MUMBAI: Paramount Pictures‘ Star Trek pulled in around $7 million from its evening and midnight shows on Thursday alone.
The movie
The collections registered by Star Trek is almost double of what Twentieth Century Fox‘s X-Men Origins: Wolverine made. The movie that released last week at the same point made around $5 million.
MUMBAI: Thanks Maa has been nominated at the Edinburgh’s International Film Festival (EIFF), which takes place next month from 17-28 June.
Thanks Maa has been nominated for the Best New International Feature Award at EIFF 2009. Debutant director Irfan Kamal has also been nominated for the Skillset New Directors Award category. Thanks Maa has been produced by Quantum Films.
Thanks Maa is based on the social theme of abandoned babies. This film takes us through the journey of dedication of a 12-year-old boy, who is on a mission to find the mother of a two-day-old abandoned baby.
MUMBAI: The first edition of the Ahmedabad International Film Festival 2009 has announced the call for entries for independent feature films, fictional/live action short films and documentary films. Submission forms are available online at the official festival website www.aifilmfest.com.
The Festival, organised by FulMarxx Integrated Filmed Entertainment Company in collaboration with Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) and Tampere Film Festival, Finland, will be held from 26-28 June 2009.
FulMarxx Integrated Filmed Entertainment Company founder CEO Shiladitya Bora says, “We are overwhelmed to be officially associated with Berlin International Film Festival and are humbled by their strong belief in Ahmedabad International Film Festival in its very first year. The vision is to facilitate dialogue between cultures and nations through cinema, making the Ahmedabad International Film Festival a melting pot of global ideas and ideologies, at the same time providing a platform to showcase India and international talent in storytelling.
The festival schedule this year is packed with a special focus on children‘s films and the revival of the Gujarati Film Industry.
MUMBAI: Big Pictures is gearing up to market its upcoming Hrithik Roshan starrer Kites to the international buyers, distributors and media during the upcoming Cannes Film Festival ‘09.
The company has purchased time slots to screen the Kites teaser on two digital screens adjacent to the red carpet entrance of the Palais for the entire duration of the festival. This is the first time an Indian studio will publicise its film on that screen.
Produced by Rakesh Roshan‘s Filmkraft and directed by Anurag Basu, Kites also stars Barbara Mori, Kangana Ranuat, Nick Brown and Kabir Bedi. The movie will release in the last quarter of the year.
Additionally, Big Pictures will market and publicise its art house film slate. It‘s international distribution team has lined up meetings with officials from Fox, Sony, Paramount, Disney, Warner, Universal and Lionsgate amongst others in order to explore business propositions, the company said in a release.
MUMBAI: Ram Gopal Varma‘s upcoming movie Rann has run into trouble with the Censor Board of Film Certification (CBFC) refusing permission to air the movie‘s title track. The song in question is an altered version of the National Anthem which is not permissible.
Varma has changed the lyrics of the Indian national anthem ‘Jana Gana Mana‘ to ‘Jana Gana Mana Rann hai‘ in the movie. According to law, the national anthem cannot be tampered.
Rann revolves around how the Indian media works and stars Amitabh Bachchan, Paresh Rawal, Riteish Deshmukh, Manisha Koirala and Gul Panag among others.
MUMBAI: New York based Saavn, a digital distributor and marketer of Bollywood entertainment
, has stitched a deal with Hulu.com to stream five Bollywood films. Content on Hulu.com is available for free and is initially available only for the US audience.
The initial launch will include five movies namely Sarkar, Hera Pheri, Deewana, Hulchul and Dhai Akshar Prem Ke. More films will be released throughout the year. All the films will include English subtitles and would be placed in the feature film category.
Saavn co-founder and CEO Vin Bhat says, “Making some of the best Bollywood films available on Hulu is very exciting to us. One of Saavn‘s goals is to make Bollywood more accessible for everyone and by having these films on Hulu, we believe that more people in the US will open up to the genre that is revered by billions around the world”.
MUMBAI: Whistling Woods International (WWI) has announced that the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, which commences on 13 May, will screen nine of its student films
in the ‘Short Film Corner‘.
The films to be showcased include Ek Tha Main, Roorkee By-Pass, Tuesday, Tying Strings and Shame, News, Gir Gaya, Ansuni, A Writer‘s Affair and Shoot.
“This is truly a fantastic honour. Having our student films being screened at Cannes is a huge exposure and motivation for the students. The students have spared no efforts in partaking of this training. I look forward to people‘s reaction to our students‘ films which will be showcased at the festival,” says WWI chairman Subhash Ghai.
MUMBAI: Adlabs Films, part of Reliance ADAG, has set up a BPO (business process outsourcing) unit in the film and media space to tap the Indian and global market.
The BPO has already obtained the order for digitisation and restoration of 1000 films preserved by the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), a media unit of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.
Adlabs Films is planning to pump in Rs 1.5 billion in the venture. “We plan to invest Rs 1.5 billion in the BPO business. This facility will work towards restoration of the films from standard definition to high-definition, and conversion to mobile and DVD formats,” Adlabs Films CEO Anil Arjun tells Indiantelevision.com.
The BPO, which is aimed at providing solution for the transition of content from analog to digital and from physical media to digital data, will target content owners of international studios, broadcast and television networks, library owners and mobile companies around the world.
With a current staff of 300, the BPO will work on restoration, encoding, decoding, transcoding, compression authoring, format and standard conversion of the old heritage films of the past, to increase their shelf life and to preserve the prints for future generations.
The company plans to deploy around 1200 people in the BPO business. “Adlabs is uniquely positioned, having significant and several years of experience in handling film media in various formats. Coupled with fiber network, the services of the media BPO enable a complete offering to Adlabs‘ worldwide clients,” adds Arjun.
The company aims to match the standards of Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA).
Earlier, Adlabs Films had announced plans to tap international film processing market through its digital labs.
NEW DELHI: At a time when cinema houses are being forced to re-release old films following the multiplex-filmmakers imbroglio, NDTV Lumi?re is screening ‘Experience Cannes’, a seven-day cinematic treat of acclaimed and handpicked contemporary films from the Festival de Cannes, in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore.
Experience Cannes is presented by Himalayan – The natural mineral water in association with SG private banking. The ‘Experience Cannes‘ film festival will be held at PVR Cinemas in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore from 8-14 May with a different movie to be screened every day at 1 pm.
Some of the films to be showcased at the festival include, ‘The Class’ – winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2008 Festival de Cannes, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s ‘Three Monkeys’ which won him the Best Director Award at the 2008 Fesival de Cannes and ‘Persepolis’- winner of the Jury Prize at the 2007 edition. The other cinematic gems to be screened are Tulpan, Days of Glory, Silent Light, Mourning Forest and The Edge of Heaven.
These films will also be showcased on the NDTV Lumi?re TV channel from 13- 24 May.
MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures (UMP) and Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar has notched up five out of 14 awards in the technical categories for the Idea Iifa Awards 2009.
The International Indian Film Academy (Iifa) announced today the winners who will be presented their trophies on the night of the Idea Iifa Awards that will be held on 13 June in Macau, China.
Jodhaa Akbar got awards for the ‘best background score’ (AR Rahman), ‘best costume design’ (Neeta Lulla), ‘best editing’ (Ballu Saluja), ‘best art direction’ (Nitin Chandrakant Desai) and ‘best make up’ (Madhav Kadam).
The biggest blockbuster of 2008 and Aamir Khan starrer Ghajini won three awards for the ‘best action’ (Peter Heins and Stun Siva), ‘best sound recording’ (Resul Pookutty and Amrit) and ‘best visual special effects’ (Prime Focus).
Among the other winners was Rock On!! which pocketed the awards for ‘best cinematography’ (Jason West) and ‘best song recording’ (Purple Haze); Farah Khan won the award for ‘best choreography’ for the song Desi Girl in Dostana while Leslie Fernandes got the award for ‘best sound re-recording’ for the movie Race. Manu Rishi got the ‘best dialogue’ award for Oye Lucky Lucky Oye and the ‘best screenplay’ award was bagged by Neeraj Pandey for A Wednesday.
The winners were chosen based on an industry voting for the Idea Iifa Awards 2009 in March. Results of the industry voting were audited by PriceWaterhouse Coopers, the auditing firm for the Iifa and the Oscars.