ITV

Category: Movies

  • Eros to release Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Game

    MUMBAI: Eros International Media Ltd (Eros International) has acquired the worldwide distribution rights of Excel Entertainment‘s forthcoming releases, Zoya Akhtar‘s Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and Abhinay Deo‘s Game.


    Both the films will release next year .


    A fun film shot largely across Spain, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara stars Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif and Kalki Koechlin.


    Game, on the other hand, is a whodunit and a slick edge-of-the-seat thriller. It stars Abhishek Bachchan, Kangana Ranaut, Sarah Jane Dias and Jimmy Shergill.


    Says Eros International Media managing director Sunil Lulla, “Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar are great producers and have carved a niche for themselves for producing some edgy cinema.”


    Producer Ritesh Sidhwani of Excel Entertainment adds, “Eros has had fabulous track record of global distribution for over 33 years and we are looking forward to our two very important films Game and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara reaching out to maximum audiences worldwide through their unparalleled distribution network.”
     

  • Bipasha Basu signs first Hollywood film

    MUMBAI: Bipasha Basu has signed her first International project, Singularity, with English-French director Roland Joffe.


    The $33 million film is a tale of an impossible love story across two time periods and continents.
     
    The story that revolves around the story depicted during the first anglo-maratha war of the 18th century has four central haracters, an American marine biologist and his researcher lover, a British officer in colonial India and the Indian woman he falls in love with.


    Basu will be flying to Brisbane in the first week of November where the film will start rolling.
     

  • P L Deshpande award for Madhur Bhandarkar

    MUMBAI: Having won the National Award on more than one occasion, Madhur Bhandarkar will now be honoured with yet another award the Vishesh Sanman/ te Zenith Asia Award, also known as the PL Deshpande Award, organised by Aashay Sanskrutik and Paranjpe Schemes.


    Deshpande was a renowned writer, stage and film actor and his literary works are still revered in Maharashtra and others parts of the world.


    Bhandarkar‘s Chandni Bar will also be shown on this occasion. 


    Other awards, that would also be presented include the Krutagyata Sanman that will go to Sindhutai Sapkal to honour her exemplary social work and Tarunai Sanman that will be given to the musical duo Ajay-Atul.


    The festival promises to be a bouquet of films, theatre, music, literature and arts. There will be a book fair, Sahitya Sammelan, audio-visual programmes, cultural programmes and many such events.


    The award will be presented to Bhandarkar at a function in Pune on 16 November.
     

  • Summit bags distribution rights of Adaline

    MUMBAI: Entertainment has bagged the domestic distribution rights of Adaline, a romantic drama.


    Starring Katherine Heigl and directed by Andy Tennant, Adaline is a turn-of-the-20th-century tale of a strangely ageless young woman who falls in love after years of isolation.


    Set for release in early 2012, the film produced by Sidney Kimmel and Jim Tauber will go on the floors in March next year.


    Summit chief Rob Friedman summed up the film thus: “a fantastic story that we believe will resonate with the American audience.”


    Lakeshore International and Sierra Pictures will have the worldwide rights of the film.

  • Israeli film bags top award at Tokyo fest

    MUMBAI: Israeli film Intimate Grammar about a boy in the 1960s who stops growing for three years claimed the top prize at the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival, giving director Nir Bergman the festival‘s main award for a second time.


    The film that was awarded the $50,000 Sakura Grand Prix from among 15 competitors from over 80 countries and regions tells the story of Aaron, the son of a Holocaust survivor who seeks refinement and art amid an increasingly militant society.


    Incidentally, Bergman becomes the first director to win the Sakura Prize twice, having previously won in 2002 for Broken Wings.


    Bergman told a news conference last week that the film was based on an Israeli novel called “Book of Intimate Grammar” by David Grossman that “gave him an emotional shock as if reading about my own life.”


    “I just loved the characters so much and I thought they deserved the big screen,” he was quoted by festival organizers as saying.


    The award for Best Director went to Gilles Paquet-Brenner for Sarah‘s Key, a French film about the fate of a Jewish family during World War Two. The film won the Audience Award as well.


    Kaneto Shindo, a 98-year-old Japanese director, won the special jury prize for Post Card that shows the impact of World War Two on the residents of a rural Japanese community.


    Fan Bingbing won the Best Actress award for her role in Buddha Mountain a joint China-Taiwan co-production also took the award for Best Artistic Contribution. Wang Qianyuan won the Best Actor awards for The Piano in a Factory.
     

  • My Name Is Khan to release on 30 November in China

    MUMBAI: Karan Johar’s Shah Rukh Khan-Kajol starrer My Name is Khan will have a Chinese premiere at Beijing on 30 November.


    Said an elated Johar, “It‘s an honour, especially since China allows only the release of 20 foreign films a year. I can‘t remember when the last time an Indian film was released there.”


    Commented Fox Star Studios CEO Vijay Singh, “The Chinese authorities are really hard on foreign films. To be asked to release Khan is an amazing honour.”


    Considering the limited time available to both the studio and the producer, it seems more likely that the film would be subtitled in the Chinese lingo.
     

  • Reliance MediaWorks Q2 net loss widens to Rs 447 mn

    MUMBAI: Reliance MediaWorks Ltd has widened its consolidated fiscal second-quarter net loss to Rs 447 million compared to Rs 111.47 million a year ago.


    Reliance MediaWorks continues to maintain its strong investment phase and all its projects are well on track. “As a result of the continued investments and stabilisation of business verticals, the interest and depreciation charge, the company has recorded a net loss of Rs 447 million,” the company said.


    The net loss has, however, narrowed as compared to the trailing quarter (Rs 536.45 million).
     
    Total revenue of the company jumped 30.7 per cent to stand at Rs 2.46 billion, as compared to Rs 1.88 billion in the year-ago period.


    Meanwhile, the company‘s expenses also went up by 37.28 per cent to Rs 2.52 billion in the quarter, as against Rs 1.83 billion in the earlier year. This was mainly because of higher rent, higher personal cost and payout to distributors.


    Ebitda from operations stood at Rs 340 million.


    “Reliance MediaWorks has delivered strong performance in the first half of the year and have started seeing strong returns on investments from the assets created in past two years. The forthcoming quarter releases include some of the biggest and most awaited films of the year, which will result into strong box office performances and also help us leverage our leading presence across the entire film and media services value chain,” said Reliance MediaWorks CEO Anil Arjun.


    On a standalone basis, the net loss for the quarter was Rs 410.85 million (from Rs 69.95 million). Total income of the company for the quarter was Rs 1.48 billion, while expenses were at Rs 1.49.


    In the segment-wise results, theatrical business reported a revenue of Rs 1.53 billion, a jump of 32.77 per cent from previous year’s Rs 1.5 billion. But this was mainly because of the impact of producers strike in the previous year.


    The operational loss from the segment was at Rs 119.67 million (Rs 84.40 million operational loss in the previous year).


    Total capital investment in the theatrical exhibition segment stands at Rs 9.54 billion.


    From the film production services segment, the company has earned a revenue of Rs 746.6 millioncompared to Rs 474.27 million in the previous quarter. It also posted an operating profit of Rs 116.22 million during the quarter under review (from previous year’s Rs 146.49 million).


    However, in the TV/Film production and distribution segment, the revenue dropped to Rs 239.78 million, from Rs 302.37 million a year ago. The company posted an operating profit of Rs 39.48 million from the segment, as against a profit of Rs 85.29 million a year ago.
     

  • MAMI: Golden Gateway award for Turkish film Majority

    MUMBAI: The eight-day MAMI Festival came to an end on Thursday with the felicitation of two film industry veterans, Manoj Kumar and Oliver Stone. This was followed by the award ceremony in which Turkish film Majority bagged the best film award while the Silver Gateway Award for best direction was bagged by the Thai film, Mundane History.


    Lifetime achievement awards were bestowed on Kumar and Stone. 


    In his acceptance speech, Stone said he was honoured to get the award. “Thank you Mumbai. India has a great culture, you make great movies and I am honoured to accept this award.‘


    The Golden Gateway Award for the best film in the international competition category went to Majority, directed by Seren Yuce. The film is the story of 21-year-old Mertkan who falls in love with Gul, a girl from a different ethnicity, and was part of the international competition for directors who are debuting with feature films.


    The SGA award for best director was presented to Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong for her film, Mundane History. The film is an experimental narrative of sexual frustration and cosmic identity in class-based Thailand.


    While Mundane History got the director a cash prize of Rs 5 million, Majority won Rs 2.5 million as prize money.


    The SGA in the international competition, was presented to the Danish film R directed by Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm. The SGA for best actor was presented to Bartu Kucukcaglayan for his performance in the film Majority while the silver gateway award for best actress was presented to Marie Helene Bellavance for her role in Canadian film, Vital Signs.


    Film luminaries who attended the closing ceremony were Yash Chopra, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Sudhir Mishra, Madhur Bhandarkar, Arunoday Singh, Satish Kaushik, Prem Chopra, Hrishita Bhatt, Rituparno Sengupta, Rajshree Ojha and Aamir Bashir among others.


    The ceremony was followed by the screening of director Robert Schwentke‘s Red that stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Mary Louise Parker and John Malkovich.

  • Rajnikant’s Sultan – The Warrior now titled Hara

    MUMBAI: Superstar Rajnikant‘s animation venture, Sultan – The Warrior, has been renamed as Hara.


    Being produced and directed by the veteran‘s daughter Soundarya Rajnikant, the film has the Robot actor appearing in a live action role besides his 3D clone. Vidya Balan has been approached to share the screen space with Rajnikant.


    The film is being executed at Soundarya‘s Chennai-based animation studio Ocher Studios. Initially planned to be made in 3D with a gigantic budget and the usage of advance technology like motion capture, the film is now going through a lot of creative changes.


    KS Ravikumar will be co-directing Hara, one of the names of Lord Shiva, along with Soundarya.

  • Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours closes London film fest

    MUMBAI: The 2010 London Film Festival ended on Thursday with the European premiere of 127 Hours, Danny Boyle‘s retelling of the true story of a climber who cuts off his own arm to survive.


    Starring James Franco as real-life survivor Aron Ralston, a majority portion of the film is set in a tight, claustrophobic space between rock faces and focuses on the mountaineer as he struggles to free his arm crushed under a boulder. As exhaustion and desperation set in throughout the five-day ordeal, the action builds towards the grisly point of no return.


    Franco described the story as “an incredible example of human will.” He said that Boyle had pushed him hard to make his performance as authentic as possible. I didn‘t cut my own arm off. But Danny does like to push the boundaries a bit, or push his actors.”


    The premiere brought down the curtain down on the annual festival that this year screened as many as 201 feature films and 112 shorts from 68 countries.


    Boyle received a lifetime achievement award.