Category: Movies

MUMBAI: The Anil Ambani group has sewed a joint venture deal with the Bachchan family wherein the family will work together in movies, live shows, TV, internet and mobile entertainment for the group.

More than half a dozen movies with directors like R Balki, Sujoy Ghosh, Rohan Sippy and Chandraprakash Diwedi have been lined up under the JV.

Reliance Big Entertainment and A B Corp are equal partners in the film production process, both in terms of creative input and finance.

The deal comes about a month after the group announced its foray in Hollywood by inking deals with the likes of Jim Carrey, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Nicholas Cage.

MUMBAI: Seventymm, a movie DVD/VCD rental company, is planning to invest $15 million (around Rs 637 million) over the next five years as it targets a nationwide presence in the home video segment.

The company has so far raised approximately $10 million from venture capital firms which it will use in movie acquisitions and brand building.

“We have raised around $10 million through separate rounds of venture capital funding led by Matrix Partners India, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and ePlanet Ventures. We will be using this capital for movie acquisitions (a rental license arrangement for one, two or three years) and brand building. The fourth quarter of this year will see an investment of Rs 80-100 million in mass media campaigns, which include both online and offline marketing,” says Seventymm chief operating officer Subhanker Sarker.

Seventymm has roped in Rediffusion DYR Kolkata who will be help in building the brand. “We aim to acquire customers through various forms of advertising that include out-of-home, mobile, online and also cinema advertising,” Sarker adds.

The company at present has 18,000 titles across a range of genres covering English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujrati, Tamil, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Bhojpuri, Oriya, Punjabi and Rajasthani.

“We have tied up with Palador for all their film titles. Also, since 60 per cent of cinema content movement in India is Bollywood, our concentration will definitely be more on this genre,” says Sarker.

The company, which currently operates in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Chandigarh, aims to touch a 4 million subscriber base in five years.

“Currently we have built a subscriber base of 70,000 members and we aim to amplify this number to 4 million in the next 5 years. By the fourth quarter of this fiscal, we will be expanding to Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad. We aim to be in 40 cities by the end of 2009,” elaborates Sarker.

Unlike its competitors, the company does not have any plans of setting up offline stores and believes that its home delivery and online store model will “definitely” fetch more customers for itself.

“People use online stores because they know that they can get the movie they want delivered at their doorstep. So, anyways they will not visit the store if they can avail the ‘drop at door’ delivery model sitting at home,” Sarker says.

NEW DELHI: Filmmaker Yash Chopra has been named for the award of Officier de la Legion d’Honneur (Officer of the Legion of Honour) by the French Government.

The filmmaker, entrepreneur, producer, and director will be presented the honour during an official ceremony at the French Embassy in New Delhi, hosted by French ambassador Jérôme Bonnafont. The ceremony will be held on 5 July 2008.

“France has a tradition of supporting artists from all over the world. Bestowing the insignia of Officer of the Legion of Honour on Chopra is a recognition of his international ‘artistic‘ career, and his notable efforts in the promotion of cultural exchanges and Indian cinema in the world,” said Bonnafont.

With a career of 50 years with the film industry, Yash Chopra has been both directly and indirectly associated with approximately 40 films. His talent enabled him to build Yash Raj Film Studios, one of the biggest filmmaking banners in India.

Fascinated by French cinema, Chopra is well known and respected among the French cinema industry. Most of his films have been released in French cinema halls as well as in video format.

Younger brother of B R Chopra and father of Aditya Chopra, Yash Chopra has carved a niche for himself in the field of romantic films with successes like Veer-Zaara, Dil To Pagal Hai,
Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Kabhi Kabhi, Lamhe, Chandni, and Silsila.

The “Légion d‘Honneur” (Legion of Honour) is the highest distinction that can be conferred by the French Republic on a French citizen as well as on a foreigner. The Order of the Legion of Honour was instituted in 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte.

Some famous personalities who have been awarded this honorary title include Steven Spielberg and Gérard Depardieu. In India, the recipients of this honour include late Satyajit Ray, Lata Mangeshkar and Amitabh Bachchan.

MUMBAI: Eros International has posted a gross profit of $63 million for the year ended 31 March 2008, up 57 per cent from $39.9 million in the year ago period.

During the period, the company‘s turnover surged 70.2 per cent to stand at $113 million, up from $66.4 million.

Worldwide theatrical revenues grew by 146.9 per cent to $52.1 million from $21.1 million. From US operations, the company generated $79.8 million in the 12-month period.

Says Eros chairman and CEO Kishore Lulla, “The performance in the past financial year reflects the competitive advantage enjoyed by Eros, based on unrivalled content ownership and global distribution.”

Eighteen films were theatrically released in 2008, out of which 16 were released globally. “In 2007, five out of the top 10 box office successes were Eros releases with Om Shanti Om going on to become the highest all time grosser at the time of the release,” the company said in a statement.

Revenues from TV syndication were up 56.3 per cent to touch $33 million, from $21.1 million in FY‘07.

The company says that it has struck television syndication deals for new and catalogue films with Sony Entertainment Television, Inx Network, Viacom Network and Sahara Television and several other international networks.

The company has seen a growth of 16.9 per cent in revenues from new media to stand at $27.7 million ($23.7 million in FY‘07).

Subscription Video-On-Demand platform continued to grow not only on Comcast and Rogers but with new deals such as Cablevision, Valuable Technology, Mauritius Telecom, SingNet, RTM Malaysia and Aksh Optifibre. Digital distribution deals were concluded with Amazon and Walmart.

The company says that the Eros partner channel on Google‘s YouTube continued to gain eyeballs with 42 million hits to date – monetised through ad supported model.

Content library and distribution generated revenues of over $23 million.

The company says during the year, it has augmented its library by 1900 films with fresh acquisitions. It has invested $200 million across 60 projects, giving full visibility of release schedule to 2010. It has expanded its global distribution network nationally within India and in emerging markets such as Germany, Poland, Belgium and South East Asia.

Following the announcing of the co-production joint venture with Sony Pictures earlier in the year, the Company announced a distribution joint venture for South Asia with Lionsgate where the entire Lionsgate library and format rights of over 13000 titles and their forthcoming films will be exclusively exploited across all formats including dubbing subtitling and remaking the content.

MUMBAI: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Pictures has acquired comedy spec script Le Car from Wayne McClammy and Will Burke with McClammy attached to direct.

The announcement was made by MGM chairman, Worldwide Motion Picture Group Mary Parent.

MGM says that McClammy’s star is rising fast in the world of comedy. He gained popularity after directing and writing two video parodies, fueling the faux feud between actor/writer Matt Damon and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. The two videos, which have recorded over 20 million hits on YouTube, have spawned a tremendous following and feature a who‘s who list of top actors and celebrities in Hollywood.

A “found film” – apparently made in 1980 – Le Car” tells the story of an unconventional group of CIA agents and their attempt to stop a diabolical automobile Le Car from detonating a hydrogen bomb at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics.

MUMBAI: Koffee Break Pictures, the producers of animation film My Friend Ganesha, has set up an animation studio in Mumbai. Equipped with both hardware and software technology, the studio has a strength of around 70 artists.

Koffee Break Pictures has set up the studio to undertake the pre-production, production and post production work of full length animated feature films, both 2D and 3D, says an official release.

The company further claims that the studio is also equipped to take up work for outside agencies like publicity design material and ad campaigns.

Currently, the production house has commenced its first classical 2D home production, a 90-minute animated feature film titled The Green Chic – Finding Dad, targeting the kids’ genre. The film will be completed by December 2008.

MUMBAI: The 10th Osian‘s-Cinefan Film Festival has announced the members of the six juries who will judge the competitive sections this year. The festival, which commences from 10 July and runs till 20 July, will be held in New Delhi.

These six juries comprise 22 individuals that include directors, screenwriters, actors and cinematographers from the international film community.

The members will preside over the awards selection for the films in competition and decide the winners in four categories namely Asian & Arab, Indian, First Features and In-Tolerance. The juries of NETPAC and FIPRESCI will announce the lifetime achievement awards.

The six juries for the 10th Osian‘s-Cinefan Festival are:

Asian Arab – President of the Jury – Christine Hakim (Indonesia), Chantal Akerman (Belgium), Wu Nien-jen (Taiwan), Kais al Zibaidi (Palestine) and Ketan Mehta (India).

Indian Competition – Rada Sesic (Netherlands), Jeffrey Jeturian (Philippines), Sai Paranjpye (India), Abolfazal Jalili (Iran) and Mohammad Bakri (Israel).

First Features – Tony Rayns (UK), Nagesh Kukunoor (India) and Vimukthi Jayasundara (Sri Lanka).

In-Tolerance – Saed Ebrahimifar (Iran), Bappaditya Bandopadhyay (India) and Gonul Donmez-Colin (Turkey)

Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) – Martine Therouanne (France), Ed Lejano (Philippines) and Arun Khopkar (India)

Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique (FIPRESCI) – Adrienne Mc Kibbins (Australia), Mohammad Gallaoui (Morocco) and Meena Karnik (India)

“This year, as in the previous years, we have a very fine line-up for juries,” says Osian‘s-Cinefan joint festival director Latika Padgaonkar.

Osian‘s-Cinefan, organised by Osian‘s Connoisseurs of Art in association with the Government of the NCT of Delhi, will give away approximately $250, 000 in prize money for its competition Sections and lifetime achievement awards.

Of the four competitive sections, the In-Tolerance section has been added this year and will include films that “grapple with themes and stories centering on the intolerance of our times and on efforts made to combat or overcome it.”

“We have a great collection of films – the best of the most recent from Asia and the Arab world and a few classics which have never been seen in India before,” states Osian‘s-Cinefan joint festival director Indu Shrikent.

The awards will be announced on the evening of 19 July at the closing ceremony of the festival.

MUMBAI: Shemaroo entertainment, along with the local distributor and SIFAM (Stitching Indian Films & Music), has seized 50,000 DVDs at Brussels Airport.

Of these 50,000 DVDs, approximately 25,000 DVDs are of the week-old film Mere Baap Pehle Aap, produced by Shemaroo and still running in cinemas worldwide.

The other DVDs, which were seized at the spot, include song compilations and various other movies.

The information about the DVDs at the Brussels Airport was obtained with the help of Indian Film Exporters Association and Shemaroo’s sources.

As per Brussels airport customs, every month a consignment of 20,000 – 30,000 DVDs land. Since there are no claimants or complaints, the authorities in spite of having the knowledge of these DVDs being pirated, do not act upon.

A company based out of Hong Kong apparently manufactures these pirated DVDs, which are later exported worldwide.

As per industry experts, for every new film, in the first week itself around 35,000 to 40,000 pirated DVDs are distributed in Europe, where the entry points are Frankfurt and Brussels primarily.

As Europe in size is a very big market for Bollywood titles, pirates first attack this market rather than USA and UK among others.

MUMBAI: Independent film company Lionsgate continues to expand and diversify its musical repertoire, adding Grammy winner Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry to its roster in a distribution deal with independent record label Narnack Records. The announcement was made by Lionsgate Music president Jay Faires.

The deal launches with Perry‘s upcoming album Repentance, which is co-produced by Andrew W.K. and features such guest artists as Moby, Don Fleming, Chris Stein of Blondie and Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt.

Faires says, “Signing a deal with Narnack is another strong step for the music team as we replicate Lionsgate‘s core mission to fill underserved niches. We‘re excited to be launching this deal with the upcoming record by Lee ‘Scratch‘ Perry, who exemplifies the quality and genre-bending skills of our growing roster of musical talent.”

A&R VP Russell Ziecker says, “Our deal with Narnack will expand our publishing outreach while providing us with more firsthand resources for our film and television slots, utilizing Narnack‘s diverse, multi-genre, and independent-spirited label roster.”

Lionsgate adds that Perry was highly influential in the development and acceptance of reggae and dub music. In his studio, The Black Ark, Perry produced artists including Bob Marley & the Wailers.

MUMBAI: Star TV and engineering and construction major Era Group are reportedly in talks to enter into the multiplex management business.

Era will see the construction and management of multiplex properties while Star will lend its name, says a PTI report.

Era Group reportedly has major plans of installing 120 screens by next three years. So far, it is running a few screens in Meerut and Agra in Uttar Pradesh.

“We are talking to media group for the business. While the cinemas will be branded as Star, we will invest and run them,” said Era Group chairman H S Bharana to PTI. “About half of the properties will be constructed and owned by us while the rest would belong to other real estate companies.”

Era is also planning to strike long-term deals with major real estate players which are developing malls and multiplexes to run all the screens coming up in their projects.