice. We’ve always believed in the jury vote for nominations followed by viewers’ choice voting to select a winner for popular categories. But there was always a belief that balloting could also work and we should be brave enough to at least give it a try. And so we did. It worked to some extent but not in its entirety which is why the Film Review Committee was asked to meet and deliberate.”
In conclusion, it’s also important to note that while in Ahmed Butt’s case a revision was justified, the jury’s results – by and large – must be accepted graciously. If an artist is unhappy with their nomination, they can refuse to accept the award or not attend the ceremony. Nowhere in the world do artistes withdraw nominations simply on the grounds of personal preferences and there are countless examples that set precedence on the matter. Cases in point: Chris Brown at 2009’s Kids’ Choice Awards, Katherine Heigl during 2008’s Emmy Awards and Aamir Khan at the Filmfare Awards. Rants and raves make a mockery out of celebrities but then what would the Awards be without their regular dose of masala!
