Category: Movies

Producer: Anjum Rizvi Director: Hemant Madhukar Music: Bappa Lahiri Cast: Jimmy Shergill, Sanjay Suri, Hazel, Kaveri Jha, Sachin Khedekar

MUMBAI: A Flat, coming from the producer of A Wednesday, created some expectations in the film trade if not yet with the moviegoers. However, the film falls in a totally different genre; it is of supernatural kind, a ghost story.

A Flat works on a script of convenience. Jimmy Shergill starts earning and decides to buy a flat. This while seeking opportunities to move abroad to USA for better prospects! When he does leave for the US, the flat is rented out to his friend, Sanjay Suri.

Jimmy has dumped his girlfriend, Kaveri Jha, for a brighter future in the US. However, Jha is pregnant with his child. Filled with guilt and remorse, Jimmy decides to return and make up with her. His father, Sachin Khedekar, who visits Jimmy’s flat to spruce it for his arrival, is found brutally murdered in his flat and for Jimmy the nightmares turn into real life horror. He gets locked in his own flat and experiences ghost sightings and undergoes all sorts of torment. That is when he comes across a Himachali girl, Hazel’s, diary. Upon reading, he finds that she too has been betrayed and killed in the same place.

The second half is devoted to creating her story as well as creating a villain of the story; sadly this part is weak and fails to justify all that the hero, Shergill, goes through.

Jimmy Shergill does a convincing job throughout. Sanjay Suri is fair. Hazel is too raw for the role. Direction is limited by weak script. Musical score needed at least one haunting number to set the tone of the theme. The background score is effective.

A Flat does not thrill and falls flat on entertainment quotient.
 

MUMBAI: Balaji Motion Pictures and Alt Entertainment‘s Shorr had its US premiere on the opening night of the Tenth Annual Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) Film Festival in New York on 10 November.

A special festival cut of Shorr was shown at MIAAC, as the final theatrical cut will be ready before its anticipated release in March-April next year. 

Inspired from various daily newspaper stories, the film revolves around three interconnected stories set during the popular and chaotic Ganpati festival in Mumbai.

Shorr is a production of Alt Entertainment, a sister concern of Balaji Motion Pictures that released Love, Sex aur Dhokha earlier this year.

The festival concludes on 14 November.
 

MUMBAI: The Directorate of Film Festival, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and the Government of Goa have decided to honour Manoj Bajpayee for his contribution to new emerging cinema on 22 November, the day the International Film Festival of India kicks off in Goa.

Bajpai has played memorable roles in films like Bandit Queen, Satya, Shool, Aks, Pinjar and Raajneeti to name a few.

Comments Bajpai, “I am very happy and humbled by this decision. They selected me for my work that is yet more rewarding. To be honored and facilitated in the presence of international film fraternity is definitely great. For me, as an actor, film making a constant changing process. Indian cinema has come a long way and my contribution to it has brought me pleasure. As an artiste, I too, I have evolved along with it.”

The ten-day festival that will conclude on 2 December will see a strong presence of Bollywood in terms of tributes and films, including celebrating the birth centenary year of yesteryear actors Ashok Kumar, Motilal and Nadia.

This year, the IFFI has a record number of 450 film entries from 55 countries.
 

MUMBAI: For the first time in the annals of Indian film history, director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has decided to break away from the concept of an interval, “the artificial divide”, as he calls it, in his forthcoming film Run Milkha Run and also all his future films.

” There needs to be a shift in the manner in which we format our films. Films in the West don‘t have intervals forced on them. Why should we not ape them in this respect when we ape them in everything else? It‘s high time we do away with the pre interval and the post interval halves,” Mehra quips.

It may noted that some of the Bollywood films like Raj Kapoor’s Sangam and Mera Naam Joker had as many as two intervals.

Run Milkha Run is largely patterned along the life and times of India‘s ace sprinter Milkha Singh. The film would have either Akshay Kumar or Abhishek Bachchan as the probable leads.

MUMBAI: Mumbai 48 Hour Film Project (48HFP), an international filmmaking competition, is starting its Mumbai leg today. The competition will see filmmakers make a film in 48 hours. The competition will see teams getting the genres on Friday and would have to return on Sunday with their fully finished film scripted, shot, edited and scored over the weekend.

The genres that will be allotted include comedy, drama, fantasy, film de femme, film noir, horror, mockumentary, musical or western, road movie, romance, sci fi, silent film and thriller/suspense. 

Over 800 filmmakers have signed up from across the country – Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune among others.

Avers jury member Nagesh Kukunoor, “The 48-hour format is a great sign to the world of filmmaking that is burdened with ridiculous deadlines. I‘m looking forward to some crazy creativity in the competition.”

The team that wins the Best Film-Mumbai accolade will become a contender for the Best International Film competition. Mumbai‘s Best Film will also be screened at the Miami International Film Festival 2011. The 41st International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa, will also screen the top films from the competition in Mumbai.

Ten best films from the world over will then be screened at the Cannes 2011 Film Festival‘s Short Film Corner.

Among the film personalities supporting the event as jury members besides Kukunoor are Amol Palekar, Dolly Thakore, R. Balakrishnan, Paromita Vohra, Shimit Amin, Manish Jha and Niranjan Iyengar.

MUMBAI: Eros International Media, the recently listed pure play movie production company, has posted a consolidated second-quarter net profit (after minority interest) of Rs 453.3 million, up 12.9 per cent over the year-ago period.

The company‘s total income, however, fell 30.87 per cent to Rs 1.88 billion for the three-month period ended September. Expenses also dropped to Rs 1.32 billion, from Rs 2.13 billion in the year-ago period.

Profit from operations before other income, interest & exceptional items was at Rs 562.7 million, from Rs. 583.1 million in the earlier year.

On a standalone basis, Eros‘ net profit fell to Rs 175.9 million, from Rs 292.7 million a year ago. Total income was Rs 934.5 million (from Rs 2.46 billion), while expenses were down at Rs 657.4 million (Rs 2.01 billion).

During the first half of the current fiscal, consolidated net profit rose 29.5 per cent to Rs 608.4 million, as against Rs 470 million in the second quarter of FY‘10. Total income was at Rs 3.15 billion compared to Rs 3.37 billion in the earlier year.

The profit from operations before other income, interest & exceptional items increased 20.4 per cent to Rs 809.2 million.

Eros was listed on Indian bourses on 6 October after completing its Rs 3.5 billion IPO. The company raised funds primarily for acquiring and co-producing Indian films including Hindi as well as certain Tamil and other regional language films.

In the first half, Eros has released 39 films – the highest by any player in the sector. The list includes Housefull, Anjaana Anjaani, Paathshaala and overseas release of Dabangg and Endhiran (Tamil & Telugu), Ravanan, Singham, Sura (in Tamil) and Haapus in Marathi.

Eros also signed a multi-film content licensing deal worth Rs 640 million for broadcast on Zee Entertainment. This deal involves exclusive broadcasting of a select number of Eros International’s films across Zee Entertainment’s television network.

Eros said it has signed, to date, Rs 2.4 billion worth television and music syndication deals that will start augmenting revenues and deliver earnings that have attractive margins in FY’11 and FY’12.

Commenting on the results Eros International Media MD Sunil Lulla said, “At the heart of our business strategy is our catalogue, our strong movie pipeline mainly tied up through our co-productions and our strong distribution network in India and international market leadership through our parent Eros International plc. With over a 30-year successful track record backed by a unique de-risked business model underpinned by our portfolio pre-sales approach, we are proud to have achieved a scale second to none by staying focused and building on our core competency of content and distribution. Our strong margins bring out how we successfully leverage our scale and our co-production relationships to keep down costs and bring revenue predictability, reflecting robust business fundamentals.”