MUMBAI: PVR has launched PVR Centra, its four-screen multiplex in Chandigarh.
The property, with a sitting capacity of 1141 seats, will be open to public from 4 July.
The new multiplex boasts of leg rooms, liberal seat width, swanky interiors, and state of the art sound and projection system for movie goers.
With the opening of PVR Centra, the total number of PVR screens in operation has gone up to 101 at 25 locations across 14 cities in nine states and one Union Territory.
NEW DELHI: The Osian‘s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema is set to give away the Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Cinema, a newly introduced category, to filmmaker Mrinal Sen.
The writer’s award, renamed as the Aruna Vasudev Lifetime Achievement Award for writing on cinema, will be conferred on Jose “Pete” F. Lacaba from the Philippines.
The awards will be presented during the Festival, held in New Delhi from 10 to 20 July 2008.
Around 200 feature and short fiction films from around 40 countries are to be screened at this year’s Osian‘s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema.
Addressing a press meet here today, Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art Chairman Neville Tuli announced that the award money this year would be approximately $ 250, 000 for the competition sections and lifetime achievement awards. The winners of the Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented Rs. 800,000 each.
The Best Films in the Asian-Arab and Indian Competition sections will be awarded Rs two million each and the best director in each section will win Rs 800,000.
The special jury award and the best actor and actress will each take away Rs 200,000. The best first feature will receive Rs 200,000 in addition to a guaranteed support of Rs 800,000 from FOOD: The Film Fund – Osian‘s Originating Development, created by Osian‘s, for the next feature film.
An Audience Award is also being set up for a film in competition and will win Rs 200,000.
The new competition section dealing with themes of In-Tolerance has been created this year to showcase feature and documentary films that respond to or deal with the intolerance of our times. The best film in this category will take home a cash award of Rs 800,000.
Indonesian actress and producer Christine Hakim will preside over the international jury of the forthcoming 10th Osian’s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema next month. The Indian members of the juries are: Ketan Mehta, Sai Paranjpye, Nagesh Kukunoor, Bappaditya Bandopadhyay, Arun Khopkar and Meena Karnik.
The event will also unveil the scale model of the Osianama, Osian’s flagship cultural complex. The seven-section Osianama, which will open in Mumbai in mid-2009, will house two screens apart from a debating house for discussion on cinema.
In addition, it will have Osian’s film house, archives and offices for its other activities.
Furthermore, Latika Padgaonkar and Indu Shrikent have taken over the realms of the festival in Delhi with its director Aruna Vasudev, founder of the festival in 1999, deciding to step down.
MUMBAI: Paramount Pictures has announced that Indiana Jones, the fourth film in the Indiana Jones franchise, and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has crossed the $300 million mark at the US box office. It has also topped $400 million overseas. With a cumulative gross of more than $713 million to date, it is the highest grossing worldwide release of 2008, the studio says.
The film gave Paramount‘s distribution arm its second $300 million plus release for the summer joining Marvel Entertainment‘s Iron Man, which has grossed more than $309 million so far in the US and almost $250 million overseas.
Paramount says that it, thus, becomes the first studio in movie history to release two back-to-back $300 million plus grossing films two years in a row. In 2007, two consecutive Paramount releases, Shrek the Third and Transformers, both surpassed $300 million in the US.
MUMBAI: Cinemax has joined hands with Mam Movies, organizers of the ‘I Am The Change’ film project, wherein the multiplex chain operator will premiere and host all the films made under the project.
‘I Am The Change’ is a film making initiative taken up by Mam Movies which invites 101 filmmakers from all across India to make films on 101 NGOs, based in four metropolitan cities, within a time-span of 101 hours.
The shooting of these group projects will take place from 3 July to 7 July in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. Post the completion of the shooting process, the edited five minute video will be showcased as a part of a film festival held in Mumbai at the Cinemax theatres, Versova.
“The final films selected will be premiered on 1 August at Cinemax Versova where a panel of celebrity judges will judge the best films and award prizes to the winners. Filmmaker Anupam Kher, along with his acting school Actor Prepares will also be awarding the winner of the best film in the children’s category with a trophy and a prize money of Rs 51,000,” said Mam movies team head Madhusudan.
“After the premier, Cinemax will host a film festival where all these films will be screened from 4 August to 7 August,” added Madhusudan.
Additionally, OOH Media, the out-of-home media partners for this event, has organized a sub-contest for the project wherein the participants could make an additional short trailer of their films, the time duration of which should be less than 59 seconds. These trailers will then be screened pan India across all platforms.
MUMBAI: Pyramid Saimira Theatre Ltd (PSTL) is set to raise up to $450 million by issuing shares to qualified institutional buyers.
The board has given its approval for this purpose. PSTL plans to expand its presence in film exhibition, production and distribution.
The cinema chain operator is also aiming to list its production arm sometime in the third quarter of this financial year. Indiantelevision.com was the first to report that the production company would go for an initial public offer (IPO) to fund its business.
PSTL is in talks for a pre-IPO placement for the production unit that is said to have an enterprise value of Rs 15 billion.
Earlier in April this year, PSTL had announced its plans of producing a total of 52 films by the end of this financial year, of which six films in various languages have already been completed.
The company also aims to produce ten Tamil films this fiscal year and is investing around Rs 350–400 million towards this.
MUMBAI: UTV‘s channel World Movies, which showcases films from across the globe, has tied up with the French Embassy and Alliance Francaise de Delhi for a French movie festival in Delhi.
The Krzysztof Kieslowski‘s collection – Three Colours: Blue, Three Colours: White and Three Colours: Red – and A Short Film About Love will be screened at Alliance Francaise de Delhi from 2- 5 July.
On air to celebrate Bastille Day (French National Day) on 14 July, World Movies will showcase Kieslowski‘s Three Colours trilogy that also represents the three colours on the French Flag. The trilogy will be aired from 7 pm onwards.
Another highlight of the movie festival is the World Movies contest. At the event, viewers can participate in the World Movies contest and win World Movies DVDs.
NEW DELHI: The 10th Osian‘s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, which begins on 10 July, will open with the Hong Kong film Sparrow while it will close with India‘s Mumbai Cutting.
The festival is being held at Siri Fort complex and Alliance Francaise in New Delhi and will end on 20 July.
Directed by Johnny To, Sparrow stars Simon Yam, Kelly Lin, Ka Tung Lam, Hoi-Pang Lo and Kenneth Cheung.
Sparrow, a slang in local Hong Kong street language for pickpocket, is about a “beautiful” woman and three professional pickpockets coming together in search of an elusive key. The film will be screened on 11 July at Siri Fort, Delhi.
“Like a sparrow, the camera swerves through the forgotten alleyways and old buildings intent to reveal something new…..For me, film has always been a medium that documents a specific place and time. Sparrow is an embodiment of that spirit,” said Johnnie To.
In the film Mumbai Cutting, ten Indian filmmakers, namely Sudhir Mishra, Jahnu Barua, Rahul Dholakia, Rituparno Ghosh, Shashanka Ghosh, Manish Jha, Anurag Kashyap, Ruchi Narain, Ayush Raina, Revathi and Kundan Shah, have collaborated to offer a glimpse of life in modern day Mumbai.
The film tells the story of a man and a woman who come together in grief after losing their loved ones, a writer who makes it his mission to connect with a troubled orphan, a Muslim woman attempting to procure a fake passport, and an aspiring actor who races through the streets in order to reach an important audition. The film will be screened on 19 July at Siri Fort.
Osian‘s-Cinefan is organised by Osian‘s Connoisseurs of Art in association with the government of Delhi.
MUMBAI: US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has mailed Foreign Language Film award entry forms to 96 countries, facilitating their submissions for the 81st Academy Awards.
To qualify for the 2008 Awards, a film must be released in the submitting country between 1 October ‘07 and 30 September ‘08. It also has to be publicly screened in 35mm or 70mm film or in a qualifying digital cinema format for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial motion picture theatre.
The dialogue track must be predominantly in a language or languages other than English. Accurate English subtitles are required.
Entry forms and film prints must be received at the Academy by 1 October, ‘08. Only one picture will be accepted from each country.
In 2007, Austrian film The Counterfeiters won the Oscar over a field of nominated films from Israel, Kazakhstan, Poland and Russia.
The Oscar Awards will take place on 22 February 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood and Highland Center. It will air in India on Star Movies while in the US it will air on ABC.
MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures has tied up with Aamir Khan Production Pvt Ltd for their two forthcoming films.
The first is Delhi Belly, an action comedy that‘s based in Delhi. The film is being directed by debut director Abhinav Deo and Ranbir Kapoor has been cast as the main lead.
The other film is untitled and will be announced soon. Both have a medium budget, the details of which are still being worked out.
On being contacted, UTV Motion Pictures CEO Sidhartha Roy Kapoor confirmed the news, but refused to divulge further details.
Meanwhile, UTV has bought the overseas distribution rights of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na which will hitting the theatres on 4 July. UTV will be releasing close to 200 prints.
UTV had struck a double film deal with Aamir Khan Productions which included Taare Zameen Par and now Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na.
Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na will, however, be released in Dubai on 3 July because of their different release patterns.
UTV has managed to release three films in Pakistan so far – Goal, Race and Taare Zameen Par.
States Kapoor, “We are looking forward to Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na since TZP did brilliant overseas. The last film got us huge profits.” Since both the films were bought jointly by the company, the figures of the deal were not revealed.
UTV also has the worldwide distribution rights of Tip‘s Kismet Konnection which releases on 18 July. Both Race and Kismet Konnection were jointly bought by UTV for a price of Rs 900 million.
NEW DELHI: The G P Sippy banner has announced the launch of 15 films to be completed within the next two years, with Sunill Khosla of Boutique Cinema as creative director for all of them.
GP Sippy Multimedia Entertainment Ltd chairman Ajit GP Sippy, along with Vibha Dutta Khosla of Boutique Cinema, jointly announced the projects with major stars and directors.
Sunill Khosla told indiantelevision.com that he will also introduce new actors, actresses, directors and technicians.
After recording the songs for Jhansi ki Rani, the film was launched with Meera, Milind Gunaji, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Kader Khan, Nirmal Pandey, Tom Alter, Tiku Talsania,Dinesh Hingoo, Gajendra Chauhan, Surinder Pal, Goga Kapoor, and Jyoti Patel. The music is by Nikhal and Ambrish Shahbadi. The director is Rajesh Mittal while Khosla is the creative director. The film is being produced by Rajesh Mittal under the Sippy and R N Films banner. The shooting is commencing next month.
The other films announced are: A Dangerous Love Story, Mumbaai Mastii, Maasooma, Darr Lagta Hai, Love Kaa Keeda, Mr Mobile, Sita, Puppiyan – Jhappiyan, Go Goa, Waaqia, Chai Garam, Maha Satya, Saaz Sur Aur Sanam.
Meanwhile, Siddharth – brother of Manisha Koirala – has been signed by the Sippys and Boutique Cinema for three films which will go on the floors shortly. They include Maasooma. Siddharath was last seen in Anwar.
Sippy’s company has just released its first Bhojpuri film Mai Tu bas Mai Badi starring Ravi Kissan and Nagma with music by Anand Milind, directed by Dayanand Rajan and produced by Vithal-Vohra under the banner of G P Sippy Multimedia.
One film ready for release is Jab Love Hua – India’s first digital film – with Rahul Roy and introducing Riya and Shradha Rana Jung Bahadur, with Birbal, Johnny Nirmal, Rajan, Janvi, Neha Joshi and Prithvi Zutshi. The creative director and music director is Sunill Khosla while the cinematography and direction is by Triloki Chaudary. The lyrics are by Govind Moonis and the film has been produced by Vibha Diwan-Reshma under the Sippy banner in association with Boutique Cinema and Rudra Eye.
Meanwhile, the company is to build a state-of-the-art film and animation studio with a multiplex and a five star hotel on a 150-acre plot on the Gujarat-Maharashtra belt acquired by it.