Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: Suniel Wadhwa’s 52 Weeks Entertainment is all set to release RVML Animation’s Hindi 2D animation film, Lava Kusa: The Warrior Twins, in India on 8 October. The film is being presented by PEN Entertainment.

This story from the Ramayan depicts the determination of the twins and the adventures they have as they journey towards their aim – getting their father to redress the wrongs he’s done to their mother.

Lava Kusa: The Warrior Twins is the tale of two endearing twins, Lava and Kusa, growing up in the forest with their mother Sita and sage Valmiki. As young men they pit their strength against Rama, the absentee father who has aggrieved their mother.

Notes Rayudu V. Sashank, creative director and producer of Lava Kusa, “At a time when our children are bombarded with all things Western it is difficult to get them acquainted with Indian mythology. We have to provide them content that is meaningful and also exciting,’.

Animators from Philippines, where Ramayana has a great following, collaborated with their Indian counterparts to create this spectacular. The film has 2000 BG paintings and 6,00,000 sketches that make the film a visual grandeur on 70 mm, backed by music by the maestro L Vaidyanathan that add to the story telling appeal unlike live action film.

Comments Dhaval Gada of PEN, “This film does just that. The quality of entertainment and expertise in animation is truly world-class’. ‘Lava Kusa: The Warrior Twins will add an extra zing to the festive season this year, the first offering from Pen’s stable of animation films. Children and families are sure to enjoy the film.”

MUMBAI: The Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) committee recently unveiled the line-up for the 12th Mumbai Film Festival.

Compared to its earlier editions, the 12th Mumbai Film Festival (MFF) promises to be bigger and better with the world premiere of an international film and screenings of 200 films from 58 countries.

Said MAMI chairman Shyam Benegal “It‘s always been the endeavour of this festival to get better each year. This time we have decided to get the cream of the world cinema. And I think we have also largely succeeded in doing that. We have the best films of the past one and a half years.” 

Talking about this year‘s Japanese films that are to be showcased, Benegal said, “We have around 45 Japanese films that have been winners of many international festivals.”

The all women jury, which has already grabbed many people‘s attention, is another thing that Benegal is extremely proud of. ‘We have an unprecedented, highly celebrated all women jury,” the noted filmmaker said.

David Fincher‘s The Social Network will be the opening film at the festival.

YAMUNA NAGAR: The third Haryana International Film Festival and Film Appreciation Course, being organised by the DAV College for Girls, will this year feature around 50 films from India and overseas.

The Festival, to be inaugurated by famed filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan on 1 October, will open with the Dadasaheb Phalke award winning movie Nizhalkuthu (Shadow Kill). Om Puri will be the chief guest for the closing ceremony.

The festival, which will end on 7 October, will have films from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, Poland, Russia, Japan, China, Iran, Sweden, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, Denmark, Hungary, Norway, Argentina and Brazil among others.

Eight important films are being premiered in Haryana during this festival. Apart from Shadow Kill, the others are Gautam Ghose‘s Kaalbela, Makrand Deshpande‘s Hanan, Seema Kapoor‘s Haat – The Bazaar, Anwar Jamal‘s Harvest of Grief, Sharmila Maiti‘s Beyond Borders, Tripurari Sharan‘s Jab Din Chale Na Raat Chale and Ranjeet Bahadur‘s Sab ko Intezaar Hai. 

Festival Director Ajit Rai said there will be a special focus on Iran to be inaugurated by the Director of the Iran Cultural Centre attached to the Iran Embassy in India, Ali Dehghai.

Literature and Cinema is the theme of a seminar to be held on 3 October that will be inaugurated by eminent littérateur and Hans editor Rajender Yadav. Basu Chatterji‘s film Sara Akash, based on Yadav‘s novel, will be screened on the occasion.

Dadasaheb Phalke Awardee Shyam Benegal will be in conversation with filmmaker Anwar Jamal on 5 October. This will be followed by the screening of Benegal‘s Samar.

On 2 October, a Children Film Section will be inaugurated in collaboration with the Children‘s Film Society, India, by Bipin Chandra with child star Shreya Sharma of The Blue Umbrella as the Guest of Honour.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) founded by eminent critic Aruna Vasudev and some international personalities keen to popularise Asian cinema.

NEW DELHI: President Pratibha Patil will present the nation‘s highest award in cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, to D Rama Naidu and the 57th National Film Awards for 2009 at a function on 22 October.

D. Ramanaidu, the veteran film producer from Andhra Pradesh, will receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2009 for his outstanding contribution in the field of Indian Cinema.

The function will, as in previous years, take place in the plenary hall of Vigyan Bhavan.
With this, the backlog in presentation of National Film Awards that got delayed because of a legal case some years earlier, has been wiped. While the awards for 2008 were given in February and those for 2009 are being presented now.

The award consists of a Swarn Kamal, a cash prize of Rs one million and a shawl. The award is given on the basis of recommendations of a Committee of eminent persons. The award will be given at the National Films Awards Function scheduled to be held next month.

Amitabh Bachchan will receive the best actor award – his third national award – for his role in the film Paa while Ananya Chatterjee will get the best actress award for her role in the film Bengali film Abohoman directed by Rituparno Ghosh who also gets the best director award. 

The Malayalam film Kutty Srank, directed by the well known Shaji N Karun, is to get the best feature film of the year award and four other awards in different categories: cinematography by Anjali Shukla, original screenplay by P F Mathews and Harikrishna, costume design by Jayakumar. Its editor Sreekar Prasad won a Special Jury award for this and two other films. The first, the Hindi film Kaminey and the next, Kerala Varma Pazhazzi Raja in Malayalam.

The Bollywood hit ‘3 Idiots by Raj Kumar Hirani won the award for best popular film providing wholesome entertainment apart from getting two other awards: best re-recording of the final mixed track for Anup Dev and best lyric Behti hawaa ka thha who by Swanand Kirkire.

Lahore in Hindi by Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan has won the Indira Gandhi award for best debut film of a director, with actor Farouque Shaikh getting the best supporting actor award.

The Nargis Dutt award for the best film on national integration will go to Delhi 6 by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. The film also received an award for best production design for Samir Chanda.

The best non-feature film award is shared by The Postman by B Manohar and Bilal by Saurav Sarangi. Cinema Yaana in Kannada by Dr K Puttaswamy received the best Book on film award while CS venkateswaran who writes in Malayalam won the best critic award. The Marathi book Eka Studioche Atmavrutta by Prabhakar Pendharkar got a special mention award.
 

MUMBAI: Split Image Pictures‘ Hisss, starring Mallika Sherawat, will release on 22 October.

An ambitious project of Hollywood filmmaker Jennifer Lynch, the film has created quite a stir across the globe for its interesting amalgamation of Bollywood stars and top technicians of the West.

Presented by Venus Records & Tapes, Hisss also stars Irrfan Khan and Divya Dutta along with American actor Jeff Doucette in important roles.

It may be interesting to note that Robert Kurtzman, make-up & special effects expert from Hollywood who has worked on films like Predators, Vanilla Sky, Spy Kids, Hulk, has given the film a Western look.
 

MUMBAI: Maya Digital Media Production‘s 3D animation film Ramayana – The Epic is set to hit theatres all over India on 15 October.

The film, being released in English and Hindi along with versions in Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati and Marathi, is being distributed by Warner Bros.

A little over 100 minutes long, Ramayana – The Epic is made in a stylised and contemporary manner with action sequences, imaginative visual virtuosity and an aesthetic visual design.

Directed by Chetan Desai, the film, inspired by Valmiki‘s Ramayan, showcases some of the most complex animated characters, environments and spectacular virtual sets.

Ramayana – The Epic has Manoj Bajpayee, Juhi Chawla, and Ashutosh Rana lending their voices to Ram, Sita and Raavan respectively.

MUMBAI: In its zeal to provide a platform for screening varied films of students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in the short fiction, short non-fiction and animation segments, Canon India has entered into a strategic alliance with the institute.

The partnership was announced on the occasion of FTII‘s International Student‘s Film Festival that is being held at Pune from 24 to 28 September to commemorate the institute‘s golden jubilee year. 

Speaking of the initiative, Canon India‘s senior vice president Alok Bharadwaj said, “Canon is delighted to be a part of the Film and Television Institute of India event, as it showcases young talent and innovation in film making.”

“By being a part of this event, Canon aims to promote film making through its latest range of sleek, stylish and technologically advanced camcorders. With longer hours of video shooting, Canon camcorders also provide high resolution of videos and still pictures and are a perfect choice for young film making professionals.”
 

MUMBAI: For the first time ever in the 60-year history of film festivals in India, the Mumbai Film Festival will hold a world premiere of an international film.

Said Reliance Big Entertainment chairman Amit Khanna, “For the first time in an Indian film festival we are having a world premiere of the Danish film Abobe the Street Below the Water, directed by Charlotte Sieling.”

This year as many as 200 films from 58 countries would be screened during the eight-day festival that will run from 21 to 28 October.

The film festival would be the first of its kind to have a film business centre through which independent filmmakers would get exposed to the world‘s top 25 film-distributing companies.

Averred Khanna, “There have always been complaints from filmmakers that they never had a film market. No business is conducted. NFDC has tried its best in the past but somehow or the other never managed to get serious buyers there. Fortunately Reliance Entertainment Group has a significant interest in business all over the world. So we were able to tap our resources and happily the top 25 buyers of the world, are attending this festival.”

The venues of the festival are Chandan Cinema (Juhu) and the adjacent five screens of PVR Juhu that will function as the Main Festival Complex along with two screens of Metro Big Cinemas (Marine Lines) and one screen of R City (Ghatkopar).
 

MUMBAI: The switching over from the gentleman’s game of cricket to Bollywood, which started with Salim Durrani teaming up with Praveen Babi in Charitra in the seventies, got a new boost. Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar is set to make his Bollywood debut with Vidhu Vinod Chopra‘s Ferrari Ki Sawari.

The story of the film revolves around a boy who is inspired by a cricket legend‘s Ferrari to play at the Lord‘s cricket ground.

The film, to be directed by Rajesh Mapuskar, will have Tendulkar act alongside Sharman Joshi and Boman Irani. The script is being jointly written by Chopra and Mapuskar while the dialogues will be written by Raj Kumar Hirani.

It must be noted that Tendulkar is the only Indian cricketer who owns a Ferarri.

Many other cricketers like Vinod Kambli, Ajay Jadeja, Salil Ankola, Sunil Gavaskar and Sandeep Patil tried their luck in films but achieved minimal success.

NEW DELHI: UTV‘s upcoming venture Paan Singh Tomar, a story about the soldier-athlete who went on to become a bandit, will have its world premiere on 14 October at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.

While Randall Wallace‘s Secretariat, starring Diane Lane and John Malkovich, will open the festival, Murli Nair‘s Virgin Goat will be screened in the competition section.

“The Festival as a whole has three big competitions for features. When I say big, I mean they have 14 or 15 films each with very generous prizes of $100,000 for all the major awards. They are for narrative features, documentary features and a new competition called New Horizons, which is open to fiction and non-fiction features by first- and second-time directors from all over the world,” said executive director of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival executive director Peter Scarlet in a statement. 

Iranian films – Orion by Zamani Esmati and Gesher by Vahid Vakilifar – and two New York-based films – Furious Force of Rhymes by Joshua Atesh Litle and Bill Cunningham New York by Richard Press – will fight for a place in the New Horizons section.

The festival will also see an equally impressive line-up of films by new talents from Egypt, France, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the UAE. The selection also includes one of the most surprising and unexpected new films we‘ve seen all year, Slackistan by Hammad Khan, a Pakistan-UK co-production.

The Feature competition, titled Narrative Competition, will have films such as director Wang Bing‘s Chinese film The Ditch, Olivier Assayas‘ Carlos, In a Better World, French film Potiche by Francois Ozon and Russian film Silent Souls.