Category: Movies

MUMBAI: Tripura‘s first Bengali documentary film made on the life and ideals of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore titled 150 Raibik Path has got national recognition.

According to a release, the appreciation was conferred by a national committee headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh last week and the screening committee had recommended the film along with eight others for national broadcasting.

All the nine films and documentaries on Rabindranath Tagore, including 150 Raibik Path, produced by eminent journalist of Tripura, Sitangshu Ranjan Dewould be screened on the Doordashan national channel.
 

MUMBAI: Having already created a stir across the festival circuit, Danny Boyle‘s biopic 127 Hours is all set to release in India on 28 January.

The film, based on real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston‘s autobiography ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place‘, was co-written by Boyle and Simon Beaufoy and produced by Christian Colson, who had previously teamed up with Boyle and John Smithson for Slumdog Millionaire. 

The biopic, about a rock climber, has bagged three nominations at the forthcoming 68th Annual Golden Globes awards including Best Score for Indian music maestro AR Rahman, best actor (Drama) and best screenplay.

Said Fox Star Studios chief executive officer Vijay Singh, “We are delighted with the response and buzz that 127 Hours is garnering across the world. It is a very special film and the nominations are a testimony to its brilliance. We believe that the Indian audiences will appreciate this outstanding film, just like they did Slumdog Millionaire.”

The film stars James Franco as Ralston who got trapped by a boulder in Robbers Roost, Utah, for more than five days in 2003.
 

MUMBAI: The Chinese government‘s official film production company Lighthouse Productions has backed the country‘s first ever home-made Bollywood film Gold Struck.

The film, to be made with a budget of $10 million will be set in China and India, and is likely to have Bollywood actors including Shahid Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor, subject to their availability in 2011.

Gold Struck tells the story of two Indian and Chinese research students who meet in an American university and embark on an adventure that takes them back through time to Qin Dynasty China in 220 BC. The working languages for the film are Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and English. The film, replete with song and dance sequences, is likely to be directed by Hong Kong-based director Tony Cheung.

Lighthouse Productions CEO Cindy Shyu said, “Chinese audiences are interested in Indian films and dance, but have little opportunity to experience Indian cinema.” 

Shyu was in India recently to meet potential distributors. It is understood that Lighthouse has already initiated talks with Eros International in this matter.

This would be the first-ever film project backed by both Chinese and Indian investors, with Indian and Chinese characters and cultural content specifically tailored for Chinese audience.

The production is slated to begin in the second half of next year and the film is expected to be released in China, India and the United States.

MUMBAI: To commemorate her 25th death anniversary, the Smita Patil Foundation, an organisation instrumental in keeping the memories of Smita Patil alive, had organised a retrospect of her films in India in various metro cities where her films like Arth, Bhoomika, Manthan, Bhavani Bavai, Mirch Masala, Umbatta, Bazaar, Mandi, Akaler Sandhene, Abhinatree were to be screened.

Unfortunately, the festival has to be kept on hold till next year as most of the prints were not readily available and those available were not in shape to be screened. Some prints are not in proper state and need to be restored.

After a lot of thought, the Patils have decided to restore all the prints and hold the retrospective next year.

Comments Manya Patil Seth (Smita Patil‘s sister), “We were very keen on holding a retrospective for Smita this year, the way it was held in New York. However, due to the bad condition the prints were in, we were unable to go ahead with our plans. Now, we plan on holding the retrospective next year after we restore all the prints.”
 

MUMBAI: The forthcoming third edition of the Jaipur International Film Festival (JIFF), to be held between 27 to 30 January will focus on French cinema. In all, it will screen 141 films from across the globe.

More than 60 entries are from France and many French filmmakers are also expected to attend the film extravaganza, revealed JIFF founder director and organiser Hanu Roj.

The films to be screened at the festival have been chosen based on the topicality of the subject, its technique and filmmaking quality. 

Of the 140 selected entries, 71 are from the country, 58 are from foreign nations while 12 would be from Rajasthan.

Short fiction, animation and feature films, apart from documentaries will also be screened at the Pink city‘s selected cinema halls during the event.

The films will be shown under various categories like ‘World wood-International‘ for international competition, ‘Indian Panorama‘ for Indian filmmakers, ‘Coming Stars‘ for student filmmakers and ‘U-Turn Rajasthan‘ for the state film makers.

Among the Indian film celebrities who are expected to attend the festival are Sharmila Tagore, Jagmohan Mundhra, Madhur Bhandarkar and Kamal Kumar Barjatya among others.

MUMBAI: Following an assurance that the Union Government was prepared to consider its demands on the Copyright amendments, the film industry has postponed the proposed all-India two-day strike scheduled from 6 January.

The strike call was to protest against the proposed amendment to the Copyright Act that allows lyricists, music composers and writers to seek royalty for their services from film producers. 

Addressing a press meet here, filmmaker Mukesh Bhatt said, “Yesterday, we had a meeting with Ahmed Patel, secretary to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, and Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal. After the discussion we had with them, they issued a positive statement saying ‘the government is committed to principles and not personalities‘.”

“This changed our thought that the government was biased. For the first time in several years, we saw that the government was speaking positively. We are now hopeful that we would soon reach a consensus with lyricists, music composers and writers.”

Bhatt added that on 22 December, the South Film Industry met Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi at Chennai and apprised him of the serious situation the film industry was in. “It is possible that because of that meeting, the government‘s stance has turned positive. We will now sit down with the concerned people and work out things in such a way that we both co-exist and survive,” Bhatt averred.

Film Federation of India president TP Aggarwal added, “We were not asking for any subsidy nor were we asking for any other kind of favour. We were only seeking our legitimate right. The government has opened the door for negotiations. Seeing the positive note from the government‘s side, we have decided to postpone our bandh.”

“We are ready to share the royalties with the concerned parties but we can not make them our partners,” he said.

“Since last year, we had an inkling that the government would come out with a law that may rob us of our legitimate right. Finding no solution in the already tense atmosphere, we were, till yesterday, firm on going on strike, but yesterday’s meeting gave us a clear indication that the issue between the producers on he one hand and the lyricists, music composers and writers on the other would soon be resolved,” added The Film and Television Producers Guild president Ramesh Sippy.

Asked why the producers were not willing to give a little more to lyricists, music composers and writers from their profits, Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association member Ashok Pandit said, “They only talk about sharing the profits, why are they not talking on sharing our losses. Look, around 95 per cent of our films are flopping.”

The film industry is opposed to the proposed Copyright Amendment Bill 2010 that mandates producers to share 50 per cent music royalty with lyricists and composers, film industry. According to senior filmmaker L Suresh, the proposal would affect the selling of films to distributors and exhibitors.

A day-long strike along with a dharna in Delhi with no shows was proposed against what is termed as the `draconian` law which will affect the industry.

Repeated representations had been made to the government but with no avail, he said.

The producers said that the government was working at the ‘behest of some vested interests‘ in this matter.

A Parliamentary Standing committee in its recommendations on the bill, tabled in Parliament last month, has said that producers should give authors, lyricists and composers 50 per cent royalty for a film.