Category: Movies

MUMBAI: The 46th New York Film Festival is set to open on 26 September in North America.

The festival, which ends on 12 October, will open with the screening of Laurent Cantet’s The Class, the winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

The French film is based on Francois Begaudeau’s autobiographical novel “Entre les Murs.”

The other films to be screened at the festival include In the Realm of Oshima, a story that talks about the life and career of the Japanese director Nagisa Oshima, and Guy Debord’s 1978 film, In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni(We Spin Around the Night Consumed by the Fire).

The New York Film Festival aims to screen art-oriented and international films.

MUMBAI: Hyde Park Entertainment Group is set to remake Blake Edwards’ 1979 comedy 10.

The company has secured the film’s rights from Blake Edwards, who will be executive producer for the remake.

The new 10 will be produced by Hyde Park chairman Ashok Amritraj along with executive Patrick Aiello and Lou Pitt, reports Variety. Geoffrey Edwards will also serve as the executive producer of the film.

The producers aim to cast a newcomer for 10 and have already roped in certain agencies for the search.

MUMBAI: Main Aur Mrs Khanna, co-produced by UTV Spotboy Motion Pictures and Sohail Khan Productions, is scheduled for a December release.

The film is being directed by debutante Prem Soni and stars Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Sohail Khan in pivotal roles. The music for the film has been done by Sajid Wajid.

Main Aur Mrs. Khanna is a romantic comedy, the music rights of which lie with T Series.

Also, the film is being extensively shot in Australia with short schedules in Mumbai and Dalhousie.

MUMBAI: UTV Motion Pictures, the worldwide distributors of Kismat Konnection, a Tips production, is set to release the film on 18 July across 900 screens.

Produced by Tips, the film will open across 720 screens in India and 200 screens in the overseas market which include UK, USA, Middle East and Australia.

The film will also have a day and a date release in Pakistan.

Kismat Konnection, starring Shahid Kapoor and Vidya Balan, premiered in Dubai at the Grand Prix on 17 July.

Directed by Aziz Mirza, the film is a story about Raj Malhotra who struggles to find that “one chance” to showcase his mettle and somehow discovers that Priya is his lucky charm.

MUMBAI: Kiran Rao, who has assisted husband Aamir Khan on various projects like Taare Zameen Par and Lagaan, is ready to make her directorial debut with Dhobi Ghaat.

Rao will also be producing the film under her own independent production house Cinema 73, which falls under the Aamir Khan Productions banner.

The casting of the film, which is yet to be finalised, will mainly include new comers.

Dhobi Ghaat is a low budget film with a story that hovers around present-day Mumbai.

NEW DELHI: Joymoti, an Assamese film by the late Jyotiprasad Agarwalla, was a film far ahead of its times when made in 1935 and was inspired by movements in Russia in the 1920s, noted filmmaker Altaf Mazid said here.

Addressing a press meet at the ongoing 10th OCFF about the restoration of the film undertaken by him at his own cost because of the way he was impressed with the film, Altaf said he had been inspired to make the film when he saw a documentary on the Agarwalla 25 years ago and his curiosity was aroused.

He stated looking at the film as not just an interest state artifact, but also a nationally significant piece of Indian culture. The film was based on Lakshminath Bezbaruah’s play on the 17th century story of Sati Joymati and starred Aideu Handique and Phani Sharma.

Interestingly after much search, only one reel of the film could be found in the garage in the house then occupied by Agarwalla’s house.

Since the rights of the film lay with the Assam Government, Altaf said he had proceeded on his own and managed to collect parts of the film from various sources and restored it. He hopes the state will produce a digital print from the restored version.

Joymoti was the first film in Assamese and was also the first talkie in the state when it was released by Chitralekha Movietone in 1935.

Altaf is a critic turned filmmaker who made his first film Jibon in the mid-nineties and screened it at the International Film Festival of India in Hyderabad. It won the Director’s prize at the Seventh Pyongyang Film Festival of Non-aligned and Developing countries. Lakhtokiat Golam (Closed Door and stuff inside the magazine syndrome) was able to attract wide critical appraisal and other films include Our Common future, The Joy of Giving, Las Vegasat, and Bhal Khabar. Noting he preferred to make films on the video format because they became more personal, he said his next one is on the River Pagladia in Assam which flows down from Bhutan.

Altaf said he found that the content and the format of Joymati were very different from conventional films. The restored film has already been screened in several festivals in India and overseas including the ‘bollywood and Beyond’ in Stuttgart in Germany and in Rome and Munich. He had spent Rs 300,000 from his personal savings for the restoration and had not received any help from the government so far.

At present he is in the process of sub-titling four other Assamese films of the early era, including some of the seventies.

NEW DELHI: The Osian’s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema has introduced a new section for short films called Short Cuts.

The section includes 43 short fiction films, short features and short movies from India, Pakistan, Germany, Egypt, Korea and other Asian and Arab countries.

With the introduction of this new section, many short fiction filmmakers are hopeful about the future of short films in India.

However,they are still concerned about their commercial viability and outlet as far as their reach to the masses is concerned.

“For a new filmmaker, directing a short film is a learning experience, a stepping stone to how making a full feature film would be”, said director of Pakistan‘s The Will Of Gurmukh Singh director Sharji Anwar Baloch.

This is for the first time that a private Indian film festival had given a platform to short filmmakers. Some of the filmmakers participating in the contest are still students at various film making schools like the Film and Television Institute of India and the Satyajit Ray FTII.

Commenting on the contribution of technology towards facilitating the making of short films, short filmmaker Vasanth Nath said, “Internet, because of its social networking features like video sharing and blogging, allows you to share the films with the small yet interested audience.”

Some of the short films that are to be screened at the ongoing festival include Karam Chawla‘s The Love Song of…, Atul Sabharwal‘s Midnight Lost and Found, Pierre Friquet‘s Snoozers,Spandan Banerjee‘s The Fiction and Gautam Baruah‘s Goodbye My Dear.

MUMBAI: In a move that enhances its slate of theatrical motion pictures, Showtime Networks in the US has entered into an exclusive seven-year film distribution arrangement with The Weinstein Company (TWC).

The joint announcement was made by Showtime Networks chairman and CEO Matthew C Blank and TWC co-chairmen Bob and Harvey Weinstein.

The new output deal is effective with TWCs 2009 release schedule and includes such films as Nine directed by Rob Marshall Chicago and featuring an all-star cast including Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren, and Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglorious Bastards.

Blank says, “This exclusive agreement with TWC will deliver our subscribers an enormous and diverse slate of films at a price to Showtime that is consistent with todays marketplace. Bobs and Harveys films are known for quality and promotability, making them a perfect fit with the acclaimed and award-winning original series that have generated strong momentum and subscriber growth for Showtime. We will continue to pursue such value-enhancing deals in the future.”

The agreement with TWC, combined with upcoming deals from other theatrical distributors and future product from CBS Films, will form a potent feature film portfolio alongside Showtime‘s original series and sports programming. These series include Dexter, Californication, The Tudors, Weeds

Additional titles included from TWC are Andrew Jareckis All Good Things starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst, a modern remake of Kurosawas legendary Seventh Samurai, the screen adaptation of author Paulo Coelho‘s best-selling novel The Alchemist, and Richard Shepard‘s Panic based on Jeff Abbotts best-selling book.

The output deal also includes releases from Dimension Films such as Youth In Revolt based on CD Paynes bestselling book and starring Michael Cera, 6 Billion Dollar Man, the remake of David Cronenbergs Scanners, re-starting the Scream franchise with Scream 4, and Piranha 3D.

MUMBAI: MGM Motion Picture Group has roped in Pam Silverstein as director of development.

Prior to this appointment, Silverstein was with Scholastic Media in New York where she was serving as an executive in the film and TV department. She was responsible for the company’s development and production initiatives.

In her new capacity, Silverstein, joining the studio’s film development and production team, will play a role in the development and production of the studio‘s theatrical slate.

She will also assist the team in identifying new material to be developed into feature films and will be based in Los Angeles.

“Pam has triple A taste and her experience in the book world, as well as film and television, makes her a very well rounded executive with a lot to draw from. She will be an integral part of the new MGM theatrical team and we all look forward to her insights and contributions,” said MGM Worldwide Motion Picture Group Chairman Mary Parent.

A graduate of University Of Western Ontario, Canada, Silverstein first joined Great North Artists Management in Toronto as an assistant in the talent department. Later she moved to London, where she landed at International Creative Management as an assistant.

NEW DELHI: Rajiv Virani‘s The Whisperers, which bagged two major awards at the 40th Worldfest Houston International Film Festival, was screened at the ongoing Osian‘s-Cinefan film festival.

The film stars Rahul Bose along with Manoj Bajpai and has been produced by Sam Gottlieb, Ashok Rao and Rosalind Robinson.

Apart from acting in the film, Bose has also written the screenplay of The Whisperers. Dhimant Vyas is the cinematographer of the film.

According to the director, The Whisperers is a dark psychological thriller where everything appears to be happening in the mind of one individual.