Pakistan can produce good content if budget is spent on OTT platforms, says Sanam Saeed

Her perception changed after she saw her characters in Mera Naseeb and Zindagi Gulzar Hai.

KARACHI (Web Desk) - Actor Sanam Saeed attended the Karachi Literature Festival as a guest speaker and shared her views about the change that can be brought if budgets allocated for films are spent on Over-The-Top platforms instead. 

On the third day of the Karachi Literature Festival, a session titled ‘From Silver Screen to Mini Screen: Goldmine of OTT Media’ was moderated by Safinah Danish Elahi and included scriptwriter Faseeh Bari Khan as the other guest speaker. Sanam Saeed held the conversational floor and talked about her criteria while choosing the characters she plays.

“When I choose a character, it is necessary for them to convey a message. Pakistani women don’t travel much and majority aren’t very educated either. They don’t read too many books or see the world outside their homes so they don’t have many tools to learn from as their exposure is limited. But through television, the world opens up in front of them, they get a new perspective, they live vicariously through television,” Sanam said.

“So it is very important, especially for Pakistan, because our television industry is booming, we have done some really great work and delivered really good stories, messages, productions to our public. It is our social responsibility to do good, to show good, to bring about the change,” the actor added.

She said the reason why she doesn’t take up too much work is because she does not find a positive message in every role that is offered to her. Saeed remarked that her perception changed after she saw her characters in Mera Naseeb and Zindagi Gulzar Hai being upheld as “role models”. “I realised our youth has no role models, there are no role models left anymore. It is very important because Pakistan has such a high population of young people and we need to have male and female role models,” she said.