Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: John Travolta, who enthralled us in films like Saturday Night Fever, Grease and Pulp Fiction, is in India with his daughter Ella to launch a model of Breitling Navitimer Caliber 01 Limited Edition watch in Mumbai. He was yesterday handed out the GQ Man of the Year award.

His counterparts in Bollywood, Aamir Khan and Arjun Rampal, also laid their hand on two other GQ awards. While Khan was awarded the GQ Cinematic Icon of the Year, Rampal annexed the GQ Most Stylish Person trophy.

Others who won awards were: Naseeruddin Shah (Lifetime Achievement Award), Abhishek Bachchan (Ultimate GQ Man Award), Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (Excellence Award), Ranbir Kapoor (Actor of the year) and Priyanka Chopra (Woman of the year). Karan Johar won the Producer of the year award.

Travolta, who is on a two-day visit to India, is likely to fly out to Russia on Monday.
 

NEW DELHI: Eminent filmmaker Ramesh Sippy has been unanimously elected as President of The Film & Television Producers Guild of India Ltd.

The election took place at the meeting of Guild Council of Management held immediately after the 56th Annual General Meeting on 25 September in Mumbai.

Five vice presidents were elected: Mukesh Bhatt; Rakesh Roshan; Karan Johar; Vipul Shah; and Siddharth Roy Kapur. Manish Goswami and Ashim Samanta were elected Treasurer.

Bobby Bedi is Chairman of the Delhi Chapter, while Goutam Ghose heads the Kolkata Chapter and D Suresh Babu will head the Hyderabad Chapter.

Other members of the newly elected Council of Management of Guild are:

1. Dr. Yash Chopra
2. Manmohan Shetty
3. Kamal Kumar Barjatya
4. Ravi Chopra
5. Amit Khanna
6. Raj Tilak
7. Dheeraj Kumar
8. Sushilkumar Agrawal
9. Rajkumar Kohli
10. A G Nadiadwala
11. Subhash Ghai
12. Ashutosh Gowariker
13. Vishal Bharadwaj
14. Farhan Akhtar; and
15. Prosenjit Chatterjee

Kiran Shantaram and Randhir Kapoor are permanent invitees.

MUMBAI: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has approached Prakash Jha for the screenplay of his latest political thriller Raajneeti for its permanent core collection.

“I‘m very happy and honoured that the Academy has requested me for the screenplay of Raajneeti. Though Hindi cinema has its own tradition and form, it is always nice to be recognised internationally,‘ said Jha in statement. ‘The script is the fulcrum of a film and I hope in the coming years in India, we further strengthen this aspect of filmmaking.” 

Inspired by Mahabharata, Raajneeti is a political saga on northern India‘s murky electoral politics which gives a rare insight to the power equation and strained relationship within a political family.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is the world‘s premier movie-related organization and is best known for its annual Oscar awards celebration. Scripts that they get are made available to all for research purposes only and in the premises of their reading room.

Other Indian screenplays that have made it to the Oscar library include films like Rock On!!, Heroes, Lagaan, Devdas, Munnabhai M.B.B.S.‘ Kal Ho Naa Ho, Chak De! India, Sarkar Raj and Gandhi My Father.

MUMBAI: Shekhar Kapoor has decided to shoot his futuristic film, Paani, in China.

Intially, the film was to have been shot in Mumbai. But filming in the city is now ruled out since the film’s plot requires the filmmaker to construct a futuristic city with two sharply demarcated sections: The Upper City (for the elite with abundant water supply) and The Lower City (for the poor). Love and conflict ensue when the boy from the Lower City sneaks into the forbidden Upper City. 

Creating such a big set in Mumbai seemed difficult and hence Kapoor chose China. He has already visited China thrice this year. Said Kapoor, “I‘d shoot Paani anywhere where I‘d get the intellectual and geographical space to build my city of a water-challenged future.”

Spain had also opened its doors to Shekhar for Paani, but the visionary in the director has taken a liking to China in toto.

The last Hindi film to be shot in China was Nikhil Advani‘s Chandni Chowk To China.

MUMBAI: The deaf and dumb have some hidden qualities. To prove this, some deaf and dumb people have made a movie, Amir Garib, that is set for release on 9 October.

The movie has all the ingrediants of a Bollywood film except sound.

The two-hour long film in sign language has been made by members of the Ahmedabad Behra Munga Mitra Mandal, the association of deaf and dumb. The organisation has been working for the deaf and dumb people in Ahmedabad for the last 45 years.

Says Vice-President of the association and the director of the film GNA Munshi, “As kids, we never enjoyed watching television the way others did. This movie is an attempt to give the deaf and dumb community a chance to have a wholesome entertainment without any external help.”

Adds Karishma Kishorekumar Lamba, the lead actress of Amir Garib: “Through the movie, we are trying to make a point that one should never give up. One should never sit idle.”

Lamba has been to Las Vegas to participate in an international deaf and dumb beauty paegeant.

“We want to make bigger movies for the all-India deaf and dumb community,” says Yasin Chippa, the comedian in the movie who got his inspiration from Kader Khan.
 

MUMBAI: Sahara India Pariwar’s dream of a takeover of the cash-strapped Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Inc, which some critics say was a publicity stunt, has evaporated with the studio rejecting its $2 billion bid.

The studio’s creditors are now working on alternative plans to bail out the struggling Hollywood studio.

The company‘s chairman Subrata Roy Sahara had a conference call with the studio’s creditors on Tuesday. He later said that his offer was rejected within hours of his talk with creditors.

MGM’s creditors who need to recover around $4 billion are now negotiating a restructuring plan for the studio that could include a prepackaged bankruptcy, Roy added.

MGM has rights to the James Bond franchise and owns half of the upcoming movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Hobbit.

MUMBAI: Yash Raj Films‘ next venture, Band Baaja Baaraat, will be releasing on 10 December in cinemas worldwide, says the production house.

Produced by Aditya Chopra and directed by Maneesh Sharma, who was associate director of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, the film stars newcomer Ranveer Singh along with Anushka Sharma. 

Ranveer is a fresher with no modelling or acting experience and was selected after his very first audition. Anushka, after her dream debut in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Lafangey Parindey, has a challenging role in her third film with YRF.

In the film, Shruti (Anushka) and Bittoo (Ranveer), just out of Delhi University, together start a tumultuous entrepreneurial venture as Wedding Planners.
Their business enters the ups and downs of the lavish world of the glamour and glitz of Delhi baaraats and weddings that test their friendship over time.

MUMBAI: The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) is conducting its first ever Students’ International Film Festival. The four-day festival, which kicked off on Friday, has the participation of 28 film schools, out of which 23 were from overseas.

The films are categorised into three segments – animation, fiction and non-fiction. The festival, inaugurated by veteran filmmaker Govind Nihalani, will end on 28 September.
 
Says FTII director Pankaj Rag, “The festival, part of the ongoing Golden Jubilee celebrations, is a first-of-its kind endeavour at the institute and aims at presenting a forceful and more vivid picture of the finer aspects of filmmaking that students now-a-days are exposed to.”

As part of the inauguration, films like Deccan Queen (directed by K S Raju), Turbulence (directed by Gulam Shaffi Khan), Jugni (directed by Dipti Gogna) and The Solitary Sandpiper (directed by Ajita Suchitraveera) were screened.

MUMBAI: After signing in singer Akon and Chinese actor Tom Wu for his ambitious project Ra One (Random Access – Version One)[, Shah Rukh Khan has roped in music composer Hans Zimmer of The Dark Knight fame to provide music for his film.

Zimmer will charge Rs 20 million for providing the background score for the film

Wanting his film to be of international standard, Khan spoke to his director Anubhav Sinha who suggested Hans Zimmer’s name for the background score. The director then took the help of his contacts and arranged a meeting between Hans and his producer. With time, Hans agreed to come on board.

Ra One based on Gaming, Bad Guys and Super Heroes, has Khan playing the role of a gaming freak who falls in love with Kareena Kapoor. The film has lot of stunts that can be compared to any international film.

Hans Zimmer has scored music for films like The Lion King, Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Pirates of The Caribbean series, The Da Vinci Code, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes and Inception.
 

MUMBAI: The Namaste Bulgaria! Indian Film Festival will be held in Sofia (Bulgaria) from 1 to 10 October.

The festival will screen films featuring the best works of Bollywood of the last six years. Among the films to be shown during the festival are Jodhaa Akbar, Fashion, Dhoom – 2, Fanaa, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Aaja Nachle.

The festival will mark the first advertising presence of Incredible India – the Ministry of Indian Tourism and five colourful spots from their campaign will present India as a tourism destination.

Namaste Bulgaria! Indian Film Festival is being supported by the Embassy of India in Sofia. The other partners of the Festival are DHL, Kohinoor Restaurant, Attica Media, Cinefish, Fame cards and Programata. Film partners of the festival are Yash Raj Films and UTV.

Said Cineplex Sofia General Manager Eleonora Staykova, “We are happy to welcome the Namaste Bulgaria! Indian Film Festival in the halls of the Cineplex and to be a partner of the first edition of the festival. The way we see it, during the 10 days of the festival, we would like to create a celebration of music, colors, emotions and a lot of smiles.”

Those who will attend the festival from Bollywood include Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Hritikh Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan.