Nigar Awards

The Nigar Awards (Urdu: نگار ایوارڈز‎) are the official awards of Pakistani film industry and are the oldest awards to honour the show business personalities of Pakistan per the declared policy of weekly Nigar magazine, with a purpose to recognize the achievements of those who worked in the film industry. The first award distribution ceremony was held on 17 July 1958 at Lahore's Evernew Studio. Since then, the awards were presented annually until 2004. During the 1990s the prominence of awards was eclipsed by the National Awards and later by Lux Style Awards. With the discontinuation of film making in Pakistan, the distribution of Nigar Awards is also discontinued.

History of Nigar Awards

Ilyas Rashidi had acquired experience in the field of entertainment journalism through his association with his elder brother Umer Azad's daily newspaper Anjum, which had just shifted its offices from Delhi to Karachi after the partition of India in 1947 to the newly independent Pakistan. Ilyas Rashidi was inspired by the Indian film magazine 'Filmfare', so he purchased a children's magazine Monthly Nigar from his friend Ibne Hassan Nigar, and published it as Pakistan's first ever film weekly from Karachi.