Category: Hindi

NEW DELHI: Tamil Film Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai has won the best drama feature award in the Feature film (International ) category at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

The film is based on director Krishnan Seshadri Gomatam‘s own original story and marks Gomatan‘s foray into film direction.

The cast comprises C P Satyajit, Anuja Iyer, E Kumaravel and Charan. While the cinematography is by Fowzia Fathima, the film has been edited by B Lenin. Also, the art direction has been handled by Thotaa Tharrani while the music has been composed by Aslam Mustafa. Audiography is by AS Lakshmi Narayanan.

Mudhal Mudhal Mudhal Varai is about the making of the movie – a cinematic metaphor for the ancient Hindu belief that life and death is a continuous process. Set in contemporary India, the narrative follows the obsessive filmmaker Huggy desperately trying to make his first feature film. He has a great sense of humour. The different nuances and incidents he sees in life appear like passages out of a movie script to him. Time is running out for him because his girl friend Sindhu suffers from a terminal illness. He wants to marry her but she will marry him only after he has completed his first film.

MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment has inked an agreement with Acentic, supplier of digital interactive TV (iTV) systems, to provide South Asian content, including Bollywood, through video on demand (VOD) on Acentic’s in-room hotel entertainment platforms across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. As part of the agreement, guests in more than 1,300 hotels using Acentic’s in-room entertainment services will have access to a content library of the latest movies from South Asia. The content will also include other activities such as instructional fitness videos.

Said Shemaroo Entertainment director Jai Maroo, “Through this partnership for the first time travelers across Europe will have access to Bollywood and other South Asian content offered by Shemaroo. Our content will be made accessible in hotel rooms through the VoD platform offered by Acentic. We are certain that with Acentic’s state-of-the-art platform, customers will get a quality experience.”

For successful and profitable in-room entertainment, hotels need to put content and services at the heart of the guest experience. “Because of our partnership with content providers such as Shemaroo, Acentic is able to deliver an entertainment service that ensures high take-up rates, guest satisfaction and a return on investment for hoteliers,” said Acentic CEO Alistair Forbes.

MUMBAI: Multiplexes will have no Bollywood film release this week, the first time since the row broke out between producers and the plex owners three weeks ago.

A ray of hope will come from a Hollywood movie, My Mom‘s New Boyfriend, that stars Antinio Banderas, Meg Ryan, Colon Hanks and Selma Blair.

Multiplexes are also continuing with Dashavtar, Fast and Furious and Monster vs Aliens. In Maharashtra, multiplexes are fortunate to have the biggest Marathi box office grosser, Mee Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy, at this hour of scant content.

Fame Adlabs has increased drama

content in its Mumbai chain of multiplexes. “Besides continuing with our exercise of staging Vagina Monologues every day from Friday to Sunday in one of our screens at Fame Adlabs, we will be staging the same at Fame Vashi and Fame Malad also,” says a senior official in Fame Cinemas.

Fame and Cinemax are also releasing a Sindhi film Vaaesar Ee Gum this week. Fame will release the film at Fame Adlabs and Fame Vashi while Cinemax will be releasing the film at its Sion property in Mumbai. In Kolkata, Fame is releasing Rongeen Godhooli.

According to an Indiantelevision.com estimate, multiplexes would take a Rs 850-900 million hit if the fracas between producers and plex owners continues for a month.

MUMBAI: Alleging that Pyramid Saimira had forged a Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) letter allowing it to make an open offer, the market regulator has barred Pyramid Saimira Theatre promoters Nirmal N Kotecha and P S Saminathan from trading in securities till further notice.

MUMBAI: UTV World Movies will show The Counterfeiters on 25 April as part of their ‘film of the month‘ show at 8.30 pm. Based on Operation Bernhard, it is the first Austrian film to win the Academy Awards in 2008 under best foreign film category.

The Counterfeiters defies the conventional treatment of a holocaust film – positioning the lead Jewish character as a pleasure-seeking master criminal who is not shy of helping the Nazis. The Counterfeiters is written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky.

“The Counterfeiters is not only intellectually-challenging but is also a very entertaining film. Its premiere on air as ‘movie of the month‘ is part of our commitment to bring to the audiences the groundbreaking cinema from around the world,” says UTV World Movies creative head Manasi Sapre.

Operation Bernhard was the secret plan set up by the Nazis during World War II to destabilise the UK by flooding its economy with forged currency.

MUMBAI: Big Pictures, the motion pictures brand from Reliance Big Entertainment, is planning to release its next production Well Done Abba sometime during November-December this year.

Directed by Shyam Benegal, the mid-budget film casts Boman Irani in a double role while Minissha Lamba and Sammir Dattani are in pivotal roles.

In Well Done Abba, Benegal narrates the story of Armaan Ali, a driver working in Mumbai. He takes leave for a month to find a husband for his teenage daughter, who lives in a small locality close to Hyderabad. Armaan Ali returns to work only after three months. His young employer wants to sack him but is persuaded to listen to the reason why Armaan got so delayed.

MUMBAI: Lionsgate has refinanced $66.6 million of its debt in a private deal, at the last-hour, to shoo away billionaire investor Carl Icahn‘s take over attempts. Icahn had made an initial offer to purchase the debt at around 75 cents per dollar, an offer that was due to expire last Monday afternoon. Lionsgate signed deals with two bondholders and exchanged $66.6m of existing debt for new debt. The new debt pushes back the put date to 2015 from 2012. The put date is when bondholders can force Lionsgate to buy back its debt.

“We had an opportunity to do a private transaction on terms that were attractive for the bondholders and for the company,” said Lionsgate vice-chairman Michael Burns in a statement. “Bondholders get a better trading instrument and lower strike price while Lionsgate gets a three-year extension on the first put date.”

In a filing to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last Monday, Lionsgate disclosed the deal. It also said that the debtholders have agreed not to sell any of their 2024 notes to Icahn via the “existing tender offer,” which limits support for Icahn among Lionsgate‘s shareholders.

Earlier, in February, Lionsgate reported a loss of $93.4 million in the third quarter.

MUMBAI: Super Cassette Industries (T-Series) has got an injunction from the Delhi High Court on India News, a Hindi news channel, for using its content without procurring a valid license. The injunction bars the channel from broadcasting and telecasting T-Series content in any manner.

Says T-Series marketing, media and publicity president Vinod Bhanushali, “Like all news channels, this particular channel used to take songs from the
T-Series catalogue and insert them in related stories which they aired from time-to-time.

India News, for example, used the soundtrack of Munnabhai MBBS for any story related to Sanjay Dutt. “For this they had promised to pay up a license fee. But later, may be, they took things for granted and continued airing our content without getting a valid license from us,” says Bhanushali.

MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment has partnered with UTV World Movies to release world cinema titles belonging to the latter‘s library on home video.

As part of this partnership, Shemaroo today unveiled five titles namely House of Flying Daggers, A Tale Of Two Sisters, A Room With A View, La Zona and The Phantom Lover.

MUMBAI: The ongoing tug-of-war between the producers and multiplex owners seems to have pushed up regional cinema on to the opportunity platform. Following the stupendous success of Mahesh Manjrekar’s Marathi film, Me Shivaji Raje Bhosle Boltoy, Zee Talkies is now ready to release its next Marathi flick, Gallit Gondhal, Dillit Mujara on 1 May.

The movie, which is a social satire on political scenario, stars Makarand Anaspure, Sayaji Shinde and Nagesh Bhonsale. It tackles the issues of village-level politics, infighting amongst political leaders and differences over distribution of seats.

Produced by Pentagon Productions, Gallit Gondhal, Dillit Mujara has been directed by Nagesh Bhonsale while Arvind Jagtap has written the screenplay and dialogues. Suresh Suvarna has handled the cinematography and music has been composed by Shailendra Barve.