Lahore's film industry
Lahore made films before Bombay was the capital of Indian cinema, and after 1947 became the heart of Pakistani and Punjabi film.
Lahore's studios were making silent films in the 1920s and Punjabi talkies in the 1930s, and many of the stars and composers of Bombay cinema began there. In 1947 much of the industry, its Hindu and Sikh producers and its equipment, left for India; Noor Jehan and others came the other way.
From the 1950s to the 1980s Lahore's studios poured out Punjabi and Urdu films, from romances to the gandasa action films of Sultan Rahi; the industry is now nicknamed Lollywood.
More cinema and theatre
The Punjabi action film that made Sultan Rahi a legend, and whose 2022 remake became the highest-grossing Pakistani film ever.
From Prithviraj Kapoor to Yash Chopra, many of the founders of Hindi cinema came from the Punjab and the frontier.
Travelling comedians and mimics who played at weddings, fairs and courts, mocking landlords, priests and officials.
The dramatist who took political plays to the villages of Indian Punjab, known to millions as Bhai Manna Singh.
The Lahore theatre company founded under military rule, whose play Bulha brought Bulleh Shah to the stage.
The film that revived Punjabi cinema in India, a family drama of faith starring Prithviraj Kapoor.
Lahore's great film of Waris Shah's Heer, with Firdous and Ijaz and songs by Noor Jehan.
A serious Punjabi film about a landlord, his tenant and the wrong done to a woman, made by a team of art-cinema talents.
The boom of the 2010s, when Punjabi films from Mohali and Lahore filled cinemas from Ludhiana to Brampton.