Category: Movies

MUMBAI: Cinemax India has launched a three screen multiplex in Nagpur.The property, which is open to public from today, opens with the screening of Ram Gopal Verma’s Sarkar Raj and Priyadarshan’s Mere Baap Pehle Aap.

As per an announcement issued by the company to the BSE, the multiplex is entitled to entertainment tax exemption subject to necessary approvals.

Earlier, Cinemax had launched a four-screen multiplex at Ahmedabad.

With this addition, the company will have a total of 20 theatre properties, 59 screens and 16,048 seats.

MUMBAI: Balaji Motion Pictures, a wholly owned subsidiary of Balaji Telefilms, is set to release C Kkompany on 1 August this year.

Produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor, Balaji Motion Pictures will also be distributing the film pan India.

C Kkompany, starring Tusshar Kapoor, Anupam Kher and Rajpal Yadav, is a comedy flick directed by Sachin Yardi.

Yardi, who debuts as a director with this venture, has earlier written scripts for films like Kya Kool Hain Hum and Traffic Signal.

“I wrote my two films and enjoyed the two different genres of cinema, comedy and issue based. But soon I realised that comedy is my forte. C Kkompany is a light comedy and feel-good film. You can say it’s a mix of Hera Pheri and Munna Bhai,” stated Yardi.

The music of the film has been scored by Anand Raj Anand and Bappa Lahri.

The film is based in Mumbai and revolves around three best friends from a middle class background, “who strive to achieve their respective dreams.”

MUMBAI: Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation have obtained the motion picture rights to the Smurfs from Lafig Belgium via producer Jordan Kerner.

The parties will develop a live action/animated major motion picture based on the iconic and lovable sky blue colored classic characters.

David Stem and David Weiss are in negotiations to be brought on board to write the screenplay. Stem and Weiss are the screenwriters behind Shrek 2 and Shrek 3.

Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad said, “The Smurfs are one of the best-known franchises and among the most beloved collection of characters in the world. These classic characters have entertained millions of people and several generations all over the world for more than half a century. We‘re very excited to introduce a new generation to Papa Smurf, Smurfette and the other Smurfs in all of their ‘three apple tall‘ glory.”

Sony Pictures Entertainment president of digital production Bob Osher says, “Through Animation and Imageworks, our visual effects and character animation studio, we have an extraordinary capability to mix animation and live action having created a number of fully-realized CG characters in live action films from Stuart Little to Spider-Man 3. We couldn‘t be more delighted or excited about working together on The Smurfs motion picture.”

Sony Pictures Animation president of production Hannah Minghella says, “The entire team at Sony Pictures Animation is tremendously excited to team with our colleagues at Columbia Pictures and Kerner Entertainment in bringing the Smurfs to the big screen. This is our first hybrid film and we‘re excited to expand our creative initiatives in this direction”.

Best known in the US for the long-running Hanna-Barbera cartoon, the Smurfs were created in 1958 by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, known throughout the world as Peyo. The Smurfs — originally called Les Schtroumpfs in French — were created for a Belgian series of comic books, first as minor characters, but soon taking on a life of their own.

The peaceful little characters were featured in a line of statuettes selling over 300 million worldwide, models, games, toys, theme parks, and the television series.

Sony will begin a licensing effort around the Classic Smurfs characters at this year‘s Licensing Show in New York.

MUMBAI: Steven Spielberg aims to raise over $1billion in third-party financing to recreate DreamWorks as a separate company that reacquires ownership of films.

Spielberg wants to reestablish DreamWorks as a studio that owns the movies it makes. Currently, DreamWorks is a unit of Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of media conglomerate Viacom. DreamWorks was acquired by Paramount in 2005.

Earlier, Spielberg was supposed to grant the distribution rights to Universal who lost the acquisition in 2005. But on the recommendation of his advisers, Spielberg will allow a bidding effort among studios for the acquisition of distribution rights of future DreamWorks movies.

From 1 May Spielberg‘s personal contract with Paramount allowed him to discuss potential offers for his services from rival studios. And since then Spielberg and DreamWorks chairman David Geffen and attorney Skip Brittenham have held several meetings with studio suitors and financiers.

Major studios include Universal, Disney and Fox. Spielberg‘s contract is valid until 2010 but he can terminate it early at year‘s end. Snider and Geffen have similar clauses in their deals with Paramount. However, Paramount owns “Transformers” and other films produced by DreamWorks while it was housed at the studio which could lead to conflicts regarding rights between Spielberg and Paramount.

DreamWorks-produced movies have helped fill distribution pipelines at Paramount. The loss of such content would put severe demands on remaining production executives.

But this summer, Paramount has been a distributor in high-profile releases, such as the Lucasfilm-produced Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the Marvel-produced Iron Man and the DreamWorks Animation-produced Kung Fu Panda.

MUMBAI: Yash Raj Films (YRF) has stitched a joint venture deal with Dubai Infinity Holdings (DIH), an investment enterprise to erect a “large scale” YRF Entertainment District in Dubai.

The district will comprise theme park attractions, a movie palace, unique hotel concepts and many other unique Indian genre entertainment concepts, themed around the Yashraj banner, stated an official press release.

“DIH is a dynamic investment company and what really counts is that we share a similar vision. Dubai has a booming tourism industry and aims to be the most visited destination in the world by 2015. We are happy to be partnering up with DIH in making our foothold stronger in the region,” said Yash Chopra.

The first phase of the YRF Entertainment District is scheduled to be completed by 2012.

“The UAE and India have always had a strong relationship in various business sectors and now this joint venture is a further step towards cementing business opportunities for both countries by bringing India‘s most prestigious entertainment brand here,” added DIH CEO Samira Abdulrazzak.

The joint venture aims to bring innovation and diversity to the UAE, complying with Dubai‘s 2015 strategic plan to boost the countries economy through key growth sectors.

Last year, YRF had tied up with US-based Walt Disney Studios for a series of computer-animated feature films for Indian audiences. The first animation under this alliance Roadside Romeo will be releasing this October.

NEW DELHI: The Films Division is set to celebrate its Diamond Jubilee with festivals of its films in different parts of the country. The celebration will start in the national capital Delhi and conclude in Mumbai.

Around 60 short films will be screened during the four-day festival from 12 June at the Films Division Auditorium in Delhi, to be inaugurated by Information and Broadcasting minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi. The duration of the films ranges from four minutes to just over one hour.

The films will be based on the freedom movement including the ‘Great Salt March’, unexplored tourist spots in India, social issues and the environment. This also includes a film on India’s quest in the Antartica.

Films based on biographicals and historical studies include those on renowned personalities like Mirza Ghalib, Mohammed Iqbal, Mahakavi Bharti, Indira Gandhi, Gautam Buddha, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Sohrab Modi, Raj Kapoor, Nargis, Rabindranath Tagore, Amrita Shergil, Tenzing, Bhimsen Joshi, sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, Homi Bhabha, Pandit Ramnarayan and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan.

Films Division Chief Producer Kuldeep Sinha told a news conference here that the Division had digitised all its films and was now “working to create an international digital archive.”

Faced with the cinema houses still refusing to show its films despite a Supreme Court directive with only Doordarshan showing some of them, he said that the Division had also applied to the ministry for launching its own documentary television channel.

He stated that the Division was working towards popularising its films at three levels: the state level, the ten cities where it has branch offices, and in schools through festivals.

He also claimed that the Division was now working towards an aggressive marketing policy.

Though the British government had its own unit for documentary films, it was shut down in 1946. The Division was initiated by Jawaharlal Nehru in April 1948. Sinha regretted that because of this, there was no documentary record of the celebrations following the declaration of independence in August 1947.

NEW DELHI: A 20-member women-farmers‘ collective from Andhra Pradesh‘s Community Media Trust has stunned the Delhi filmmakers with 12 video films tracing the experience of women in regaining autonomy over food production, seeds, natural resources and markets.

The women, most of them illiterate, shot the films as part of a multi-media publication, Affirming Life and Diversity: Rural Images and Voices on Food Sovereignity. The multi-media publication comprises films that emerged from an action research project on sustaining local food systems, agricultural biodiversity and livelihoods supported by the International Institute for Environment and Development of the UK.

The Community Media Trust, affiliated with Deccan Development Society (DDS is a development organization of Andhra Pradesh) was created to document images and voices of rural women. It aims to create an alternative media that can be accessed and controlled by local communities, especially those who have suffered exclusion. The collective comprises 17 who work in the digital video format while the rest work in radio.

The films were shown at an event jointly hosted by the International Association for Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT), Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR), and Network for Women in Media.

DDS director P V Satheesh said that the films also showed “their command on autonomous media.”

“It was decided to adopt a medium of documentation that could be understood by non-literate partners and be acceptable to other audiences including researchers and scientists. As a result of this conscious approach and given our commitment to work towards the autonomy of local communities, Community Media Trust was set up,” he said.

Masanagiri Narasamma, 35-year old member of the collective, associated with the making of the film entitled Onward to Food Sovereignty: The Alternative Public Distribution System of DDS, stated that their experience of running a community-led public distribution system taught them how to revive locally grown crops such as sorghum and millets.

It also helped them learn the process of creating local systems of storage and reach out to the most vulnerable and needy in the community. “It has been done to show the outside world our traditional agriculture knowledge, and preserve it,” she emphasized.

Endorsing this in her own way, Sooramma, who is in her late forties, stated, “I am a seed-keeper. I store a variety of valuable seeds in the baskets in my house and with them my own knowledge of farming, environment and life. Since I learnt to use the camera, I am doing the same. I am storing knowledge of my communities with my camera and interpreting them for the outside world which does not know about this.”

Also, Jai Chandiram, a well know broadcaster and an ardent advocate of gender sensitive media, stated that the women have “demonstrated the best of indigenous knowledge and through their experience have shown their ability to survive as small farmers and preserve sustainable technologies.”

MUMBAI: Bollywood dominated the 54th National Film Awards with as many as 13 awards.

Rajkumar Hirani‘s Lage Raho Munnabhai swept the National Film Awards for 2006, bagging four prizes. The Sanjay Dutt starrer which brought to fore ‘Gandhigiri‘ by invoking the values of Mahatma Gandhi, won the best popular film “for providing wholesome entertainment”, best screenplay, best lyrics.

Lage Raho also brought the best supporting actor award to Dilip Prabhavalkar. Konkona Sen Sharma was declared the best supporting actress for Omkara.

The best feature film award, however, went to Malayalam film Pulijanmam. Malayalam and Bengali feature films, in fact, got five awards each. Three awards each went to films in Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil.

While the best feature film award in Hindi was given away by Khosla Ka Ghosla, the best feature film award in English went to Quest.

While Bengali film Podokkhep brought veteran actor Soumitra Chatterjee award for the best actor, Tamil cinema‘s Priyamani was honoured with the best actress title for Paruthi Veeran.

The award for the best animation feature film, introduced this year, went to the Telugu film Kittu, directed by B Satya and animated by Kodavanti Bharaj. Another award introduced this year, best make-up artist, went to Anil Motiram Palande for Traffic Signal.

Additionally, Madhur Bhandarkar was named the best director for Traffic Signal. Anthony Joseph and Aditya Chopra received the best producer award for Eakantham and Kabul Express respectively.

Divya Chahadkar was given the best child artist award for Antarnad, a Konkani film. Also, the best children‘s film went to Kannada film Care of Footpath, made by nine-year old Kishan S and produced by his mother Shylaja Shrikanth.

All the four awards for Punjabi films went to the same film Waris Shah – Ishq da Waaris, directed by the late Manoj Punj and starring pop star Gurdas Mann.

The best male playback singer was Gurdas Mann for the same. The best female playback singer was Aarti Anklekar Tikekar for Antarnad, which bagged all the four prizes for Konkani.

The best non-feature award went to Bishar Blues by Amitabh Chakraborty. The film also received the audiograohy (Partha Barman) and editing (Amitabh Chakraborty and Amit Debnath) awards.

The first non-feature film of a director went to Andhiyum by Jacob Varghese. The renowned Aribam Syam Sarma, who has won numerous awards, shared the best biographical film award for Guru Laimayum Thambalnagoubi Devi with Minukku by M R Rajan.

The children‘s film Nokpokliba, directed and animated by Meren Imchen, won the best animation award for non-feature film while the best short fiction film award went to Ek Aadesh – Command for Choti by Ramesh Asher who also won the best director award.

Also, the Indira Gandhi award for best first film was taken home by Malayalam film Eakantham and Hindi film Kabul Express.

The best book on cinema award was given to Helen: the life and times of an H-Bomb by Jerry Pinto, published by Penguin Books.

Assamese, Marathi, Oriya, English and Tulu films won one award each.

The feature film jury was chaired by renowned filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta with 13 other members, while the non-feature jury was headed by K Bikram Singh with five other members. The book jury, with three members, was headed by Madhu Jain.

The decision of the awards had been delayed because of a court case by a member of the jury of the 53rd National Film Awards for 2005, but the High Court had vacated the stay last year. Directorate of Film Festival sources told indiantelevision.com that the selection of awards for 2007 were expected to be set in motion within the next few days, and the award-ceremony would be fixed depending upon the convenience of the President.

MUMBAI: NDTV Lumi?re is set to showcase five “select” films to the Indian audiences that did well at the recently concluded Cannes Film Festival 2008.

NDTV Lumi?re, the initiative of NDTV Imagine to bring world cinema to Indian audiences, will present these films in the coming months across multiple platforms ranging from theatrical releases to home video and television.

The films include The Class, Three Monkeys, Delta, and A Christmas Tale.

While Laurent Cantent‘s The Class won the Palme d’Or (Best Film) award at Cannes this year, Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the best director award for Three Monkeys.

Delta won the International Federation of Film Critics award. This award is given by independent entities to movies “that are beyond excellence.”

The critic’s award, which is given away to the best film in the International Critics Week Competition (a sidebar competition at Cannes), was bagged by Bosnian director Aida Begic’s Snow.

Catherine Deneuve, who stars in A Christmas Tale, won the special prize at festival.

MUMBAI: The high-voltage Idea IIFA 2008 concluded in Bangkok with Chak De India notching awards for best film (Yashraj Films), best actor (Shah Rukh Khan) and best director (Shimit Amin).

The film also bagged the award for best story (Jaideep Sahini). Kareena Kapoor got the best actress award for Jab We Met.

Amitabh Bachchan -IIFA brand ambassador

Konkana Sen Sharma and Irrfan Khan won the best actor in supporting role female and male respectively, for Life in a Metro.

Best actor in a negative role went to Vivek Oberoi for Shootout at Lokhandwala while Govinda got the IIFA trophy for best actor in a comic role for Partner.

AR Rahman got three awards which includes best music director (Guru), best background score and outstanding contribution to international cinema.

Akshay Kumar performing at IIFA 2008

The grand finale of Idea IIFA awards 2008 witnessed performances from Govinda, Katrina Kaif, Kareena Kapoor and Akshay Kumar.

The night also saw acts from the team of upcoming film Mission Istaanbul and Love Story 2050.

The finale was hosted by Boman Irani and Ritesh Deshmukh with Urmilla Matondkar.

Star Plus will air the awards presentation ceremony on 29 June at 8 pm.

Sr No.	Category	Winner
1	Best Female Playback Singer	Shreya Ghosal for Barson Re, Guru
2	Best Male Playback Singer	Shaan for Jabse Tere Naina, Saawariya
3	Best Lyrics	Javed Akhtar for Agar Main Kahoon, Om Shanti Om
4	Best Music Director	A R Rahman for Guru
5	Star TV debut female	Deepika Padukone
6	Star TV debut Male	Ranbir Kapoor
7	Idea Style Icon of the Year	Abhishek Bachchan
8	Idea Glamour Diva of the Year	Katrina Kaif
9	Idea Fresh Face of the Year	Neil Nitin Mukesh
10	Best Dialogue	Imtiaz Ali for Jab We Met
11	Best Screenplay	Anurag Basu for Life in a Metro
12	Best Performance in Comic Role	Govinda for Partner
13	Best Performance in Negative Role	Vivek Oberoi for Shootout at Lokhandwala
14	Idea IIFA Award for Outstanding contribution to Indian Cinema	Shyam Benegal and Mumtaz
15	Idea IIFA Award for outstanding achievement by an Indian in International Cinema	A R Rahman
16	Best Actress in a Supporting Role	Konkana Sen Sharma for Life in a Metro
17	Best Actor in a supporting Role	Irrfan Khan for Life in a Metro
18	Best Director	Shimit Amin for Chak de India
19	Best Actress	Kareena Kapoor for Jab We Met
20	Best Actor	Shahrukh Khan for Chak De India
21	Best Movie	Chak De India