Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment has released Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury‘s Anuranan on home video with both Hindi and Bengali language tracks.

While the VCD of the film is priced at Rs 149, the DVD will be retailed at Rs 349.

“Anuranan, a Screenplay Films production, has got official selections at nine prestigious film festivals, and has been screened at several of them. We are proud to release this film on home video,” said Shemaroo Entertainment director Hiren Gada.

Director Roy Chowdhury added, “Surely the home video penetration is huge and will, thus, expose Anuranan to a larger audience. And in today‘s age of watching films on DVDs and VCDs, Anuranan is definitely a movie which can be enjoyed within the four walls of your home.”

After Bal Ganesh, Shemaroo‘s animation division is creating animation content with their forthcoming film Ghatothkach – Master of Magic.

MUMBAI: Former Universal Pictures vice chairman of worldwide production Mary Parent has been named chairperson, worldwide motion picture group at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).

In this newly created position, Parent will be responsible for oversight of worldwide theatrical production, distribution, marketing and business affairs for MGM. Parent reports directly to MGM chairman and CEO Harry E Sloan, and to the MGM board of directors.

Said Sloan, “MGM is in the midst of an evolutionary process, moving from our initial revitalisation effort into the next phase of growth and development. As we commence production on some of the biggest film franchises in Hollywood, we are fortunate to be able to enlist Mary to spearhead what promises to be MGM‘s most exciting period yet. Her production expertise, relationships in the creative community and distribution and marketing savvy will be instrumental in confirming MGM‘s position as a competitive player alongside other major Hollywood studios.”

Parent said, “I look at what Harry has strategically built and assembled – from ramping up the distribution efforts of MGM as well as breathing new life into United Artists with Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner at the helm – and I believe this studio is poised for a true re-vitalisation. This comes at a great time for the business and I am honoured to have been chosen to play this role.”

This year in partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM will bring new installments of two of its tentpole franchises – the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace and Steve Martin in Pink Panther 2. MGM will also release United Artists’ thriller Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise on 3 October.

MUMBAI: The Film and Television Producers Guild of India will be hosting the Producers‘ Guild Awards on 30 March 2008 at the MMRDA Grounds in Mumbai.

Hindi GEC NDTV Imagine and media and entertainment company Wizcraft International will promote the awards.

NDTV Imagine CEO Sameer Nair said, “We are very pleased to present the Producers‘ Guild Awards on NDTV Imagine. We have had an association with this award for the past three years and now we have plans to extend this collaboration for the next ten years.”

“We will be screening the awards function on our channel on the second week of April. The promos for the event will begin sometime this week and will be shown across the entire NDTV network,” Nair added.

Wizcraft is producing the ad campaigns for the awards which will then be promoted by them through print and television.

Wizcraft International Entertainment director Viraf Sarkari said, “We are very proud to be associated with this prestigious award. It is the only award that is chosen by the core industry itself and we promise the it will emerge this year as one of the most glamorous awards, be it on scale, performances, attendance, look, feel or presentation.”

The trophy which will be given away at the award function is called “Apsara.” A total of 28 Apsaras will be presented this year, of which 16 are for the popular awards category, 7 for the technical category and 5 for the special awards category.

The Film and Television Producers Guild of India‘s lifetime achievement award will go to the one nominated and voted by the guild‘s special Committee.

The recipient of lifetime achievement award must be a well-established performer who has contributed to improving the image of the film and television profession, and has a history of active involvement in humanitarian and public service endeavours.

Guild president Ronnie Screwvala said, “The Producers‘ Guild Awards looks to honour achievers within the fraternity and it is an initiative from the fraternity itself. And that is the prime differentiator and what makes this special. With this synergy between the guild and Wizcraft, we are confident that very soon this will become the most credible amongst awards.”

The awards are audited by PriceWaterhouse Coopers, who also have been the auditors for the Oscars for the past 68 years. Nominations include all motion pictures exhibited or broadcast between 1 December 2006 and 30 November 2007.

The nominations in the best actor category are Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Akshay Khanna and Shahid Kapoor. Kareena Kapoor will be competing with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Tabu, Shilpa Shetty and Rani Mukherjee.

The best film category will witness Chak De India competing with Jab We Met, Guru, Life in a Metro and Cheeni Kum.

MUMBAI: The interim order to lift tshe ban on the screening of UTV Motion Picture‘s Jodhaa Akbar in various states across the nation has been extended by the Supreme Court for the next two months.

The order was passed by the Supreme Court on Friday.

Confirming this, UTV group chairman and MD Ronnie Screwvala said: “The ban has been lifted for the next two months and the next hearing will be sometime in May-June. By then the movie would have moved out of the multiplexes.”

On 4 March, the Supreme Court had lifted the ban on Jodhaa-Akbar, thus allowing the film to be screened across all states till 14 March.

UTV motion pictures had moved the Supreme Court on 3 March following the ban on Jodhaa Akbar in UP.

The UP government had banned Ashutosh Gowariker‘s controversial film citing law and order problems in the state, where the film met with some protests.

UTV had earlier moved the High Courts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan to lift the ban on the screenings, and in both courts it had won the case.

The film has already faced ban in parts of Haryana and Uttaranchal following protests over the alleged wrong depiction of some historical characters in the film.

MUMBAI: Veteran actor Dharmendra received the Lifetime Achievement award and Rishi Kapoor was acclaimed for his significant contribution to cinema for over 35 years at the concluding ceremony of the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images‘ (MAMI) 10th International Film Festival, Mumbai.

The first Global Lifetime Achievement award was given to Carlos Saura, a renowned Spanish filmmaker, while lyricist-filmmaker Gulzar was conferred an award for outstanding contribution to Indian film music.

Acknowleding the award, Kapoor said: ‘‘Usually film industry personalities do not reveal their age, but I want to say that I have not been working for 25 years – I have been working for 35 years and I am proud of that.‘‘

On receiving the award, Gulzar said: ‘‘Each artist needs this kind of reassurance to prove that whatever he has been doing is right.‘‘

Speaking to the media, MAMI festival chairman Shyam Benegal expressed confidence that this festival had now come to stay in the metropolis and the current edition had been better than the previous ones.

A total of 140 films from 45 countries were showcased in the festival, held from 6-13 March. They included 92 films showcased in the Global Vision section. The foreign and Indian retrospectives were devoted to films by Andrej Wajda and
Ritwik Ghatak, respectively. The country in focus was China and the filmmaker in focus was Carlos Saura.

The chief guest of the event, evergreen Bollywood star Dev Anand, senior filmmaker Yash Chopra, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, and Shyam Benegal gave away the awards.

The Kodak award for technical excellence in sound recording was presented to Hitendra Ghosh who has been in the industry for more than 25 years and has worked on about 1,800 films.

In a new concept called Dimensions Mumbai, five-minute films based on different aspects of Mumbai were showcased by aspiring filmmakers under 25 years of age. A total of 82 entries had been received for this section.

S Srinivasan‘s Vapsi, based on the hardships a young aspiring actor faces in Mumbai, bagged the top prize while Aishwarya S got the second prize for Mumbai Half Marathon and Ganesh More bagged the third prize for a film on life in Mumbai.

The awards carrying cash components of Rs 100,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 were sponsored by Jaya Bachchan, and given away by her daughter-in-law Aishwarya. The special jury awards were given to Handful of Sky by Neha Singh and Patri by Akshara Prabhakar.

In the Indian feature film competition, Darsheel Safary was awarded for playing the dyslexic child Ishaan Awasthi in Taare Zameen Par, Swathee Sen for playing Janki in Antardwand while both the best film and International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) awards were bagged by the Marathi film Tingya by Mangesh Hadawale on the delicate issue of farmers‘ suicides.

Frozen, which is the first full-length feature film to be shot in Ladakh, won the Special Jury Award for its director Shivaji Chandrabhushan.

Tina Ambani, representing Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group that sponsored the Festival, MAMI Trustee Kiran Shantaram, Manmohan Shetty, festival artistic director Sudhir Nandgaonkar, Yash Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor along with mother Neetu Kapoor, Indian Documentary Producers‘ Association president Jahnu Barua, Amit Khanna of Reliance Entertainment, filmmaker Vinod Pande and several other celebrities were present on the occasion. The event was conducted by television star Gaurav Kapoor, and singer Mansi Scott also performed at the function with English and Hindi songs.

MUMBAI: Cinemax India Ltd plans to have ten food courts and gaming zones by 2009.

As part of this strategy, the cinema theatre chain has launched its new gaming zone called Giggles at Eternity Mall in Thane.

“We will have six food courts and gaming zones in the next three months,” says Cinemax VP marketing and programming Devang Sampat.

The gaming zone and the food court at Thane will be in the same floor so that customers can avail the facilities under one umbrella. “All kinds of games are available here at Giggles ranging from bungee jumping to computer and video games. We have just started off with the game zone and we will very soon be bringing in the food court at Thane too,” says Sampat.

Cinemax has occupied four spaces – at Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Baroda and Nagpur – where they will be introducing the gaming zones and food courts.

“Giggles and the food courts will next be seen in Iscon Mall (Ahmedabad), Devarch Mall (Nagpur) and Eternity Mall,” says Sampat.

MUMBAI: Fame India Ltd (formerly Shringar Cinemas Ltd) has announced the launch of Fame South City in Kolkata which will open to public on 14 March.

Managing director Fame India Limited Shravan Shroff said, “With the launch of Fame South City, we plan to spread the Fame brand across the country.”

The 57, 000 sq. ft. Fame South City multiplex houses six screens with a capacity to seat 1,426 people. The 74-seater Gold Class Leather Recliners has both single and couple seaters that stretch to 150 degrees.

Fame India has 15 operational properties and 54 screens across India.

MUMBAI: Celluloid Chapter, the film society of Jamshedpur, in association with Tata Steel is organizing the 13th Jamshedpur International Film Festival. It will start on 14 March and end on 26 March this year.

The festival has been divided into four sessions which are the Indian Panaroma, Showcasing Foreign Films, seminars and workshops.

Indian Panaroma will be screening six Indian films in three days starting 14 March. Said Celluloid Chapter secretary Debashish Chakroborty said, “Some of the films in this category are Mira Nair‘s Namesake, Anurag Kashyap‘s Black Friday, Gautam Ghosh‘s Yatra , Sandip Ray‘s Kailashe Kelenkari and Aamir Khan‘s Taare Zameen Par.”

The foreign film category will be screening films from all over the world from 15 to 26 of this month. Countries like France, Norway, Germany, Israel, Turkey, The Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Czech, Columbia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Cuba will be participating under this category.

“While Sunetra Ghatak will be conducting a seminar on Film Society‘s Movement in India on 16 March in the morning, the seminar called Meet the Directors will be addressed by Sandeep Ray, son of Satyajit Ray, in the evening,” added Chakroborty.

The festival has received films from 11 embassies across the country. While the festival will open with Mira Nair‘s Namesake, Hungarian film Professor Albetti and Iranian Film Baran will be screened on the last day of the festival.

“A special set of Bangladeshi films will be inaugurated at the event and Bangladeshi film actor Tariq Masood will do the honours,” he said.

MUMBAI: Percept Picture Company (PPC) has partnered with Radio City to take the music of Khuda Ke Liye across the entire nation. The songs of this film can be heard from Thursday (13 March 2008) onwards on Radio City.

“Radio City is our official radio partner and people can listen to the film‘s songs from Thursday onwards. Once the songs get promoted, listeners can listen to the songs across all radio stations nationwide,” said PPC marketing head Nadish Bhatia to indiantelevision.com.

The video promos of Khuda Ke Liye will launch on 16 March.

“Initially, the promos will be seen in all the music channels. Once that is done, viewers can watch the promos across all trade channels,” adds Bhatia.

To make the film reach out to the target audience, PPC will be showcasing the film to some select audience sometime next week.

“The film has already created ripples in the intellectual market. It has a message and a very strong content. Thus, we want to promote the film through word of mouth. To do this, we will be screening the film to some selected key people who understand society and the problems accompanying it,” he added.

The film‘s dialogue promos will be reaching out to the audience through all the news channels.

“Since it is the first Pakistani film to be released in India and bears such a strong content, we thought nothing could be better than promoting the film through news channels. Hence, we took this decision,” stated Nadish.

Khuda Ke Liye has won the best film award at the 31st Cairo International Film Festival. It has also bagged the best foreign film award at Muscat Film Festival.

Directed by Shoaib Mansoor, Khuda Ke Liye (For God‘s Sake) is a low-budget film starring Pakistani actors Shaan in the role of Mansoor and Iman Ali as Maryam/Marie. Indian actor Naseeruddin has a special appearance in the film.

MUMBAI: The more a film is blogged about before its release, the higher gross box office sales are likely to be in the US. As many as 10 weeks prior to release, films that eventually grossed $100 million in sales received eight times the buzz of films grossing smaller amounts.

This information is contained in the first edition of Nielsen PreView in the US. This is a B2B research service providing its members unique business and marketing insights.

Nielsen PreView will draw upon Nielsen‘s marketing and media information sources, including informational databases and industry experts, to create original, multidisciplinary studies that address the most pressing research interests and concerns voiced by members on PreView‘s website, www.nielsenpreview.com.

Nielsen will present the details of the first PreView member report at the ShoWest motion picture industry convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, on 13 March. With a focus on the entertainment industry, the study modelled and analysed box office results for 400 recent movies along with related data from Nielsen‘s online, entertainment and media units, and found box office success may be directly linked to pre-release online buzz.

Nielsen PreView SVP Ann Marie Dumais says, “The reports and studies from Nielsen PreView demonstrate the power of the Nielsen service offerings – our world-class, integrated panels and data assets, coupled with our analytical and market intelligence capabilities – to an extended, broader spectrum of clients across all industries.

“Nielsen‘s reputation of quality and substance combined with membership feedback make for a powerful and unique partnership. By building a membership based upon common needs, as opposed to job function or affiliation, Nielsen will be able to more efficiently understand, address and deliver unique business intelligence.”