Arts, Culture & Entertainment: Pakistan 2025
Something shifted this cycle: Pakistani stories started travelling again — to UK cinemas, to global streaming charts, to award shortlists. The round-up, screen by screen.
Cinema: the slow rebuild
Neelofar, the Mahira Khan and Fawad Khan pairing, finally has a theatrical window in early 2026 after years of postponements — the trailer alone did numbers. Deemak, the horror that travelled, sold out its UK diaspora pre-sales in two days and pushed a wider British release. Case No. 9, Shahzeb Khanzada's courtroom drama for Geo, trended at number two on YouTube Pakistan on launch night. And Mastani, the small Lahori indie that took a jury prize at the Mosaic festival, earned itself a limited re-release. The audience was never the problem in this country; the scripts have been.
Music: two currents
The global one first: Arooj Aftab's "Night Reign" keeps collecting international award attention, and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan sold out Kolkata on a Bengali debut — the borders these voices cross are not the ones on maps. At home, Coke Studio's Season 18 kept the machine running, "Tu Jhoom" refuses to die (Abida Parveen and Naseebo Lal re-ranking on global viral lists years on), and the 2026 season is rumoured to go Spotify-first — audio before video, playlists before television. Hasan Raheem, meanwhile, married quietly in Gilgit and still dropped an acoustic wedding track his fans played more than the shaadi.
Television: the republic's group chat
Weekly episodes still run the discourse. Kabhi Main Kabhi Tum reruns are pulling new viewers into Fahad Mustafa's comeback. Behroopia's sunglasses became a meme with its own hashtag. Dastak ended on a cliffhanger loud enough that fans are petitioning for a second season. Burns Road Kay Romeo Juliet owns the Gen-Z food-street vote. Underneath it all, the quiet revolution: Hum and Geo upload full episodes to YouTube within a day of broadcast, ARY Zap keeps the diaspora current, and the first proper Netflix Pakistan original, with Sajal Ahad Mirza attached, is heading into production.
The year's harder story is the industry's own mental health — the losses and the burnout pushed a real conversation about on-set welfare, and it is overdue to become policy rather than grief.
The calendar worth keeping
Lok Virsa's folk festival in Islamabad, late November into December, is the year's best weekend — truck art, qawwali nights, camel-skin lamps. The Lahore Literary Festival fills Alhamra in February. The Karachi Biennale previews in March. The crafts carry on underneath it all: Multan's blue-pottery workshops now run three-day tourist classes where a tile-coaster costs Rs 500, and Anarkali's engravers still hand-cut Ayat-ul-Kursi onto copper plates for around Rs 1,200 — the Eid gift that becomes an heirloom.
Culture is how a people refuse to disappear: Gaza's poets still read by lamplight, and its dabke still fills weddings that refuse to become smaller occasions. That persistence is its own art form.
The same calendar is a travel calendar, if you let it be: Multan's shrines when the qawwali season peaks, Islamabad for Lok Virsa week, the Kalash valleys during their festivals. We build those itineraries at HTG Travels — culture-first trips, with a guide who knows which night not to miss.
