Category: Hindi

NEW DELHI: The DVD of Billu, a film by Shah Rukh Khan’s home production Red Chilies, has been released by Eros, less than three months after its commercial release.

Costing Rs 299, the DVD has additional features like Making of the film, Making of Songs

–Marjaani, Hit Hitand Khudaya Khair. It also contains some scenes which were not shown in the theatrical release.

Produced by Gauri Khan and directed by renowned director Priyadarshan, the film has besides Shah Rukh Khan, Irrfan Khan, Lara Dutta, Om Puri and comedian Rajpal Yadav. The film also has Kareena Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra in special appearances in three item songs. The film‘s music has been composed by Pritam who has set tunes to the lyrics of Gulzar.

Billu is the story of a simple ordinary man Bilas Rao Pardesi, a barber by profession and lives with his wife Bindiya and two kids in the village. One fine day a superstar enters their life. Changes are witnessed in their life, in terms of the people residing in the village and friends, but Billu does not change.

MUMBAI: This year‘s Cannes Film Festival, due to be held from 13 to 24 May, will have hordes of Bollywood films to be showcased.

Films like Aladin, Kites and What‘s your Rashee are among the prominent ones to be showcased at the Cannes Film Market.

Eros is promoting Saif Ali Khan‘s first home production Love Aajkal and Amitabh Bachchan

starrer Aladin. Both the films are Eros co-productions and the company is distributing them worldwide.

UTV Motion Pictures will unveil its slate for 2009-10 to international distributors. What‘s Your Rashee, directed by Ashutosh Gowariker with Priyanka Chopra and Harman Baweja in lead roles, is a romantic comedy which will see Priyanka playing 12 roles.

Other UTV films include the animated features Arjun – The Warrior Prince directed by Arnab Chaudhari and Alibaba and the 41 thieves directed by Soumitra Ranade. Other films from the UTV stable include Paan Singh Tomar, directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia, a biopic with Imran Khan and Mahie Gill in the lead roles.

Big Pictures will unveil the first look of ‘Kites‘ starring Hrithik Roshan, Barbara Mori and Kangana Ranaut and 17 of its art house films directed by Rituparno Ghosh and Amol Palekar among others.

Aage Se Right, directed by Indrajit Nattoji with Shreyas Talpade and Kay Kay Menon in the lead roles, Hook Ya Crook directed by David Dhawan with John Abraham and Genelia D‘Souza and Main Aur Mrs Khann directed by Prem Soni starring Salman Khan and Kareena Kapoor, will also be shown on the occasion.
Kaminey, directed by Vishal Bharadwaj starring Priyanka Chopra and Shahid Kapur, Rajneeti directed by Prakash Jha, Dharma Productions‘ Wake up Sid directed by Ayan Mukherjee starring Ranbir Kapoor, Konkana Sen Sharma and Rensil D‘Silva‘s untitled venture with Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan will also be showcased at the Film Market.

Apart from marketing its forthcoming films, UTV is also focusing on non-traditional European, South East Asian and Latin American markets for their earlier films like Jodhaa Akbar, Taare Zameen Par, Swades, Delhi 6, Dev D, Rang De Basanti, A Wednesday, Welcome to Sajjanpur and Fashion.

MUMBAI: Bollywood is possibly going through its darkest financial period in its over century-old existence. The producer-multiplex row is hurting stakeholders across the board.

Single-screen theatres and multiplexes have cut down on shows to reduce their operational losses. In the past five weeks there have been no new releases in Hindi with just a few in English. Going by the fact that Hindi films draw a large amount of moviegoers than those for English films, footfalls have dropped considerably, as a result of which cinema halls have been facing severe drop in their income.

Single-screen cinema halls in central Mumbai like Premiere and Chitra have seen a drop in revenue of between 60 to 75 per cent. “Though there are no new Hindi releases, Marathi films like Mee Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy have kept us afloat,” said Premiere Theatre manager Prem Kamat. “Our business has come down by 75 per cent, I do not want to shut shop as it will go against our ethics.”

Single-screen theatre Plaza that also shows Marathi films has managed to sustain its business to 50 per cent because it is alternating three films between four shows, one screening regularly in the matinee show. etc have been showing Bhojpuri films. “Bhojpuri-speaking cinegoers mainly women along with their children throng our cinemas in the afternoon and the evening shows more so because of the summer vacation in schools,” says Kalpana theatre manager Liaqat Khan.

According to trade analyst N.P. Yadav almost all of the 85 single-screen theatres including the ones in Thane and close to 30 multiplexes have been forced to cancel between five to 25 shows per week. A few Marathi films like Mee Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy and a few others have saved theatres located in areas where Marathi filmgoers exist.

Avers executive director Manoj Desai of Maratha Mandir and G-7 theatres like Gaiety, Galaxy, Glamour, Gossip and Gemini, “Our business has gone down by as much as 80 per cent. This situation is graver than the one we saw in 1989, when we were on a month-long strike.” Though Desai has kept his theatres open, he has been forced to cancel 50 shows across the six theatres under his control.

MUMBAI: Mukta Arts has posted a net loss of Rs 18.35 million for the fourth quarter of the fiscal ended 31 March 2009, as against net profit of Rs 112.16 million a year ago.

The revenue of the company slumped 47 per cent to Rs 251.01 million as against Rs 433.36 million in the corresponding quarter of the last fiscal.

The total expenditure of the company also came down to Rs 267.86 million in the quarter as compared to Rs 312 million in the prior year.

For the full year, Mukta Arts‘ net profit fell 66.35 per cent to Rs 43.84 million as against Rs 130.30 million in the previous fiscal. Revenue rose to Rs 1.66 billion, from Rs 1.11 billion in the previous year.

Mukta Arts has four films under production – Right yaaa Wrong (Sunny Deol, Irfan Khan, Konkona Sen, Isha Kopikar); Hello Darling (Celina Jaitley, Gul Panag, Eesha Koppikar, Javed Jaffrey, Chunky Pandey); Paying Guest (Shreyas Talpade, Ashish Choudhary, Vatsal Seth, Javed Jaffrey, Celina Jaitley, Riya Sen, Neha Dhupia, Sayali Bhagat) and Cycle Kick (KP Nishan Nanaiah, Sunny Hinduja, Girija Oak, Ishita Sharma, Dwij Yadav, Tom Alter).

MUMBAI: Paramount Pictures‘ Star Trek pulled in around $7 million from its evening and midnight shows on Thursday alone.

The movie

opened in around 3,800 screens. Additionally, the movie has also sold tickets worth $3 million by Friday morning.

The collections registered by Star Trek is almost double of what Twentieth Century Fox‘s X-Men Origins: Wolverine made. The movie that released last week at the same point made around $5 million.

MUMBAI: Thanks Maa has been nominated at the Edinburgh’s International Film Festival (EIFF), which takes place next month from 17-28 June.

Thanks Maa has been nominated for the Best New International Feature Award at EIFF 2009. Debutant director Irfan Kamal has also been nominated for the Skillset New Directors Award category. Thanks Maa has been produced by Quantum Films.

Thanks Maa is based on the social theme of abandoned babies. This film takes us through the journey of dedication of a 12-year-old boy, who is on a mission to find the mother of a two-day-old abandoned baby.

MUMBAI: The first edition of the Ahmedabad International Film Festival 2009 has announced the call for entries for independent feature films, fictional/live action short films and documentary films. Submission forms are available online at the official festival website www.aifilmfest.com.

The Festival, organised by FulMarxx Integrated Filmed Entertainment Company in collaboration with Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) and Tampere Film Festival, Finland, will be held from 26-28 June 2009.

FulMarxx Integrated Filmed Entertainment Company founder CEO Shiladitya Bora says, “We are overwhelmed to be officially associated with Berlin International Film Festival and are humbled by their strong belief in Ahmedabad International Film Festival in its very first year. The vision is to facilitate dialogue between cultures and nations through cinema, making the Ahmedabad International Film Festival a melting pot of global ideas and ideologies, at the same time providing a platform to showcase India and international talent in storytelling.

The festival schedule this year is packed with a special focus on children‘s films and the revival of the Gujarati Film Industry.

MUMBAI: Big Pictures is gearing up to market its upcoming Hrithik Roshan starrer Kites to the international buyers, distributors and media during the upcoming Cannes Film Festival ‘09.

The company has purchased time slots to screen the Kites teaser on two digital screens adjacent to the red carpet entrance of the Palais for the entire duration of the festival. This is the first time an Indian studio will publicise its film on that screen.

Produced by Rakesh Roshan‘s Filmkraft and directed by Anurag Basu, Kites also stars Barbara Mori, Kangana Ranuat, Nick Brown and Kabir Bedi. The movie will release in the last quarter of the year.

Additionally, Big Pictures will market and publicise its art house film slate. It‘s international distribution team has lined up meetings with officials from Fox, Sony, Paramount, Disney, Warner, Universal and Lionsgate amongst others in order to explore business propositions, the company said in a release.

MUMBAI: Ram Gopal Varma‘s upcoming movie Rann has run into trouble with the Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) refusing permission to air the movie‘s title track. The song in question is an altered version of the National Anthem which is not permissible.

Varma has changed the lyrics of the Indian national anthem ‘Jana Gana Mana‘ to ‘Jana Gana Mana Rann hai‘ in the movie. According to law, the national anthem cannot be tampered.

Rann revolves around how the Indian media works and stars Amitabh Bachchan, Paresh Rawal, Riteish Deshmukh, Manisha Koirala and Gul Panag among others.

MUMBAI: New York based Saavn, a digital distributor and marketer of Bollywood entertainment

, has stitched a deal with Hulu.com to stream five Bollywood films. Content on Hulu.com is available for free and is initially available only for the US audience.

The initial launch will include five movies namely Sarkar, Hera Pheri, Deewana, Hulchul and Dhai Akshar Prem Ke. More films will be released throughout the year. All the films will include English subtitles and would be placed in the feature film category.

Saavn co-founder and CEO Vin Bhat says, “Making some of the best Bollywood films available on Hulu is very exciting to us. One of Saavn‘s goals is to make Bollywood more accessible for everyone and by having these films on Hulu, we believe that more people in the US will open up to the genre that is revered by billions around the world”.