Category: Hindi

MUMBAI: Farah Khan‘s Om Shanti Om has bagged the fifth Annual Central European Bollywood Awards (ACEB). The winners were announced on 8 March in Munich at the second International Bollywood-Blogger meeting.

The voting for the awards, which began in January and terminated on 7 March, excluded all votes outside central Europe.

Apart from winning the best film award, it also fetched awards in the best director‘s category, best special effects, best art direction and best costumes.

While Sonu Nigam received the award for the best singer, Deepika Padukone walked away with the prize for breakthrough role (female) category. Vikram Chatwal was conferred the award for breakthrough role (male) for Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.

Chak De! India won the best actor award for Shah Rukh Khan apart from winning prizes in the category of best cinematography and best editing.

While music director duo Vishal-Shekhar won the best music award for ‘Dastaan-e-Om Shanti Om…,‘ Mani Ratnam‘s Guru won Shreya Ghoshal the best singer (female) award for the song ‘Barso re…‘

Guru also won the best script trophy and Vidya Balan and Mithun Chakraborty bagged the best actor in supporting roles awards in the female and male categories respectively for the film.

Leaving all these aside, Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag left all nominees behind, bagging the award for the most disappointing film.

MUMBAI: Producer-director Manan Katohora is in talks with UTV Motion Pictures to distribute his cross-cultural film When Kiran Met Karen in India.

MUMBAI: Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) will wind up its 10th International Film Festival by screening Naomi Kawase‘s The Mourning Forest on 13 March.

The Mourning Forest, which won the top honours at the Cannes Film Festival – Palme D‘Or in 2007, is a visual poetry on celluloid that depicts the problems of the Japanese society.

In addition, MAMI will also screen other international films like Katyn (Poland) directed by Andrzej Wajda, Aria (Japan) directed by Takushi Tsubokawa, and Billo, Le Grand Dakhaar (Italy) directed by Laura Muscardin.

NDTV Lumi?re, an initiative to bring contemporary world cinema to India, is the official content partner of the MAMI International Film Festival.

Apart from bringing The Mourning Forest to MAMI, NDTV Lumi?re has showcased contemporary films like Goodbye Bafana – the winner of the Peace Award at the Berlin International Film Festival, Caramel by Nadine Labaki, and Fatih Akin‘s The Edge of Heaven.

BANGALORE: Airtel has announced a unique association with the yet-to-be released Kannada movie Accident.

According to this deal, Airtel will be providing exclusive content from the film to its customers in Karnataka in the form of ringtones, hello tunes, wallpapers, etc.

Since the story of the conventional masala flick revolves around a hero who has lost his wife in an accident, the Bangalore city traffic police (BCTP) has requested its actor-director Ramesh Arvind to be the city traffic police brand ambassador.

The BCTP will soon be launching a traffic awareness campaign for which some ad agencies have already pitched. In an effort to create awareness and help promote safe driving, the BCTP spends around Rs 10 million of its own funds, plus attracts a lot of sponsors.

The promotion partners are Zee Kannada and Radio Mirchi. While Zee Kannada will be promoting the film on television, Radio Mirchi will be doing it on FM radio.

The audio album of the movie Accident will be released soon by Anand Audio, before the April 2008 release of the film.

Airtel has around 6.5 million subscribers in Karnataka as per the last reported figures, and Bharati Airtel Karnataka mobile services CEO V Venkatesh claims that the number is now around 7 million, the largest by a single service provider in any state in India.

MUMBAI: After a gap of about four decades, Pakistan has lifted the ban on Indian films. But there is a condition attached: for every Hindi film screened in Pakistan, the doors have to open in India for an Urdu movie.

Khuda Ke Liye is the first Pakistani film to be released in India.

In 1968, the release of Indian films in Pakistani cinemas was banned and Pakistan lost one of its competitors. The net result was a loss of large business circuit and isolation of Pakistani cinema industry for years to come.

Produced and directed by Shoaib Mansoor, Khuda Ke Liye is a film about Muslims in a post-9/11 world. The film is slated to open in India on 4 April 2008, making it the first ever Pakistani film to be released in Indian theatres by Percept Picture Company and music by Sony BMG.

Pakistan and India might have their long-held differences, but Pakistani moviegoers prefer Bollywood productions to those of their own filmmakers. As a result, Pakistani producers say their industry is in critical condition, and unless the government steps in, it could disappear altogether.

The opening of dialogue and political doors to establish new ties and improve bilateral relations will promote cross border co-production possibilities that can hugely benefit Pakistani film industry by eyeing India as new potential market to launch its films.

Khuda Ke Liye, with India‘s Naseeruddin Shah also in a prominent role, is the latest export from Pakistan to Bollywood adding on to the ever-increasing list of entertainment goods imported from Pakistan such as singers, musicians, actors and now films.

As compared to India‘s film production of over 1,000 movies in a year, Pakistan‘s film industry produced just 40 movies in 2006, a fifth of what it turned out during its heyday in the 1970s. Back then, there were more than 1,000 movie theatres throughout the country. Today, there are only around 200, and not one in the capital Islamabad.

In the 1930s when Pakistan and India were still united under British rule, there were two competing centres of the film industry – Lahore, “Lollywood” in Pakistan, and Bombay (Mumbai), the home of India‘s fabulously successful ‘‘Bollywood‘‘ filmmakers.

These days, of course, there is little question as to who won the competition. Bollywood is not only big, but it is the world‘s biggest, producing more films per year than any of its competitors including the US. It is hard for Pakistan to compete.

The thawing relations look set to go both ways and both countries are working hard on a sweeping peace process.

MUMBAI: Indian American filmmaker Parthiban Shanmugam‘s latest film A Pizza Story will be premiering at the International Festival of Short Films on Culture (IFFC) 2008 in Jaipur. It will come as a USA entry into the competitive section.

A Pizza Story takes a bold look at the US invasion on Iraq through the eyes of an eight-year old child.

The film stars Robert Hatch, Madison Laprade, Janis Dunkal. The original score for the film has been done by Jeremy Doss and the director of photography is Allan Facimore.

“The film evolves with the father and daughter love and separation. When eight-year old Eliana‘s father is sent to Iraq, she realises that when a family member is sent into some foreign conflict, the entire family has to face a sea of troubles. Magical realism mixes with the child‘s magical thinking to force a crisis. When her father departed, he promised Eliana that the whole family would be reunited at the favourite restaurant. With a child‘s limited understanding but a warrior‘s heart, she sets out alone to find the restaurant. In the course of adventure, she faces the ultimate test for her courage and her love,” stated writer-director Shanmugam.

The film screenings at IFFC 2008 will happen for three days where short films based on culture will be showcased from all over the world. The festival starts on 27 March this year.

MUMBAI: Jaipur will be hosting the International Festival of Short Films on Culture (IFFC) 2008.

The festival, which concentrates on short films based on culture, plans to travel to various other cities across India after it ends in Jaipur. It will be a four-day event starting on 27 March and continuing till 30 March.

The film screening will happen for three days showcasing films from all over the world. Three seminars will be held during the festival and the subjects will be cultural reforms through short films, social issues through short films, and depiction of history and religion through short films.

The festival will be giving away awards to four categories namely:

IFFC International Award (open to all filmmakers), IFFC National Award (open to all filmmakers only from India), IFFC Best Film On Religion (open to all filmmakers), and IFFC Student Award (open to filmmakers below the age of 21 years).

MUMBAI: PVR Ltd. and SRS Cinemas, who had got into a franchisee agreement for three screens, have parted ways. SRS will now expand its own brand and plans to reach 100 screens by end of next fiscal.

As per a franchise agreement, PVR Ltd was operating the cinemas of SRS group with respect to three screens, located at Faridabad and Haryana, under the name of SRS PVR.

PVR says it decided to discontinue the franchise agreement with SRS, terminating it effective 1 March.

Though PVR Ltd will no more be operating the cinemas of SRS, it is in talks to handle SRS‘ marketing, not only of cinemas but also the mall properties.

Says SRS Group chief executive exhibition Amitabh Bardhan, “To increase our operating efficiency, we decided to discontinue the franchise agreement. However, we plan to get into a bigger consolidation now wherein we would be handling the marketing of SRS Cinemas, its mall, food court and Value Bazaar. But yes, we would be dropping PVR from SRS PVR.”

SRS Cinemas already has nine screens operating under this name in UP, Gaziabad and Faridabad, and plans to open 20 more in the next one month.

“We already have nine operational screens in UP, Gaziabad and Faridbad. We will be stretching to 100 screens by the end of FY09. This will include places like Ludhina, Amritsar, Ahmadabad, Pune, Jaipur, Delhi, Patiala, Merut and Indore,” says an official source in SRS Cinemas.

MUMBAI: Apart from Mumbai, UTV will be distributing Abbas-Mustan‘s Race to Inox in West Bengal and Rajasthan, PVR in Mysore, Bobby Arts in UP and Raksha Entertainment in Bombay. It will also be distributing the film in Delhi NCR.

MUMBAI: Writer-director-producer Sanjeev Chatterjee‘s One Water, a film about global water crisis, will be screened at the 25th Miami International Film Festival on 9 March 2008, which is the last day of the festival.

The festival began on the 28 February.

One Water has been produced by the University of Miami (UM), and its completion and distribution are supported by the John S and James L Knight Foundation.

The film, which explores the global fresh water crisis, has been filmed in15 countries in both hemispheres.

“A great university embraces great challenges. With the production of One Water, the University of Miami has made human what is our world‘s greatest challenge – the fundamental right to fresh, safe water,” said UM President Donna E Shalala, who narrated the film.

One Water was a six-year-long collaborative project involving the UM School of Communication, College of Engineering and Frost School of Music.

The film shows the state of the world‘s fresh water and its impact on people, which is becoming aggravated by population growth and climate change and compromises the future of all life on the planet.

“The purpose of the film is to open a window for audiences into the real situations that human beings are faced with in regards to water. This film should motivate individual responsibility and perhaps action,” said Chatterjee who is also the Vice Dean of the School of Communication.

The film has been edited by DoP Ali Habashi, and the music has been composed by Thomas M Sleeper. Sam Grogg and Harry Clein are the executive producers.