Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: Touted to be India‘s first live action animation film, Krishika Lulla and Kumar Mangat Pathak‘s Ajay Devgn and Kajol starrer Toonpur Ka Superhero is slated to release on 24 December.

Directed by Kireet Khurana, the film sees the return of Tanuja on the silver screen after two decades.

The film, in which live characters merge with cartoons, is a story of a reel life superstar who accidentally lands in the world of cartoons, Toonpur.
 
The characters in Toonpur come from various cultural backgrounds of India. There is a Sardar, Bengali, Gujarati, Marwadi, Maharashtrian, Bihari, Tamil, Christian and lot more characters from our culturally rich country.

Naturally, for these various cartoon characters, there needs a lot of voice dubbing. Over 2000 voice artistes were auditioned and tested to get the right accent for the characters.

The film is being released by Eros International.

PANAJI: Bengali films lack global appeal due to poor marketing despite good content and being popular with the critics, top Bengali actor Prosenjit Chatterjee said here.

Prosenjit, who has successfully transcended boundaries of commercial and art cinema with his roles, said commercial Bengali cinema is yet to find an audience beyond Bengal.

The actor, who has been ruling the industry for the last 30 years, hopes that things will change with his latest film Moner Manush (The Quest).

Directed by noted filmmaker Gautam Ghosh, the film is about the 19th century poet saint Lalon Fakir. It is the first Indo-Bangladesh co-production in 52 years and is being released simultaneously in both countries on 3 December.

The problem with Bengali cinema is that it has always focused on the art side but not on the commercial aspects, which have become increasingly important now. Films by masters like Satyajit Ray are known to even the non-Bengali audience, he regretted.

MUMBAI: Academy Award winning director Ang Lee has roped in Tabu for his forthcoming ambitious film based on Yann Martel’s bestseller Life Of Pi. The actress will play the role of Pi’s mother.

Sometime ago, Delhi-based Suraj Singh was selected to play the protagonist in the film.

Meanwhile, the director is auditioning for some one who would play Pi’s father. Sushant Singh and Sonu Sood are the two whom Lee has already auditioned. Confirmed Sushant Singh, “Yes, I indeed met Ang Lee and his casting director. I had sent them a tape and they called me over for the audition. I am one of the contenders among the shortlisted couple of people and I am hoping for the best.”

Life of Pi tells the story of a boy Piscine Molitor ‘Pi‘ Patel from Pondicherry who survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a boat with a Bengal tiger.

The film will be shot in India and Taiwan and the makers will start rolling the film in Pondicherry in January next year.
 

PANAJI: Goan Filmmaker and National award winner Rajendra Talak has called for creating awareness among common people through responsible, better, focused and value-based cinema so that the posterity could have positive and better inheritance in terms of growth and development in all spheres of day to day life.

Producer and director Rajendra Talak’s first Konkani feature film O’Maria with an investment of Rs 9 million was screened IFFI 2010. Veteran actress Sulbha Arya, Cory Goldberg and cinematographer Sunny Joseph were also present at the press meet.

Complementing the Goa government for supporting filmmakers with finances, Talak expressed his determination to continuously work on film projects which will help in preserving environment, ecology, forests, water bodies and above all the social fabric.

On the screenings of his film, Talak revealed that Canada and other countries had shown interest in screening it. He said he would be bringing the film to the upcoming International Film Festival at Mumbai.

Veteran actress Sulbha Arya stressed on the need to conserve and preserve better things for posterity without losing our identity.

Cory Goldberg who studied in Art School in New York and acted in O’Maria said he was happy and content with the role he did in the film.

Rajendra Talak has been involved with theatre from his college days and has worked on several award winning plays. In various capacities he has served cultural institutions like Kalangan, Gomant Vidhya Niketan, Kala Vibhag, Konkani Bhavan amongst others. He has produced a Konkani music cassette Daryacha Deger and Lhara and helps organise music concerts like Konkani Sangeet Samhelan and Kala Rang. He produced the Konkani telefilm Shitu, produced and directed Aleesha, which won National Awards for Best Film and Best Direction and Antarnad which also won five National Awards. Presently he is the President of the Goan Organisation of Filmmakers.

PANAJI: Greater efforts are needed to promote Indian cinema overseas and within the country and this can only be done by people who understand cinema.

While Indian cinema is now visible almost all over the world, it still lacks proper marketing and that is the primary reason for its failure to win many accolades or awards overseas.

This was the consensus in the Open Forum on why Indian cinema lags behind.

There was also general consensus that people with greater literacy in cinema were needed to mann important offices like the Directorate of Film Festivals and the National Film Development Corporation which promotes Indian cinema overseas.

Renowned award-winning critic and author Gautam Kaul said it would not be correct to say that Indian cinema was not making inroads in the international market, but felt that there was lack of zeal on the part of the authorities including the National Film Development Corporation and the Directorate of Film Festivals to push films adequately.

He said stronger efforts were needed to invite selectors from foreign countries to India and this could only be done if those who understand cinema themselves went to foreign film festivals and talked to the foreign selectors to promote Indian cinema. In any case, he regretted that Cannes, Berlin, Montreal and Venice seemed to the only festivals that Indian authorities considered important and hundreds of other festivals were generally ignored, unless individual filmmakers made efforts to reach their films there.

Senior film journalist B B Nagpal said that the failure to curb piracy and the lack of proper promotion and marketing were two main reasons for Indian cinema not doing so well overseas. He said that Americans spent millions of dollars on marketing, but Indian filmmakers had failed to master the science of marketing and depended either on the government or private distributors.

He said large amounts were spent every year to take the concerned Ministers and film contingents to Cannes, but this had failed to attract the selectors from Cannes to come to India or buy Indian films.

He said many foreign delegates had complained that they were unable to get adequate information about the Indian Panorama films apart from the details printed in the catalogues, and no efforts were made to put them in touch with the makers of these films. Even those who visited the Film Bazaar said they did not get much help there.

He also said efforts were not made to reach out to non-traditional foreign markets and only countries with strong NRI populations were targeted, and it was left to those from other countries to contact India if they wanted films from here. He said in a world of give-and-take, selectors from India must go overseas to select foreign films if one expected selectors from there to come here.

Eminent film author Pradip Biswas said it was regrettable that the promotion of Indian cinema appeared to concentrate around Hindi cinema and named several filmmakers from regional cinema who had not only been making good films but also winning international accolades.

Biswas and Kaul said foreign selectors should also be facilitated to visit the film festivals being held in other parts of the country. Biswas was emphatic that the promotion of Indian cinema overseas should be wholesome.

U Radhakrishnan of the FFSI agreed that many regional films went unnoticed and said greater efforts were needed to bring them to the fore.
 

MUMBAI: Mukta Arts Limited‘s distribution division, Mukta Movies Distributors (MMD), will distribute Tron: Legacy all over India excluding Tamil Nadu and Mysore. This follows an agreement with Walt Disney India.

The film is the highly anticipated sequel to the 1980 cult film Tron. The film has been shot completely in 3D and has used the latest technology for cutting edge special effects. 

The film is a high octane adventure set in a computer generated world with the core of the story based around a son‘s search for his long-lost father. The film directed by Joseph Kosinsk stars Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde among others.

The film will be released in English, Hindi and Telugu on 17 December, the same day when it releases in the US. The film is Disney‘s tent pole release worldwide for the Christmas period.
 

MUMBAI: Producer Aneesh Arjun Dev and Wide Angle Media‘s kids adventure thriller film Bhoot And Friends is set to release on 24 December.

Directed by Kittu Saluja and starring Jackie Shroff as Bhoot, the film is the story of 11-year-old boy and his friends who in the midst of enjoying their summer vacations accidentally get involved in hunting for a lost treasure which is also sought and hunted for by a notorious villain. 

The film also stars Ashwin Mushran as main villain, Aditya Lakhia and child artistes Maarkand Soni, Ishita Panchal, Akash Nair and Tejas Rahate.

The maker, who has already sold the satellite rights to Turner for Cartoon Network and Pogo channels, will release the film on a tie-up basis. “We are talking to several people on this front,” says Dev.
 

PANAJI: Good cinema has no language barrier and is understood just by visuals throughout the world, says Guade Loupe (in Carribean Islands) based filmmaker Christian Lara.

Addressing a press meet, Lara, who is also a journalist and historian, said the sole objective of cinema is to make people learn and understand the world around them in a better way. His film Heritage Perdu (Lost Heritage) has been screened at the ongoing IFFI.

Lara, who is making films in French, said there is no film industry in his country and there is no infrastructure to produce films, no facilities of studios, laboratories and related requirements. Lead actress of Lara’s upcoming film Emoticon Ms Lock Mi Kwan was also present. 

Lara remarked that every film is an adventure, and determination helps to see impossible tasks get accomplished. He also said he has plans to shoot his upcoming film in India. He said he looks forward to working with Indian actors and actresses and revealed his fascination to cast famous Bollywood actress Madhuri Dixit for his film. He wanted to strengthen the bond between Guade Loupe and India through filmmaking.

In Heritage Perdu, Pierre Mombin, a native of Guade Loupe, receives a recorded letter from Africa asking him to come over and visit his unknown family. He realises that he was the last male descendent of the royal family and that he was expected to reign and save the kingdom.

Lara, born in Basse Terre, Guade Loupe, has released as many as 20 feature films including a few for television. Since his debut in 1975 with Jeu de James, he has directed films like Coco-la-Fleur, Bitter Sugar, 1802 Freedom Now and the Senegalese-Tunisian co-production Black. Lara’s newest film, Emoticon, about an unlikely relationship between a young Chinese girl and a terminally ill 70-year-old Provence based painter, is due in 2011.
 

PANAJI: Filmmakers from India feel that co-productions with other countries can prove fruitful to both sides but the government has to facilitate such exchanges.

Renowned filmmaker Goutam Ghose, whose film ‘Moner Manush’ is in competition at the ongoing IFFI, said it was not enough for filmmakers from two countries getting together since formalities like foreign exchange, customs duties etc. have to be facilitated by the two countries.

‘Moner Manush’ on the life of Lallan Fakir starring Prosanjit Chatterjee (son of actor Biswajeet) is being released simultaneously in both India and Bangladesh on 3 December. This is the first ever film to get simultaneous release in the two countries. The film is an Indo-Bangladesh Co-production.

Speaking at the Open Forum on co-productions organised by the Federation of Film Societies of India, Ghose said films with universal subjects can be made not only with other countries but among different states within the country.

He said co-productions among European countries were very common and there was no reasons why India could not do so. He said he himself had been involved with Bangladesh filmmakers for the third time, the last time being ‘Padma Nadir Majhi’.

He said the principal impediment was the mental block in the minds of the filmmakers, since getting permissions from the governments once a project had been conceived was not too difficult. He felt all Saarc countries could collaborate in film projects fruitfully. He said all the countries had a good pool of talent and the money could be shared. The profits will also flow if there is determination.

Answering a question, he said Indian cinema was heterogeneous and he had himself made films in Bengali, English, Hindi, and Telugu.

Replying to another question, he said the appearance of digital technology had made things easier, though he admitted Bangladesh did not have digital theatres. The celluloid will soon only be for archiving.

Prosenjit said co-productions was still an untapped area since very few people had dared to make films with other countries. He had also made a film with Bangladesh around ten years earlier. He stressed that it was important to understand that Indian cinema meant not just Hindi but regional cinema as well.

Answering a question, he said one needed art to make any kind of film – even if it was of the commercial variety.

Sanjay Ghosh who conducted the discussion and U Radhakrishnan of FFSI felt that digital technology could also help in curbing piracy.
 

PANAJI: Renowned Indo-American filmmaker Mira Nair today stressed the need to enhance content, message and value in screenplay writing besides production standards to usher India into an era of world class film making.

Addressing the media at the ongoing IFFI where 16 of her films are being screened in a retrospective, she said India has got tremendous talent in all areas of film making which needs to be supplemented with more impetus on providing thought provoking stories, subjects and themes. She added that script forms the real foundation of the film. 

Underlining the importance of riguor and rhythm in making of films which makes viewers’ heart beat not only in the country but throughout the world, she said that experiencing day to day life in India and abroad provides her an opportunity and creates a vision to work on films with universal appeal. She said that problems and issues concerning under privileged people at the grassroots would always be the priorities in her films one way or the other.

Eminent writer Sooni Taraporevala, actor Nana Patekar, Shafi Syed and Dinaz Stafford were also present on the occasion.

Replying to a question, Nair said her upcoming film “Reluctant Fundamentalist” based on Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid’s story, would help her put forth her viewpoint in respect of issues like Islamophobia in the Western world, especially in the South Asian perspective. She hoped several Pakistani actors would join her in this film project.

Nair revealed she has set up the Maisha School of Film Teaching in East Africa where student filmmakers are provided an opportunity to work with the young but experienced filmmakers. She also said she is planning to return to India and said her whole team looks forward to contribute in imparting training to the upcoming filmmakers in the country for making cinema better and rich.

Nana Patekar said common viewers would always love and respect films with good, rich and value based content.

Dinaz Stafford said the Salaam Balak Trust in Mumbai was taking forward the cause of slum and street children, who also need to be provided better education and good quality of life.