ITV

Category: Movies

  • World premiere of A Christmas Carol on 3 November

    MUMBAI: London will host the world premiere of Disney‘s A Christmas Carol in what is claimed will be the biggest UK 3D screening to date. The film that stars Jim Carey, Colin Firth, Bob Hoskins and Robin Wright Penn will premiere at the Odeon and Empire cinemas on Leicester Square and the Odeon West End on 3 November.The premiere is part of an event to kick off London‘s festive season. The Christmas lights on the city‘s Oxford and Regents Streets will be themed around the film, adapted by the classic Charles Dickens‘ novel, and will be switched simultaneously on that night.

    The event was announced by London major Boris Johnson in New York, as part of campaign to promote the city to American tourists. Tickets to the premiere will be available to the public with proceeds going to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children‘s Charity.



  • Maoz’s Lebanon wins Golden Lion award at Venice Fest

    MUMBAI: Director Samuel Maoz‘s Lebanon set inside a tank stranded inside enemy territory on the first day of the Lebanon War in June 1982 has won the Venice the Golden Lion for Best Film award at the Venice Film Festival.

    The director, who based the film on his own experiences, dedicated the award to “people all over the word who come back form the war safe and sound, they work, get married, have children but inside remain stuck in their souls.”

    While the Coppa Volpi for best actor went to Colin Firth for his performance in fashion designer Tom Ford‘s directorial debut The Single Man, Russian born actress Ksenia Rappoport got the same for her role in Giuseppe Capotondi‘s The Double Hour.

    The Silver Lion for best director was awarded to Iranian born, New York-based director Shirin Neshat for Women Without Men, a film dealing with the condition of women in Iran and the 1953 coup which toppled the democratically elected Mossadegh government.

    Todd Solondz was awarded the Osella For Best Screenplay Life During War Time.” This is so much fun – to win a prize it makes you like an eleven year old again nothing‘s – I confess nothing‘s better,” he said from the stage.

    Osella won an award for best technical contribution for Jaco Van Dormael‘s Mr. Nobody.

    The $100,000 Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the future award went to the Orizzonti title Clash (Engkwentro) by Filipino director Pepe Diokno while Jasmine Trinca was honoured with the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor or actress for her role in Michele Placido‘s Il Grande Sogno.

  • Disney to release Pixar’s 3D film ‘UP’ on 18 September

    MUMBAI: Pixar Films’ 3D animated movie UP will hit the Indian screens on 18 September.

    The film is being distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.


    UP is director Pete Docter’s second feature-length film after Monsters, Inc and features the voices of Edward Asner, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson and Jordan Nagai.


    A comedy adventure, UP is the story of a 78-year old balloon salesman Carl Fedricksen who finally fulfils his dream when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wild in South America with an over-eager Wilderness Explorer named Russell.


    UP is Pixar‘s first film to be presented in Disney Digital 3-D.

  • Tamil director plans ambitious Rs 1 billion film fund

    MUMBAI: Tamil film

    director Gautham Menon is on an ambitious mission of setting up a Rs 1 billion film fund to assist financing of southern language movies.


    India has two film funds, Vistaar Religare Film Fund and Cinema Capital Venture Fund, that cater mainly to Bollywood films. This will be the first drive to have a south-dedicated film fund.


    While big corporates have entered Bollywood and extended their production to regional fare including down south, local corporates have shied away from getting engaged in financing films.


    “We see a gap in the market and are keen to float a Rs 1 billion film fund that would support the weaker producers,” Menon tells Indiantelevision.com.


    The process is on to get the fund registered soon. “We are in talks with several people and want to get the fund rolling by November,” says an enthusiastic Menon.


    That wouldn‘t be easy. An escalation in costs and slowdown in the economy have made film projects riskier. Several corporates, who were attracted to the glamour trade, have also burnt their fingers.


    Menon, however, is not put down by these challenges. He is confident that the fund would have the support of 10 venture capitalists as investors including his own production company



    , Photon Factory.



    Menon has earlier directed films like Chennaiyil Oru Mazhaikalam, Azhagiya Kuyile, Minnale and a Hindi film Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein.

  • Govt has no plans for single window clearance for foreign filmmakers

    NEW DELHI: Despite assurances to this effect by almost every Information and Broadcasting Minister over the past decade, there are no plans at present to create a single window clearance mechanism for foreign filmmakers wanting to shoot in India.

    However, the I&B Ministry says it will clear any proposal received by it within three weeks.


    The Ministry cites shortage of manpower as the reason for its decision not to set up a single window clearance.


    Ministry sources also said that as against five or six filmmakers per year, there were over 20 filmmakers from overseas who shot films in India last year.


    Filmmakers from overseas are often made to approach different departments like municipal authorities, Archaeological Survey of India, railway authorities, tax exemption authorities and state governments for clearance of their films, in addition to security clearance by the Home and Defence Ministries. Many foreign filmmakers have in the past opined that they would save time if this could be done through a single window clearance, even if they have to pay for this.

  • Johny Depp in next Pirates film

    MUMBAI: Johnny Depp will star in the forthcoming instalment of Disney‘s blockbuster franchise. Depp will be seen in the role as Capt. Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides that is slated for release in 2011.

    Chairman of Walt Disney Studios Richard Cook announced the news to about 5,000 fans on hand for D23, Disney‘s answer to Comic-Con. The first all-things-Disney convention runs through the weekend.


    It‘s the fourth in a series.

  • Toronto fest opens with British film!

    MUMBAI: The Toronto International Film Festival opened with a British film Creation.

    For more than three decades, the Toronto film festival usually opened with a Canadian movie to spotlight the industry within the country. Naturally, its choice of Charles Darwin drama Creation drew ire of local filmmakers.

    But the controversy seemed fitting to festival organizers because the film looks at evolutionist Darwin‘s life as he struggles to write his seminal book, ‘On the Origin of Species‘ that inspires debate even today.

    Creation stars Paul Bettany as the man whose theory of natural selection gave rise to the idea that humans evolved from a lower order of beings and were not created by God. The story takes place when Darwin is in his mid-40‘s, after he traveled the world exploring and collecting samples of animal life.

  • Tootsie writer Larry Gelbart no more

    MUMBAI: Award-winning writer Larry Gelbart, who wrote films like Tootsie and Oh, God! has expired. He died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. He was 81.

    Gelbart, who won a Tony for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum an Emmy for M-A-S-H and was nominated for two Oscars, is best remembered for the long-running TV show about Army doctors during the Korean War.

    M-A-S-H debuted on CBS in 1972, when the nation was embroiled in the Vietnam War. By its second season it had caught on and remained one of television‘s top-10 rated shows for a decade until its final episode in 1983.

    The show, based on a book and a Robert Altman film by the same name, starred Alan Alda. Gelbart was brought into the project by producer-director Gene Reynolds who worked with him shaping the show.

    After writing 97 half-hour episodes and winning an Emmy, Gelbart quit during the show‘s fourth season, showing health grounds.

    Interestingly, Gelbart went on to write gags for Bob Hope, Jack Paar, Red Buttons, Jack Carson, Eddie Cantor and Joan Davis.

  • Academy to honour Calley, Corman and Willis

    MUMBAI: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will honour Lauren Bacall, producer-executive John Calley, producer-director Roger Corman and Gordon Willis at the inaugural Governors Awards event on 14 November.

    While Calley will receive the Irving G. Thalbergh Memorial Award, Bacall, Corman and Willis will be presented with honorary awards.


    For the first time this year the Academy‘s honorary awards will be handed out at the new event in November.


    While the awards will be acknowledged during the Oscarcast on 7 March, the show won‘t devote the same amount of time to toasting the honorees on air as in previous years.


    The Academy‘s rules allow as many as four honorees per year, although most years the Academy‘s board of governors hasn‘t chosen to single out that many individuals.

  • Bhansali’s Black takes third spot in Korean box-office

    MUMBAI: Four years after its release, Sanjay Leela Bhansali‘s film Black has hit the Korean screens and instantly secured the third position at the box-office.

    The Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukerji starrer that released on 4 February 2005 opened in Korea on 28 August across 180 screens.

    Touted as one of the biggest release for a Hindi movie in Korea, Black jumped to the third position at the Korean box-office while Korean films Take-Off and Haeundae took the first two positions respectively.

    Loosely based on Helen Keller‘s autobiography The Story of My Life, Black revolves around a blind, deaf and mute girl and her relationship with her teacher who later suffers from Alzheimer‘s disease.

    Distributed worldwide by Yash Raj Films (YRF), the film was released in the Korean market as part of YRF‘s strategy to open doors for “Indian cinema in non-traditional territories.”