Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: The 9th Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) has announced the 13 short films that will screen in the 2011 festival.

The films will be presented in two programmes each, one screening twice throughout the six-day festival. The films were selected from over 350 submissions worldwide.

“We are extremely happy with the quality of the submissions we received for the short-form medium this year. This has been a record year for submissions and it was a difficult process pairing the selection to these 13. We believe this year‘s selection of films delivers strong, compelling, and humorous live action and animated narratives that will engage and deliver to our festival goers. We are also excited to premiere a number of these films for the Los Angeles audiences,” said IFFLA executive director Christina Marouda.

Short films that will be screened at the festival are Beholder, Idol, In That Moment, The Return Address, The Stitches Speak, Tubelight’s Moon, Wheeling Dreams, Just That Sort Of A Day, All Is Well Façade, Joy of Giving, Mumbaiker Ganesh and The Eclipse Of Taregna.

The IFFLA programming team includes Rani Breslow, Isaac Klausner, Sudeep Sharma, and Rachael Sevilla along with Executive Director Christina Marouda and Programming Consultant in Mumbai Uma Da Cunha.

The festival takes place from 12 to 17 April.

Producer: Om Prakash Mittal Director: Yogesh Mittal Cast: Anupam Kher, Pawan Malhotra, Tena Desae, Rushad Rana, Kiran Kumar, Suhasini Mulay, Sudha Chandran, Seema Biswas, Rajendra Gupta

MUMBAI: Om Prakash Mittal of Bhawani Pictures is a veteran film distributor in Delhi-UP circuit. While being very discerning about what films he acquired for release in his circuit, it is surprising that he chose to make Yeh Faasley as his production venture; let alone succeed, the film will have a tough time finding minimum number of patrons to perform a show!
Yeh Faasley is a murder mystery that has gone out of vogue because there are not many who can justify the genre. With a thin plot and a thinner script, the film becomes tedious to watch.

Tena Desae loves her doting father, Anupam Kher; he has brought her up since she was a tot when her mother had died. In the course of events, Tena finds out that her father has a violent streak in him; she also realises that he has not told her all about her dead mother. Through Pawan Malhotra, a former royal, she learns that her mother was passionate about music, a passion she shared with Malhotra.

Tena Desae now believes that her mother did not die a natural death as she was made to believe and starts snooping around. Her suspicion falls on her father, Anupam Kher, which makes her sue him in the court of law. The film meanders then on to a predictable end.

Performance wise, Anupam Kher and Pawan Malhotra do well. Tena Desae does not impress.

With average direction and photography being below par, Yeh Faasley has poor prospects.
 

NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has asked stakeholders to send in suggestions for celebrating the centenary of Indian cinema in 2013.

The Ministry has put in a note on its website in this connection. The note says that a preliminary meeting was held under the chairmanship of secretary Raghu Menon for drawing up a blueprint for the celebrations.

Although Indians began making films soon after the Lumiere Brothers exhibited their kinetograph in July 1898 in Mumbai, these were only recording of actual events taking place.

It was only in 1913 that D G Phalke made the country’s first indigenous feature film, ‘Raja Harishchandra’, in which he enacted several roles – particularly since it was considered taboo for women to act. He is today known as Dadasaheb Phalke, the father of Indian cinema. His struggle to make the film has been recorded in the Marathi film ‘Harishchandrachi Factory’ by Paresh Mokashi.

It is understood that the Museum of the Moving Image coming up in the premises of Films Division in Mumbai and the National Centre for Animation and Gaming will be two key announcements for the centenary celebrations.

MUMBAI: As part of its celebration of international films, the Cannes Film Festival starting 11 May will screen a documentary on Indian cinema.

A delegation of makers like Rakeysh Mehra and Shekhar Kapur and a few others met Amitabh Bachchan to discuss ideas and content for a documentary on Indian Cinema, which they believed that the Cannes Film Festival would screen in this year’s celebration of International cinema.

Bachchan, who will narrate the documentary, will share his insights about the Indian film industry, that is more than 120 years old and is one of the largest film producing nations in the world.

MUMBAI: In their bid to explore the Indian market with the help of an Indian American talent manager in Hollywood, three Hollywood films are set to be shot in India shortly.
“The process of selecting India as a location has been easy,” says Jai Khanna, manager at Brillstein Entertainment Partners (BEP), a top Hollywood talent management film and television production company.

“The key is finding the right partners, those with the right sensibility, in order to navigate the landscape and politics of India, as well as appeal to an American crew and cast,” Khanna adds.

The first film Hope Lost is aimed for a summer shoot in Mumbai. Based on the hit comic book series by Jeff Albert, the film is an action-thriller about the battle between good versus evil with themes of the Ramayana. To be produced by Marlon Parry, the film will be directed by Rajeev Virani.

River of Gods, based on a novel by Ian McDonald that won the British Science Fiction Award in 2004, shows a futuristic India inhabited by ancient traditions as well as artificial intelligence, robots and nanotechnology. To be produced by Anthony Dorment and Susan Cherian, it is aimed for a fall shoot.

The third film Last Bachelor, an international romantic comedy set in Rajasthan and Goa, is being produced by Britain-based Lux Entertainment.

“India has been viewed as an exotic location for actors, and not immediately thought of as a film location. If we can marry the two experiences, of exploring the wonders of India, and working in a professional manner, we hope for more productions to enter India,” Khanna says.
 

MUMBAI: Mukta Arts will release The King‘s Speech on 4 March in major territories of India such as western Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Delhi and NCR, U.P., Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

The film is the story of King George VI of Britain, his impromptu ascension to the throne and the speech therapist who helped the monarch become worthy of it.

The King‘s Speech was highly acclaimed in the US and other countries after its release. It has also generated great excitement in India after it won four Oscar awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

MUMBAI: The CNC (Centre National de la Cinématographie) along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France has granted the Fonds Sud grant to Siddharth Sinha for his upcoming project Do Duni (Twosome).

Do Duni is being co-produced by Trompe le monde, Paris and Riva films, Germany while Anurag Kashyap is the Indian producer. 

The film, that involves the parallel narratives of the stories of two women, will go on the floors in Mumbai in October-November this year.

The script of the feature film had earlier been awarded the best co-production project. It also received Euro 5,000 from the Hubert Bal Fund at the NFDC Film Bazaar, Goa in 2009.

The Fonds Sud grant is given to a feature, documentary or animation film that is eligible for a theatrical release in France and has a French co-producer attached to it. The fund, initiated in 1984, has helped over 400 films from Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Gulf. The average aid provided under this grant is 110, 000 euros.

Indian filmmakers who received the grant earlier are names like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Jahar Kanungo and Sudhir Mishra.
 

MUMBAI: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra‘s upcoming film Teen Thay Bhai, originally scheduled to hit the screens on 1 April, has been pushed to a 15 April release.

Teen Thay Bhai is the story of three brothers distanced by life and brought together by a clause in their grandfather’s will, at an isolated snowed-out cabin. They battle love and life to win togetherness ultimately.

Teen Thay Bhai is a co-production between PVR Pictures and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Productions. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has for the first time donned the producer‘s hat with this film.

Directed by debutante Mrighdeep Singh Lamba, the film stars Om Puri, Deepak Dobriyal, Shreyas Talpade and Ragini Khanna.

MUMBAI: Vinay Pathak and Ranvir Shorey have lent their voices in the upcoming 3D animation film Rio.

Directed by Carlos Saldanha, who had earlier directed Ice Age, the Hollywood film is set in the city of Rio de Janeiro and the lush rainforests of Brazil. It revolves around Blu, a rare macaw, who thinks he is the last of his kind. But upon discovering a female bird of his kind, Blu leaves the comfort of his cage in small town Minnesota and heads to Rio.

Said Fox Star Studios India CEO Vijay Singh, “The spectacular 3D visual effects and exciting story line of RIO will be a treat for film enthusiasts and to make this adventure even more exciting for Indian audiences, we have roped in talented artistes like Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak and Shaan.” 

Incidentally, all the Hindi songs have been sung by Shaan.

Shorey and Pathak will be dubbing for the characters Nico and Pedro, Blu‘s friends. With voiceovers by renowned actors like Anne Hathaway, Jesse Eisenberg, Will.I.Am, Robin Thicke, George Lopez and Tracy Morgan, Rio is touted to be one of the biggest Hollywood films this year.

Earlier, Shah Rukh Khan had lent his voice to the animation film The Incredibles.

Rio will have its simultaneous release worldwide along with India on 8 April. The film will be presented by Fox Star Studios.
 

MUMBAI: Sanjay Suri and Onir‘s I Am will open the London Asian Film Festival that is scheduled to go underway on 18 March.

The film is a tale of four stories woven together that takes audiences through issues and dilemmas that bruise the modern Indian society. The film unfolds many a tale of individuals struggling to find their identity and uphold their dignity in a world that is callous, cold and unsympathetic.

The film was bestowed the David Flint Honorary Award for promoting human rights; it was also awarded the Best in Asian Cinema (NETPAC) at the International Film Festival of Kerala 2010. It went on to win the Audience Choice Award, Best Film, River To River Film Festival at Florence last year and was the opening film at the IVIEW Engendered Film Festival in New York in September last.

Touching on subjects like sperm donation, child sexual abuse and homosexuality, the film stars Nandita Das, Purab Kohli, Juhi Chawla, Manisha Koirala, Sanjay Suri , Rahul Bose and Arjun Mathur. It also marks the full-fledged debut of directors Anurag Kashyap and Anurag Basu.

The film is set to release on 22 April.