Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: Alfred Haber Distribution, an independent distributor of reality shows, films, sports series and specials in the US, has signed a three-year deal with K2 Communications to distribute 38 films.

These films, which include five Academy Award nominated titles, will be available worldwide in both high-definition and standard television broadcast formats.

“Produced by the most respected names in the giant screen 70 mm film industry, these 38 titles in high-definition and standard formats offer television broadcasters spectacular stories and extraordinary production values. Some of the broadcast licensees who have had success with these titles include Seven Network (Australia), RTL2 (Germany), FOX (Italy), CCTV6 (China) and TV Azteca (Mexico,” said Alfred Haber Distribution worldwide sales executive vice president Robert Kennedy.

NEW DELHI: Girish Kasarvalli‘s Kannada film Gulabi Talkies has bagged the best Indian film award at the 10th Osian’s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema. The film also swept the best actress award for Umashree at the festival.

MUMBAI: Walt Disney has bought the overseas home video rights of Aamir Khan‘s Taare Zameen Par from UTV Motion Pictures for Rs 70 million.

This is the first time that Walt Disney will be distributing a Bollywood film across its home video network. UTV holds the distribution rights of TZP.

“UTV has sold the home video rights of TZP to Walt Disney for the US, UK, Canada and the Australian market,” confirms UTV Motion Pictures director Siddharth Roy Kapoor.

UTV is in talks to sell the home video rights of the film in India. Says Kapoor, “We are in negotiations with various companies including Tips for this.”

MUMBAI: Vishesh Films has partnered with Sony BMG to co-produce Raaz -The Mystery Continues, to be directed by Mohit Suri.

The film stars Emraan Hashmi and Kangna Ranaut along with debutante actor Adhyayan Suman.

Apart from co-producing the film, Sony BMG has also acquired the music rights of Raaz -The Mystery Continues.

The film is slated to release sometime around November-December this year.

Raaz -The Mystery Continues would be a supernatural thriller dealing with the myths and superstitions that are still widely existent in contemporary Indian society.

MUMBAI: The 46th New York Film Festival is set to open on 26 September in North America.

The festival, which ends on 12 October, will open with the screening of Laurent Cantet’s The Class, the winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

The French film is based on Francois Begaudeau’s autobiographical novel “Entre les Murs.”

The other films to be screened at the festival include In the Realm of Oshima, a story that talks about the life and career of the Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, and Guy Debord’s 1978 film, In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni(We Spin Around the Night Consumed by the Fire).

The New York Film Festival aims to screen art-oriented and international films.

MUMBAI: Hyde Park Entertainment Group is set to remake Blake Edwards’ 1979 comedy 10.

The company has secured the film’s rights from Blake Edwards, who will be executive producer for the remake.

The new 10 will be produced by Hyde Park chairman Ashok Amritraj along with executive Patrick Aiello and Lou Pitt, reports Variety. Geoffrey Edwards will also serve as the executive producer of the film.

The producers aim to cast a newcomer for 10 and have already roped in certain agencies for the search.

MUMBAI: Main Aur Mrs Khanna, co-produced by UTV Spotboy Motion Pictures and Sohail Khan Productions, is scheduled for a December release.

The film is being directed by debutante Prem Soni and stars Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Sohail Khan in pivotal roles. The music for the film has been done by Sajid Wajid.

Main Aur Mrs. Khanna is a romantic comedy, the music rights of which lie with T Series.

Also, the film is being extensively shot in Australia with short schedules in Mumbai and Dalhousie.

MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures, the worldwide distributors of Kismat Konnection, a Tips production, is set to release the film on 18 July across 900 screens.

Produced by Tips, the film will open across 720 screens in India and 200 screens in the overseas market which include UK, USA, Middle East and Australia.

The film will also have a day and a date release in Pakistan.

Kismat Konnection, starring Shahid Kapoor and Vidya Balan, premiered in Dubai at the Grand Prix on 17 July.

Directed by Aziz Mirza, the film is a story about Raj Malhotra who struggles to find that “one chance” to showcase his mettle and somehow discovers that Priya is his lucky charm.

MUMBAI: Kiran Rao, who has assisted husband Aamir Khan on various projects like Taare Zameen Par and Lagaan, is ready to make her directorial debut with Dhobi Ghaat.

Rao will also be producing the film under her own independent production house Cinema 73, which falls under the Aamir Khan Productions banner.

The casting of the film, which is yet to be finalised, will mainly include new comers.

Dhobi Ghaat is a low budget film with a story that hovers around present-day Mumbai.

NEW DELHI: Joymoti, an Assamese film by the late Jyotiprasad Agarwalla, was a film far ahead of its times when made in 1935 and was inspired by movements in Russia in the 1920s, noted filmmaker Altaf Mazid said here.

Addressing a press meet at the ongoing 10th OCFF about the restoration of the film undertaken by him at his own cost because of the way he was impressed with the film, Altaf said he had been inspired to make the film when he saw a documentary on the Agarwalla 25 years ago and his curiosity was aroused.

He stated looking at the film as not just an interest state artifact, but also a nationally significant piece of Indian culture. The film was based on Lakshminath Bezbaruah’s play on the 17th century story of Sati Joymati and starred Aideu Handique and Phani Sharma.

Interestingly after much search, only one reel of the film could be found in the garage in the house then occupied by Agarwalla’s house.

Since the rights of the film lay with the Assam Government, Altaf said he had proceeded on his own and managed to collect parts of the film from various sources and restored it. He hopes the state will produce a digital print from the restored version.

Joymoti was the first film in Assamese and was also the first talkie in the state when it was released by Chitralekha Movietone in 1935.

Altaf is a critic turned filmmaker who made his first film Jibon in the mid-nineties and screened it at the International Film Festival of India in Hyderabad. It won the Director’s prize at the Seventh Pyongyang Film Festival of Non-aligned and Developing countries. Lakhtokiat Golam (Closed Door and stuff inside the magazine syndrome) was able to attract wide critical appraisal and other films include Our Common future, The Joy of Giving, Las Vegasat, and Bhal Khabar. Noting he preferred to make films on the video format because they became more personal, he said his next one is on the River Pagladia in Assam which flows down from Bhutan.

Altaf said he found that the content and the format of Joymati were very different from conventional films. The restored film has already been screened in several festivals in India and overseas including the ‘bollywood and Beyond’ in Stuttgart in Germany and in Rome and Munich. He had spent Rs 300,000 from his personal savings for the restoration and had not received any help from the government so far.

At present he is in the process of sub-titling four other Assamese films of the early era, including some of the seventies.