Category: Movies

MUMBAI: The recent Slumdog phenomenon has forced Bollywood to believe that to expand a film’s audience base beyond the Indian diaspora internationally, filmmakers have to strategically join hands with international marketers who exhibit a better understanding of the overseas cinematic landscape. Slumdog was marketed and distributed by Fox Searchlight.

And now taking a hint from this, The Indian Film Company (TIFC) has roped in LA-based world sales company, American World Pictures (AWP), to handle the international sales of its first international feature presentation Little Zizou.

Little Zizou, Sooni Taraporevala’s first directorial venture, is a Mumbai-based film that is presented by TIFC and Mira Nair (of Monsoon Wedding and Vanity Fair fame).

“We look forward to our association with AWP who will be enabling Little Zizou to reach out to audiences in countries across the world,” said IFC CEO Sandeep Bhargava.

In a bid to attain global recognition that would help international marketers to push the film across the global region, Zizou was showcased at the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival in New York and at the Asia-Pacific Festival of First Films, held in Singapore.

While the film bagged two awards – best director and best screenplay – at the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival, it clinched the best producer award at the Asia-Pacific Festival of First Films held in Singapore.

Said AWP Sr VP – international Sales Jeffrey Goldmann, “We fell in love with Little Zizou on watching it. It is a simple, sweet and well-intentioned comedy with a message of tolerance at its heart. We introduced the film to buyers at EFM (Berlin) and will continue to do so at the upcoming markets to lock distribution.”

Initially, Studio 18 will undertake a selective Indian theatrical release of Little Zizou on 13 March and depending on the film’s audience response, the company will expand the number of releases further.

The film stars Boman Irani, Sohrab Ardeshir, Zenobia Shroff, Shernaz Patel, Mahabanoo Mody- Kotwal, Imaad Shah, Kunal Vijaykar, Kamaal Sidhu in pivotal roles and introduces Jahan and Iyanah Batlivala. It also features John Abraham in a guest appearance.

MUMBAI: Excel Home Videos has released the 2007 Turkish-German film The Edge of Heaven on DVD.

Priced at Rs 499, the DVD includes additional features like filmography, awards, screenings and poster.

Directed by Fatih Akin, the film won the Best Screenplay Awards at Cannes Film Festival and European Film Awards in 2007. It also won five awards at Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival for best director, editing, supporting actor, supporting actress and special jury award.

In November 2007, The Edge Of Heaven bagged Critics Award at European Cinema Festival. European Parliament awarded the movie with Lux prize for European cinema.

The Edge of Heaven revolves around six characters. An old man and a hooker in a live-in relationship, a young scholar reconciling his past, two young women falling in love, and a mother putting the shattered pieces of her life back together.

NEW DELHI : It‘s not just Slumdog that has put India on the Oscar map. Smile Pinki, the story of an Indian girl cursed with a cleft lip, has also helped lift India‘s image by winning the best documentary short subject film prize at the 81st Academy Awards this year. Pinki, who has been completely cured of the curse of having been born with a cleft lip in a free operation, is the central focus of the film, made by Megan Mylan. The 39-minute Smile Pinki is a chronicle of how Pinki from Mirzapur district in Uttar Pradesh, along with thousands of others from different parts of India, are operated upon without charge, at a hospital funded by the international charitable organisation ‘Smile Train’. The film was premiered at SilverDocs and was also nominated for best documentary short at the 2008 International Documentary Association 2008. Director-producer Megan Mylan is an Emmy-nominated documentary filmmaker and Goggenheim Fellow. Earlier, her film Lost Boys of Sudan, co-directed with Jon Shenk, won an Independent Spirit Award and was nominated for two national Emmys.

MUMBAI: The might of the marriage between Hollywood and Bollywood may have just arrived. Slumdog Millionaire, the rags-to-riches story using Indian actors and landscape, has taken home eight Oscars including that of the best picture award and the best director for Danny Boyle.

Indian musical maestro A R Rehman has scooped two Oscar awards – best original score and best soundtrack.

Slumdog, the feel-good account of a Mumbai orphan’s break away from poverty, has further picked top honours for editor Chris Dickens, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy. The Best sound mixing prize was bagged by Ian Tapp and Resul Pookutty, another Indian to represent the country on the red carpet.

Says PVR Pictures CEO Uday Singh, “Slumdog‘s win at the Oscars has opened up new avenues for Indian cinema to travel abroad. The win only suggests that if the content is right and is padded with the right mix of marketing and distribution strategies, no Indian film can be kept away from reaching out to the global audience.”

The other India-based film to capture the Oscar attention is Smile Pinki. The film, made by Megan Mylan, has won the best short documentary prize after contesting against four others in the same genre.

Congratulating the Slumdog Millionaire and Smile Pinki team for winning the prestigious Oscar Awards, the Minister of State of Information & Broadcasting and External Affairs Anand Sharma said that this is the finest hour of Indian cinema in the global scenario.

The other winners at the 81st Academy Awards include:

Best actor (male): Sean Penn for Milk

Best actor (female): Kate Winslet for The Reader

Best sound editing: Richard King for The Dark Knight

Best visual effects: Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best documentary short subject: Megan Mylan for Smile Pinki

Best documentary feature: James Marsh and Simon Chinn for Man On Wire

Best actor in a supporting role: Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight

Best live action short film: Spielzeugland (Toyland)

Best makeup: Greg Cannom for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best costume design: Michael O‘Connor for The Duchess

Best art direction: Donald Graham Burt (art direction) for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best animated short film: La Maison en Petits Cubes

Best animated feature film: Wall.E

Original screenplay: Dustin Lance Black for Milk

Best actress in a supporting pole: Penelope Cruz for Vicky Chistina Barcelona

Best foreign language film: Departures (Japan)

MUMBAI: Excel Home Videos has released Academy Awards nominated film The Savages on DVD in India.

The company has priced the DVD of the comedy-drama at Rs 499.

The Savages is written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. It is inspired by Jenkins‘ personal experience with aging family members and ill health.

The movie revolves around two siblings who are forced to face the ghost of their pasts – and their future together during a family crisis.

The movie has been critically acclaimed and has garnered multiple “Best Screenplay” and “Best Actress” awards. It was premiered at Sundance festival and also got selected in many other film festivals in 2007.

Beside The Savages, Excel had released on DVD movies like Sleeping Beauty, Persepolis, Amu and Lagaan.

MUMBAI: Warner Bros. Pictures’ The Dark Knight has crossed the $1 billion threshold in worldwide box office revenue with a $1,001,082,160 gross till date.

Presented in association with Legendary Pictures, the $185 million-budget film was released last year on 16 July in Australia, 18 July in North America, and 24 July in the United Kingdom.

“Chris Nolan has taken the Batman franchise to a new level internationally,” said Warner Bros. Pictures international distribution president Kwan-Rubinek. “Audiences around the world have really embraced The Dark Knight, which has more than doubled the gross of any of the prior films in the franchise.”

The Dark Knight is a superhero film directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan‘s Batman film series and a sequel to 2005‘s Batman Begins. Christian Bale reprises the lead role.

The Dark Knight has pocketed eight academy award nominations, including one for Heath Ledger, who has been nominated as best supporting actor award for his role of the joker.

MUMBAI: Saregama India will be releasing the Bollywood-Hollywood jointly produced film, Karma Aur Holi, on 6 March.

Says Saregama India head-Acquisition Distribution and New film Projects Sharang Sharma, “We are confident that the movie will be liked by classes and masses as well, and we intend to go in for platform release strategy and will increase the print count as the movie builds up.”

Written and directed by New York based Manish Gupta, the film has been co-produced by Drena DeNiro, daughter of actor Robert DeNiro.

The film marks the return of Sushmita Sen after a long hiatus and also stars Randeep Hooda, Rati Agnihotri, Suresh Oberoi, Deepal Shaw and international model Naomi Campbell, rapper Sticky Fingaz and Vincent Pannetta.

The film deals with relationships of many dimensions, their conflicts and resolutions, all happening on the day of Holi signifying a new beginning. The story revolves around the identity of Indian families living in the United States, having migrated from their native land, adapting to the difference in culture and how they have been ready to give up their inherent cultural inhibitions.

MUMBAI: Big Cinemas, part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, has launched a three-screen multiplex in Aurangabad to further expand its Maharashtra presence.

Anjali Big Cinemas, the newly launched property, has a total seating capacity of 1071 and is located at Khandkeshwar.

Big Cinemas COO Tushar Dhingra said, “Aurangabad is a tourism destination and is one of the fastest growing towns in the region. Audiences here have high expectations and we intend to fulfill them with the Big Cinemas‘ international experience.”

With the launch of this new property, the multiplex chain now has 100 screens in western India wherein Anjali Big Cinemas is the 25th Big Cinemas property in the state of Maharashtra.

“Maharashtra is a very important territory for Big Cinemas, thanks to its flourishing film industry and large percentage of the nationwide box office, due to which we have the largest number of screens in this state,” Dhingra added.

MUMBAI: No films will be released in multiplexes after the release of ‘Delhi 6’ as multiplex owners are demanding imbalanced and unfair shares in the profit of a movie, following a decision to this effect by the Film Producers’ Guild of India which represents the Indian entertainment industry.

Puja Films Chairman and senior filmmaker Vashu Bhagnani said: “The movies will release in multiplexes only after the settlement with the multiplex owners. They keep demanding an increased percentage of profit in films despite the increase in production cost and the global recession effect on entertainment industry”

He told indiantelevision.com in a telephonic interview that the entertainment industry was expected to grow at just 7% as compared to 12.3% last year, but multiplex owners still demanded more. “This is incorrect, so we will first settle the profit sharing and only then release any film in the multiplexes,” he said.

Reiterating that this was a decision of filmmakers all over the country and not merely of the Guild which is headed by Mukesh Bhatt, he said films for which advance publicity had been done including ‘Delhi 6’ will be released as slated.

He said he had therefore decided to postpone the release of his film “Kal Kissne Dekha” introducing his son Jackky Bhagnani with Manmohan Desai’s grand-daughter Vaishali Desai along with Rishi Kapoor, and directed by Vivek Sharma, which was slated for release on 24 April.

NEW DELHI: UTV has introduced an array of marketing initiatives for its forthcoming film Delhi 6 which include a tour by the main star cast of the film by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra to different parts of the country.

UTV flagged off a Delhi 6 Caravan from Mumbai on 13 February. The Caravan carries the cast and crew from the movie to Delhi and neighbouring Guragaon. Audiences will get an opportunity to meet the cast and crew at the premiere of the film.

There is a Delhi 6 Mela which will be held at the venue of the premiere in Delhi. The mela will showcase Delhi culture in traditional Chandni Chowk style incorporating all elements of old Delhi, including the cuisine and customs.

Later on 20 February, the team will travel to six different cities including Chandigarh, Jaipur, Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad within a span of 24 hours for the promotion of the film.

Apart from this series of marketing strategies for the film, UTV has tied up with brands like McDonalds, Citibank, Dawaat, Motorola and Kingfisher. Citibank is offering a co-branded card to promote the movie.

Says UTV Motion Picture CEO Siddharth Roy Kapur: “Three years after our collaboration on Rang De Basanti, a movie that became a movement, Rakeysh and UTV are getting again with our latest offering, Delhi 6. There are huge expectations from the film for obvious reasons, and we are confident that the film will live up to them. We have worked hard to ensure that our marketing and distribution efforts help Delhi 6 to reach out to the widest array of audiences in India and around the world.”

Delhi 6 is slated to release on 20 February across 1200 screens in India and more than 220 screens overseas.