KARACHI: The cast and crew of a new Pakistani comedy film, “Ishrat Made In China,” were filming in Thailand when Pakistan announced a lockdown last month to curb the spread of a novel coronavirus. Now the group is stranded at a hotel in a mountainous area of the country, with resources fast running out, cast members said this week.
On March 22, Pakistan suspended all international flights for two weeks and curtailed train services as confirmed cases of coronavirus surged. The South Asian nation of 208 million currently has a little over 2,800 confirmed cases though experts say it is difficult to know the extent of the outbreak due to a limited ability to test and trace contacts.
On Wednesday, Pakistan announced special flights from April 4, mainly to bring nearly 2,000 Pakistanis stranded in different countries.
Sanam Saeed, the female lead of “Ishrat Made in China,” told Arab News via telephone that the shooting of the film was nearly complete and the team had been “waiting to get back” for weeks.
The cast and crew were currently penned up at a hotel in a mountainous area of Thailand, almost four hours away from the capital Bangkok, she said, adding that the indefinite stay in Thailand was straining the 21-strong team’s funds and resources.
Another actor in the film, Shamoon Abbasi said: “We are stranded here in Thailand for the last twelve days ... the situation is really disturbing for us.”
He said he and his team had appealed time and again to the Pakistan government to arrange for a special flight to take the cast and crew home.
“The hotel in which we are staying is also locked down. The management asked us to vacate the rooms after 4th of April but [we] have requested them to extend our stay as we don’t have any other option till we get a flight to Pakistan,” another cast member Sara Loren said.
“Our actors and crew are the only people staying there on its third floor,” she added. “We have our own chef preparing food for us. We are really desperate now and contacting every resource in Pakistan to get us out of here.”
Actor and director Tanveer Jamal told Arab News he was stuck in Tokyo after wrapping up the shooting of his film ‘Japanese Connection.’
His cast and crew made it home to Karachi in the nick of time on March 21, but Pakistan announced it was suspending international flights just a day later, the date Jamal was meant to fly out.
Pakistani-Canadian actress Nayab Khan is also stranded in Pakistan, living at a friend’s home until she can get the next flight to Toronto.
“I am on standby and waiting,” she said.