Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: The Madras High Court has stayed the worldwide release of the Aamir Khan-starrer Ghajini after A Chandrasekaran, producer of the original Tamil film, filed a suit against the film on 22 December.

While filing the suit, Chandrasekaran claimed that he was the copyright holder for remaking and dubbing of the film in all Indian languages except in Telugu.

The stay was granted by Justice PR Shivakumar on 23 December.

Produced by Geetha Arts, the film is supposed to see a simultaneous release in India and globally on Thursday, 25 December. According to industry analysts, an amount of approximately Rs 1.2 billion is riding on Ghajini.

Ghajini is the Hindi remake of the Tamil film with the same name. The film was also made in Telugu.

The film revolves around the story of a rich businessman who suffers from short-term memory lapse. Ghajini, made on a budget of Rs 300 million, displays the businessman‘s revenge for his wife’s murder.

MUMBAI: Reliance Big Pictures has chalked out a 18-movie slate for 2009 release, defying scale back plans announced by some other big film producers.

Being part of the mega plan to produce 70 movies over three years, Big Pictures will roll out 11 Hindi films in 2009 while the other seven films will be in five regional languages.

“We are in course with our targets and there is no slowdown from our side. We will be releasing 18 movies in 2009,” Big Pictures COO Mahesh Ramanathan tells Indiantelevision.com.

To set the ball rolling on the Hindi front, Big Pictures will release the big budget Hindi film Luck By Chance, a co-production with Excel entertainment slated to hit theatres on 30 January. The film marks the directorial debut of Zoya Akhtar starring Farhan Akhtar, Juhi Chawla, Konkana Sen, Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia and Hritik Roshan in a special appearance.

This will be followed by releases like Sikander, 13 B, Mirch and Chaloo Movie. “We will have two movies – Chaloo Movie and Sikander – in the low-budget (below Rs 100 million) category,” says Ramanathan.

13 B, a supernatural thriller with Madhavan and Neetu Chandra as the lead protagonists, will be made in both Hindi and Tamil. The film is being directed by Vikram.

Directed by Piyush Jha, Sikandar has Sanjay Suri, R. Madhavan, Ayesha Kapoor and Parzaan Dastur.

“We will additionally have six Hindi co-productions for the year 2009 which we will announce over time,” says Ramanathan.

On the regional front, the production arm has a slate of three Bengali films- Shob Choritra Kalponik, Abohomann and Janala. While Shob Choritra Kalponik and Abohomann are being directed by Rituparno Ghosh, Janala will be directed by Buddhadeb Dasgupta.

The other movies that belong to the Big Pictures regional basket include Shaji N. Karun’s Kutty Srank (Malayalam), MS Sathyu’s Ijjodu (Kannada), Amol Palekar’s Samaantar (Marathi) and Simerjit Singh’s Chak Jawana (Punjabi).

Reliance Big Pictures, the motion pictures brand of Reliance Big Entertainment, is currently busy in releasing the Aamir Khan starrer Ghajini internationally across 300 cinemas in 22 countries on 25 December.

MUMBAI: 83-year-old Robert Mulligan, the Oscar-nominated director of To Kill a Mockingbird and Summer of ‘42, died of heart disease at his Connecticut home on Friday, 19 December.

Born in New York on 23 August, 1925, Mulligan studied at Fordham University before serving with the United States Marine Corps during World War II. At war‘s end, he obtained work in the editorial department of the New York Times, but left to pursue a career in television.

Employed by the CBS network, Mulligan began his television career as a messenger boy and then worked his way up and learned the business. In 1959 he won an Emmy Award for directing The Moon and Sixpence, a made-for-television production that marked the American small-screen debut of Sir Laurence Olivier.

In 1957 Robert Mulligan directed his first motion picture Fear Strikes Out. Five years later he received wide acclaim and Academy Award and Directors Guild of America nominations for To Kill a Mockingbird.

In 1972, he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for best director and another Directors Guild Award for the highly successful Summer of ‘42.

MUMBAI: Massify, a film production community, has partnered with After Dark Films to create the first-ever user-generated movie – Perkins‘ 14. The film is set to debut during HorrorFest III, which runs from 9-15 January.

Massify offers tools for members to share ideas, collaborate on projects, post résumés and portfolios, secure funding through grants, and find audiences through distribution companies.

Perkins‘ 14 is a horror flick that was created by democratic vote from the online community. Thus, it is a fan-created movie.

The film is about kidnapped children who are dehumanised for evil.

MUMBAI

: Drama followed drama as shares of theatre chain company Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd (PSTL) got badly battered, closing Tuesday 9.94 per cent down at Rs 61.15 on the BSE.

Alleging that a letter issued about its open offer by market regulator Sebi (Securities

and Exchange Board of India) has been forged, PSTL has called for an investigation into the whole issue.

“Sebi confirmed to the company that they have not issued any such letter,” PSTL said in a statement.

PSTL said in a statement issued to press that the competitors and big business interests are behind the constant hammering of its share price, thus creating panic among its investors.

“We have asked Sebi, BSE, NSE and police to trace the whereabouts of the letter. The CBI will also be included since there is evidence that a government‘s letter head has been forged by concerned parties,” said PSTL.

In the last few days, the company‘s scrip was active, on news of Sebi asking the company to go for an open offer, which the company denied on Monday. Early Tuesday morning, PSTL promoter, chairman and MD PS Saminathan said the company had received a letter from Sebi, asking to make an open offer to buy 20 per cent in the company at Rs 250 per share within 14 days.

Later in the day, the company said the open offer letter was forged and that Sebi confirmed the same to them.

In October, Saminathan bought a 25 per cent stake in the company from two promoters – NC Ravichandran and Nirmal Kotecha – for about Rs 1.4 billion at Rs 200 per share. As a result, Saminathan‘s personal holding in PSTL reached up to 46.8 per cent or 13,258,575 shares of the total paid up capital. The market price of PSTL was Rs 60 per share at that time.

Saminathan called for an investigation, saying the company‘s price counter since June 2008 did not reflect its fundamentals.

MUMBAI: Two days prior to the release of the Aamir Khan-starrer Ghajini, KBC Pictures filed a suit against the film in the Bombay High Court on Monday asking for a stay on its release. The petition will be heard by the HC on Wednesday by Justice DG Karnik.

Produced by Geetha Arts, the film is supposed to see a simultaneous release in India and globally on 25 December.

According to KBC Pictures, the rights to remake the Tamil Ghajini are held by them and hence the film,written and directed by A R Murgadoss, is an infringement of their copyright.

Ghajini is the Hindi remake of the Tamil film with the same name. The film was also made in Telugu.

The film revolves around the story of a rich businessman who suffers from short-term memory lapse. Ghajini, made at a budget of Rs 300 million, displays the businessman‘s revenge for his wife’s murder.

NEW DELHI: The Turkish film ‘Istanbul My love‘ won the best film and best director award for Seckin Yasar at the 4th India International Women Film Festival which concluded here last night.

The film ‘Coffee House‘ by Gurbir Singh Grewal walked away with two awards: the best film in the ‘Male Voice‘ category, and the best actress Sakshi Tanwar.

‘Good Night‘ by Geetika Narang received the award for the best short feature, thus receiving a second award this month as it had won the Silver Lamp Tree Award of the Short Film Center of the International Film Festival of India in Panaji earlier this month.

The award for the best documentary went jointly to the American film ‘No! The Rape Documentary‘ by Aishah Shahidah Simons, and the Indian ‘Caravan‘ by Shazia Khan, while ‘Kashmakash‘ by Pragya Pallavi of India came in for special mention.

France was the focus country and a total of around 80 feature and short films from over 40 countries were screened in the Festival which opened with the film ‘Istanbul My Love‘ on 14 December.

The eight-day festival was aimed at encouraging women directors and on the theme “Women Behind the Camera”, relating to women empowerment, where women are being showcased not just as objects of visual pleasure but behind the camera.

Tributes were paid to seven Indian women filmmakers: Arundhati Devi, Manju Dey, Sai Paranjpye, Aparna Sen, Kalpana Lajmi, Vijaya Mehta and Prema Karanth.

The programme this year included Competition –World Cinema (Feature), Competition (Documentary), Indian Panorama, Retrospective, Kinder Films, Joint Hands, Focus Institute, Male Voice, and Short Films (Out of Competition).

MUMBAI: Sony BMG has filed a case in the Mumbai High Court against Shree Ashtvinayak Films for illegally using the song ‘Jab Se Tere Naina‘ (Saawariya) in the film Golmaal Returns. The court will hear the case in January next year.

According to the music label, the composition and the lyrics of the song have been used in multiple scenes of Golmaal Returns, produced by Shree Ashtvinayak, without any permission or license from Sony BMG which own all rights to the song.

Sony BMG said in a statement that it had sent two notices to Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision asking them to take permission for the use of the song. However, when in reply to the second notice Ashtavinayak refuted the claims made by Sony BMG, it decided to file a case against Shree Ashtvinayak Films. It also named the worldwide distributors of the movie – Indian Film company and the home video licensees – Moser Baer as co defendants.

Golmaal Returns was released in October this year and has completed 50 days at the box office.

Shree Ashtavinayak Cine Vision managing director Dhilin Mehta was not available for comment.

MUMBAI: Balaji Motion Pictures, the wholly owned subsidiary of Balaji Telefilms, is in the process of revamping its business. As part of that exercise, the company has roped in UTV television COO Ajit Thakur as CEO who will take charge in January, and will be putting a business plan in place.

In a bid to build momentum into the business, Balaji Motion Pictures has signed a three-film co-production deal with Sanjay Gupta‘s White Feather Films.

The three projects belong to different genres and vary from mid-to-big budgets. The films will hit the floors in 2009.

Earlier, the two companies had co-produced Shootout at Lokhandwala. Balaji has so far produced one movie, co-produced three and distributed three.

Says White Feather spokesperson Gautam Kohli, ‘‘Balaji is a valuable part of our creative plan and we hope to have a long and successful association with them. We are also in talks with UTV for co-productions. With the stupendous success of Shootout at Lokhandwala, we‘ve established a synergy with Balaji Telefilms and are confident that together we will make films which will be trail-blazers.”

Apart from Balaji, White Feather Films has also partnered with Mumbai Mantra for Acid Factory and with Eros for three films.

MUMBAI: Film production company K Sera Sera plans to raise up to $100 million to fund its expansion programme.

K Sera Sera has, however, not firmed up the route through which it will raise the amont.

“The board has considered and approved the fund raising programme and in this connection approved to issue / allot gobal depository receipts (GDR) / american depository receipts (ADRs) / foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) / any securities convertible into equity shares, whether optional or otherwise, up to an aggregate amount of $100 million,” the company said in a statement.

The scrip closed on Friday at Rs 16.93 on the BSE, up 4.96 per cent.