Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment has released DVDs of internationally-acclaimed Shelly Duvall‘s Faerie Tale Theatre.

Produced by Lions Gate and Gaylord Productions Inc. and directed by the likes of Tim Burton, Peter Medak, Mark Cullingham, Eric Idle and Francis Ford Coppola, the 24 fairy tales series was originally telecast on Doordarshan in the 1980s and was well-received then and twenty years later, still continues to fascinate viewers.

Declares Shemaroo Entertainment Director Hiren Gada, “The USP of this series is that, while fairy tales are perceived to be available on home video in the animated format, appealing to kids, this live action theatre format of the Fairy Tales, will appeal to the youth and adults and rekindle the child in them, therefore making it an interesting watch for the old and the young. Age is no bar anymore for this Faerie Tale Theatre series.”

These fairy tales feature some of the best-known stars in Hollywood like Robin Williams, Christopher Reeves, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Bridges, Carrie Fisher, Helen Mirren, Matthew Broderick, Anjelica Huston, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Joan Collins, Vanessa Redgrave and Jeff Goldblum.

While Season 1 of Faerie Tale Theatre, a 4 DVD set, contains eight fairy tales, Season 2 and Season 3 will have the balance 16 stories.

The DVD costing Rs. 499 is available all over.

MUMBAI: The curtains of the 11th edition of Mumbai Film Festival (MFF) was wrung down yesterday but not before a glittering closing ceremony heralded the closure of the seven-day Festival.

Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos received the International Lifetime Achievement award for giving the world some thought-provoking and visually appealing films.

The evening saw the honouring of Amitabh Bachchan for completing 40 years in the film industry. Thanking the MFF for the honour, Bachchan said, “I am really grateful to the Indian film industry for tolerating me for so many years. I remember all the wonderful people who got associated with me.”

Production house Navketan Films was also felicitated for completing 60 golden years in the film industry.

Later the awards were announced.

British film White Lightnin won the best film award in the ‘First Feature Films of Directors‘ category and annexed the Golden Gateway of India award. Director
Dominic Murphy pocketed the cash prize of $ 50,000. Producers, Mike Downey and Sam Taylor collected a cash prize of $ 50,000.

The Australia-Italy film La Pivellina (The Little One) was presented with the Silver Gateway of India award. The two directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel collected cash prize of $ 25,000 while a cash prize of $ 25,000 was handed over to producer Rainer Frimmel.

The Best Director award was given to Adria‘n Biniez for the film Gigante-a Uruguay-Germany-Argentina-Netherlands film. Biniez collected the Silver Gateway of India award in the ‘First Feature Films of Directors‘ category.

The Best Actress award was awarded to Paprika Steen for Applause – a Denmark film with she collecting the Silver Gateway of India award in the category.

The Best Actor went to Edward Hogg for the film White Lightnin. He collected the
the Silver Gateway of India award for in the category.

The jury award for best cinematographer and best sound recordist was given to Mark Gyori and Gyorgy Kovacf respectively for Katalin Varga – a Romania-UK-Hungary film. They collected the Silver Gateway of India award for their respective categories.

The jury headed by Paul Schrader had Irene Bignardi, Shaji N Karun, Vimukhti Jayasundara and Brillante Mendonza as its other members.

MAMI Chairman Shyam Benegal and trustees Yash Copra, Jaya Bachchan, Amit Khanna, Amol Palekar along with festival jury members graced the occasion. Also present were Anil and Tina Ambani.

Remarked Benegal, “This festival brought together some of the best cinematic talent from across the globe. We watched some very well-crafted films covering a range of thematics and issues.”

The evening was hosted by Kunal Kohli and Shefali Shah while singers Anushka Manchanda and Kunal Ganjawala performed.
 

MUMBAI: After last week‘s two big releases Aladin and London Dreams, comes the release of another two big films this week – Ramesh Taurani‘s Ajab Prem Ki Amar Kahani and Percept Pictures and Madhur Bhandarkar‘s Jail.

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, touted to be a fun film, is a love story packed with lots of laughs.

The philosophy of Prem (Ranbir Kapoor) is to spread joy for and for this ‘The Happy Club‘ helps him. However, each time he tries to cast a spell of happiness, chaos reigns.

Prem accidentally kidnaps Jenny (Katrina Kaif). Both fall in love with each other so much so that Prem gets set to do all that he can to make her feel the same way about him including helping her run away from her own wedding.

Jail, on the other hand, is a serious film. Going by Madhur Bhandarkar‘s earlier films, this film might turn out to be his vision of today‘s jails.

It is rumoured that the story of Jail is inspired from the life of a techie from Pune who was reportedly picked up by the police for sending a supposed anti-national mail, that subsequently was found to be incorrect, but the life of the techie indeed went for a toss.

The story of the film revolves around Parag Dixit played by Neil Nitin Mukesh who leads a happy and comfortable life with his girlfriend Maansi (Mugdha Godse). However, he lands up in jail following a series of unfortunate events.

Going back to the films that released last week, London Dreams opened strongly and remained mediocre throughout the first week. The film, according to trade pundits, will do good business, if not very good.

On the other hand, Aladin proved to be a debacle right from the opening day. It‘s low business has sent shock waves across the industry. Understandably, its distributors would lose a massive chunk of their investment.

MUMBAI: PVR Pictures has bagged the exclusive India distribution rights of the films produced, co-produced and distributed by Summit Entertainment.

While studio majors have been ramping up their distribution and production activities in the country, the Summit-PVR pact marks a step forward for an independent cinema company.

Talking on the partnership, PVR Ltd Joint Managing Director Sanjeev K Bijli said, “By joining hands with Summit Entertainment, we have yet again given an impetus to raising the bar to provide world class entertainment to India. We are at the helm of business of entertainment and the year ahead is a very exciting one for us in terms of growth, business expansion and rich myriad slate of releases lined up. So every partnership that we strike would reflect strongly on our business plans.”

Talking about PVR‘s marketing strategies for Twilight and New Moon, PVR Pictures‘ worldwide marketing head Ranjan Singh says, “Since we are releasing both Twilight and New Moon in a span of just two weeks, we have, on principal, decided to market both the films as a series under the name of ‘Twilight Saga‘. As a normal procedure, we will take the help of print, television, outdoor and internet to market the films extensively. Our website will be active from tomorrow and so would be the start of our promotions.”

PVR will be releasing Twilight in 50 screens while the sequel will be released with 150 odd prints in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

Discloses Singh, “Twilight that was released in November 2008, has been around for sometime. Many people must have seen it or may be having the home video of the film. Hence, as a cautionary measure, we are releasing the film with 50 prints.

“On the other hand, New Moon is releasing globally on 20 November, the day we are releasing Twilight here in India. New Moon will release in India on 4 December. Comparitively, it being a new film, we are releasing the film with 150 odd prints.”

Though PVR has not got a hold yet on distribution of English films with its revenue remaining at between 5 to 10 per cent, Singh has an answer to that. “If, we can bring in the big movies like the New Moons to India, we can definitely chart our growth effectively,” he adds.
 

NEW DELHI: The Fortieth International Film Festival of India in Goa next month will feature 200 films from about 50 countries and will for the first time award the best director as well.

There will be about 65 films from 45 countries in the Cinema of the World. The continent focus is on Africa and Latin America, while the country focus is on the cinema of Italy, France, Poland, Croatia and Estonia.

Films made by Indians abroad on NRI issues will be part of the ‘Film India worldwide’ section. Retrospectives in the foreign films category will include Gurinder Chadha of the United Kingdom, Manuel De Olievera of Portugal and Nonzee Nimibutr of Thailand. In addition, five anti-war films will also be shown.

IFFI 2009 will commence on 23 November at the Kala Academy in Panaji and run for 10 days till 3 December.

According to Festival Director S M Khan, “The best film award will be jointly shared by both the director and the producer of the film‘‘ and the winner gets the prestigious Golden Peacock award and Rs 4 million as cash prize. The Best Director and the winner of the Special Jury Award will get silver peacock and cash prizes of Rs 1.5 million each.

The Indian Panorama will showcase 47 films – 26 feature and 21 non-feature films. In addition, the National Film Archives of India, Pune, will screen five vintage musical hits and three National Film Award winning movies – Do Ankhen Baara Haath (1957), Sagar Sangame (1958) and Apur Sansar (1959). 

Tributes to Indian film personalities include Neelu Phule, Prakash Mehra, Shakti Samanta, Feroz Khan, Leela Naidu among others. The Films Division, Mumbai, will show documentaries on Indian music and musicians including Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Ustad Bismillah Khan, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Jasraj, Naushad, K L Saigal, Begum Akhtar and Mohammad Rafi.

The retrospectives in the Indian section will include films from Assam, as the Assamese Film Industry is celebrating the diamond jubilee. The films of Jahnu Barua, Bhabhendranath Saikia, Santwana Bardoloj and Sanjeev Hazarika will be showcased.

The retrospective will also feature films of those artistes who have completed 50 years in the film industry. Two movies each of Kamal Hassan, Asha Parekh and Saumitra Chatterjee will be screened.

Spoof Cinema, mocking popular cinema, is the new entrant in this edition of the festival. Films such as Malegaon ka Superman and Gabbarbhai MBBS are part of this package.

Among the parallel activities, Shiamak Davar will present a lecture demonstration on ‘Evolution of Dance in Hindi Cinema’ while Kishwar Desai will speak on ‘Hindi Films based on book adaptations.”

A total 1200 seats in Madgaon and another 100 in Kala Academy, Panaji, have been added for the Festival this year

MUMBAI: Pritish Nandy Communications‘ (PNC) forthcoming film Raat Gayi Baat Gayi recently won the Best Film Award at HBO‘s New York South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF), 2009.

The film that premiered at the festival was screened in the competition category. Director Saurabh Shukla and actor Rajat Kapoor were present to receive the award. 

Raat Gayi Baat Gayi is an outrageous comedy that starts with a night of heavy drinking and partying amongst three married couples. The morning after dawns with zero memory, the possibility of a one night stand, a missing mobile number and one gorgeous woman.

The film stars Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Neha Dhupia, Dalip Tahil, Iravati Harshe Mayadev, Anu Menon, Navnit Nishaan and Ranvir Shorey in lead roles. Written by Rajat Kapoor and directed by Saurabh Shukla, the film has music by Ankur Tewari.

The South Asian International Film Festival is one of the important events on New York‘s cultural calendar where filmmakers from all over the world compete to be a part of it.
 

MUMBAI: Haat, the latest production of the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC), was shown at the Mumbai Film Festival.

Haat, or Market, is a Rajasthani language film that stars mainstream Bollywood actors like Divya Dutta, Archana Puran Singh, Mukesh Tiwari and Yashpal Sharma. 

A social drama set in Rajasthan and based on women empowerment, the movie is directed by debutante director Seema Kapoor.

The story revolves around a woman, Sanja (played by Divya Dutta), who is tortured by her husband and the caste. Instead of being bogged down by the pressure of punishment, she throws away her inhibitions and stands up against this custom. She maintains her dignity and courage as a woman and gives new definition to womanhood.

Talking about her directorial debut, Kapoor says, “I would like firstly thank NFDC for encouraging and supporting me by producing my film. This being my first film, I was wary and expected a lot of interference from NFDC but there was hardly any.”
 

MUMBAI: Fox Star Studios has acquired the India distribution rights of James Cameron‘s 3D film Avatar, touted to be the most expensive movie made on a budget of Rs 12 billion ($230 million).

The movie will release in English, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil languages, Fox Star Studios India CEO Vijay Singh tells Indiantelevision.com.

Avatar will release across the globe on 18 December. “For a big-budget film, there needs to be big-time marketing. Avatar is going to be the biggest-ever Hollywood release in India. We have designed a 360 degree marketing strategy with the film ads and trailers splashed across press, TV and outdoor.”

Fox expects the movie to be a big hit in India. “A couple of years ago, we had just twelve 3D screens and today we have 50. The dramatic increase in the number of 3D screens, as well as the strong interest that we are getting from the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu language markets reaffirms the strong buzz for the film,” avers Singh.
 

MUMBAI: The Mumbai Film Festival, organised by MAMI, has ushered in business opportunities for the film trade in India.

The first deal has happened with Mumbai-based Enlighten Film Society, a NGO dedicated to the cause of spreading good cinema, buying the home video rights of Antichrist.

Venus, sources say, is in advanced talks with James P. Mimikos, producer-owner of Argovela Films to exhibit Indian films in Greece.

MAMI had introduced the Film Business Centre this year to boost Indian films in overseas markets. 

Says Festival director S Narayan, “All that is happening or is going to happen at the Film Business Centre. Deals don‘t happen all of a sudden, it takes time. Wait and watch!”

The Film Business Centre is a first step towards setting up a full-fledged ‘Film Market.‘ It aims to provide a networking platform for Indian distributors, producers, television channels and the foreign sales agents, festival directors and producers to enhance the international sales of Indian films under the aegis of the Mumbai Film Festival.

Adds Narayan, “The UK Film Council is also using this platform provided by Mumbai Film Festival to launch distribution of British independent films in India. We are also aware that business discussions have been taken place with Japanese companies and other European sales agents. This indicates that the seed which we have sown has started to grow.”

MUMBAI: Eros International has signed a multi-film content syndication deal with Star Network.

The deal with Star comprises a package of films from the Eros library including the recently released Aladin that stars Amitabh Bachchan, Riteish Deshmukh and Jacqueline Fernandes among others.

Additionally the company has also inked television syndication deals with other networks in Asia like CCTV China, Vietnam TV, Astro TV, RTM TV Malaysia, IRIB TV Iran, Media Corp TV Singapore and MBC TV Dubai.

Talking about the deal, Star Gold general manager Sameer Rao says, “We are pleased to have acquired the satellite rights for various films including Aladin from Eros International. For us, this represents yet another significant deal in our continuing and fruitful business relationship with Eros International.”

Avers Eros president – distribution Pranab Kapadia, “Further strengthening the association between Eros and Star, we are delighted to see our films being showcased on one of the largest network of Asian TV Channels and we are sure that this invaluable content will deliver consistent viewership for Star.

“Consistent with our strategy, we have once again executed a combination of pre-sales with Aladin and some recent and catalogue films to make an attractive package for Star.”