ITV

Category: Movies

  • Texas University to show Global Lens Film series

    MUMBAI: To promote cross-cultural awareness, the University of Texas-Pan American will be the first university in the UT System to show the Global Lens Film Series. With films from all over the world, the series offers a window into different traditions and rich cultural lessons.


    Starting 9 September with Becloud (Vaho), a Mexican film directed by Alejandro Gerber Bicecci, the series films will be screened admission-free at the Student Union Theatre, and will be open to the public and UTPA community.


    “This would be the best venue to see something on the big screen that I know of in the whole Valley, for a constant menu of foreign films, and well done films too,” said media and marketing librarian Virginia Gause. “Just because people come here from many countries doesn‘t mean the general public understands all these various cultures,”


    Based in San Francisco, the Global Film Initiative is a non-profit film distributor created in 2002 by Susan Weeks Coulter, a former Peace Corps volunteer who decided to start the organization after the events on 9/11.

  • Freida Pinto cast opposite Anthony Hopkins in Woody Allen film

    MUMBAI: Slumdog Millionaire actress Freida Pinto has been cast opposite Anthony Hopkins in Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger that is set to release in the coming months.


    The film has Pinto essaying the role of Dia. A gorgeously exotic musicologist, Dia leaves her fiancé for another man. 


    Also in the cast are Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Antonio Banderas, Ewen Bremner, Josh Brolin, Anupam Kher and Naomi Watts among others.


    Another film that Pinto features in is Julian Schnbel’s Miral that is based on Rula Jebreal’s novel. The story follows an orphan, portrayed by Pinto, as she falls in love with a Palestinian activist.

  • Chacha Chaudhary to make silver screen debut in 3D

    MUMBAI: Popular comic character Chacha Chaudhary is set to make his debut in a 3D film.


    Diamond Comics, owners of the rights to the comic book hero with a red turban, has decided to to co-produce the movie with a US-based company for $6 million.


    Said Diamond Comics Chairman Gulshan Rai, “We have recently signed up with an American company to make a film on Chacha Chaudhary. This will be a one-and-half to two-hour-long film in the three-dimensional (3D) format.”


    Rai confirmed the budget of the film would be around $6 million. He, however, did not specify when the film would be ready for release.


    The company, which has other popular comic characters such as Billoo, Captain Vyom, Chotu Lambu, Pinki and Mahabali Shaka, is also planning to promote and sell them on other digital platforms like internet, television, direct-to-home (DTH) and mobiles.


    As part of the plan, the firm is converting all the physical copies of the old comics into digital ones to be sold online as well as through telecom service providers. Telecom service providers such as Tata Docomo, BSNL and Vodafone have been tapped to sell e-comics to their subscribers through mobile phones.


    The company is currently working on converting a stock of between 3,000 to 4,000 comics that have been published since 1974 into digital format. These will be sold at a universal price of half a dollar on various websites, including Google and Rediff.
     

  • Antardwand: A film for the festival circuit







    (Winner: National Award For Best Film)
    Producer:     Romen Jha
    Story-Direction: Sushil Rajpal
    Screenplay-Dialogue-Lyric: Amitabh Varma
    Music: Bapi-Tutul


    MUMBAI: Antardwand (Inner Conflict) is a story which is more unbelievable than fiction. It is about a practice prevalent in Bihar of abducting eligible grooms by a girl’s family and marrying them off forcibly, locally called Pakrauah Shaddi.


    Raj Singh Chaudhary, a Bihar lad in Delhi, has a live-in girlfriend. When he learns she is pregnant, he takes off to a small village in the interiors of Bihar to inform his parents and seek their blessings for their marriage.


    Failing to convince his father, he is on his way out of the village when he is kidnapped and locked up in isolation for days on end. Eventually, he is fed on hooch till he becomes unconscious and led through the process of a marriage ritual with Swati Sen, the daughter of the feudal lord, Akhilendra Mishra.


    The newlyweds are locked till the inevitable happens – the boy accepts the girl. Some examples of such marriages are cited to prove they work. Here, to make it ‘official’ the boy is finally provoked and manipulated to consummate the marriage, almost as a rape. The conclusion is on a wishful note.


    The mainstay of the film is its realistic locations and performances which, to the actors’ and the director’s credit, are uniformly good. Among them Akhilendra Mishra, Raj Singh Chaudhary and Swati Sen are a notch above the rest. Music is purely regional in flavour.


    While Antardwand may leave a trail of plaudits on the festival circuit and be of academic interest to many, it has no box office potential.


     


    Tough commercial prospects for Madholal Keep Walking








    Banner: Dreamcuts
    Producer: Apurva Tank
    Direcor: Jai Tank
    Cast: Subrat Dutta, Neela Gokhale, Pranay Narayan, Swara Bhaskar, Varnita Aglawe.


    Madholal Keep Walking tackles  the issue of the the after effects of a tragedy on the psyche of an individual. In this case, Madholal, the survivor of the Mumbai train blasts who losses an arm and a whole lot of his friends cum co-commuters.


    The first half is about the life of a security guard, his juggling of meagre finances and the camaraderie with his fellow travellers on the Mumbai local. Then a bomb explodes and while all his friends die, Madholal survives with a lost arm. But his whole world is shattered; he has not only lost his job but also his confidence.


    The rest of the film is all about his coming to terms with the situation.


    The film has a decent first half sprinkled with some humour though it has more of the Mumbai flavour. The details of commuting life and surroundings are well incorporated.


    It is in the post bomb blast story that things become drab and tedious. As it were, films made on real life events and news headlines don’t go down well with our audience and a story of one bomb blast survivor hardly makes for interesting viewing.


    Subrat Dutta, the main protagonist gives a natural performance, aptly supported by Neela Gokhale and others. Direction is bogged down by the choice of subject. Dialogue is good and witty. Music, as is the wont nowadays, stays within the cinema hall.


    Commercial prospects of Madholal Keep Walking are about as much as the worth of yesterday’s newspaper.

  • Mumbai Film fest adds new section on theme of growing old with dignity

    MUMBAI: he twelfth Mumbai Film Festival to be held between 21 and 28 October has added a new competition section titled Celebrate Age open to ad-films, short fiction films, documentaries and feature length films made on the theme of growing old with dignity.


    Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), the organiser of the festival, has launched this competition in collaboration with Harmony for Silver Foundation run by Tina Ambani.


    Commenting on the new section, 12th Mumbai Film Festival festival director Srinivasan Narayanan says, “MAMI is committed to creating as many opportunities as possible for budding filmmakers to discover and showcase their talent. Harmony for Silver Foundation is committed to the safety, welfare and joie de vivre of senior citizens. This new initiative by the Harmony for Silver Foundation through the Mumbai Film Festival platform is to make filmmakers train their attention, camera and lights to address the issue of ageing with dignity.”


    The competition offers cash prizes of Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 to two selected films.

  • Mani Ratnam to be honored at the Venice Film Fest

    MUMBAI: The Venice Film Festival has decided to honour Mani Ratnam with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award this year.


    Announcing this development, Venice Film Festival director Marco Muller said, “Mani Ratnam is one of the greatest innovators in contemporary Indian Cinema. He helped introduce the auteur concept to contemporary Bollywood. We are very proud to honour the work of the great Indian director Mani Ratnam.” 


    In addition to Ratnam, Suhasini Mani Ratnam and actor Vikram will be attending the 67th Venice International Film Festival in September.


    The award ceremony and the screening of Raavanan (Tamil) and Raavan (Hindi) will take place on 6 September.


    Both the versions of the film will also take part in the Pusan International Film Festival in Korea in October 2010.
     

  • Hollywood honour for Nitin Desai on 29 August

    MUMBAI: India’s leading production designer Nitin Chandrakant Desai, known for his sets in films like Jodhaa Akbar and Lagaan, will be honoured by The Art Directors Guild (ADG) Film Society and American Cinematheque on 29 August at the Egyptian Theatre, Hollywood. Desai, thus, becomes the first Indian art director and production designer to get this honour.


    This felicitation is one of the highest recognition for Desai for his outstanding contribution in the field of art direction and production design. On the occasion, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas that showcases the brilliance of Desai’s art work would be screened.


    “This is an honour to me and my country. History has been made today. It is indeed a pleasure for me to get global recognition. This is an also a proud moment for Maharashtra. I’m extremely happy that my work has been recognised in this way,” avered Desai.


    The event will witness a panel discussion moderated by production designer John Muto and the participants would include Sangita Shresthova, dancer, choreographer and media scholar, Nakul Dev Mahajan, an Indian-American dancer and choreographer known for his pioneering work in Bollywood dancing style on top TV show named So You Think You Can Dance and Jack Rajsekar Fusion Edge Media CEO and executive producer of Enthiran and Robot.


    With over 25 years of experience in the industry, Desai has been associated with blockbuster Indian movies such 1942: A Love Story (1994), Josh (2000) and the very recent Once Upon a Time In Mumbai (2010) to name a few.


    Desai has worked on more than 85 films and has won a National Award for best film direction four times . In 1999, he won a Genie Award for best achievement in art direction/production design for Such a Long Journey (1998).

  • Japanese animator Satoshi Kon passes away

    MUMBAI: Well-known Japanese animation director Satoshi Kon better known for Tokyo Godfathers and Millennium Actress among other award winning films expired d of pancreatic cancer at the age of 46 last Tuesday.


    Considered one of Japan‘s most exciting animation film directors, oKon was born in 1963 on the island of Hokkaido and debuted as a comic book artiste when he was 23 while still an art student at Musashino Art University near Tokyo. He began making animated films about 1990, establishing a style that blurred the boundaries of reality and fantasy.


    In his Oscar-nominated 2003 film Tokyo Godfathers, Kon featured three homeless people instead of three cowboys, breaking with the clean and ritzy image of the Japanese capital.


    The 2006 film Paprika based on a novel by popular writer Yasutaka Tsutsui, used breathtaking cutting-edge animation and won a prize at the Brussels anime festival in 2007.


    Kon was working on his first children‘s film The Dreaming Machine at the time of his death.
     

  • Film ticket prices soar in 2010

    MUMBAI: This year, cinema hall operators have come up with the biggest year-over-year price increase ever though the movie going attendance remained unchanged compared to last year.


    Average admission costs have been up more than 40 cents, or 5 per cent this year while the National Association of Theatre Owners said attendance was down by less than 1 per cent compared to 2009.
     


    Experts are of the view that high 3D prices was an important factor in the dismal performance of recent box-office fare of films like Piranha 3D.


    Analyst Richard Greenfield has argued that “consumer 3D fatigue is already starting to show given the abusive ticket prices that exhibitors are charging for poor 3D content.” He also criticised studios for a lack of quality product. “Hollywood is putting out bad 3D movies,” he said, citing that the recent Cats and Dogs sequel in 3D was priced $3-$5 above that of Inception.

  • PlayStation game to promote Agent Vinod

    MUMBAI: In his zeal to promote his upcoming film Agent Vinod, producer Saif Ali Khan has tied up with Trine Animation and Gaming Studio, one of the few Indian companies that create Xbox and PlayStation games, to create a PlayStation game and a comic book.


    The pre-release promotions for the actor-producer’s home production will kick off in April 2011. And around the same time, a PlayStaion game along the lines of an action shooter game and the comic book will be released.


    For all ages, the game and the comic book will also include characters that are not part of the film with the idea to come up with a different medium of expression that will appeal to kids and adults. Khan will do the voiceover himself along with the other actors.


    His new partner, 24-year old Sangam Gupta of Trine Animation and Gaming Studio, has eight-nine games to his credit, including Gothic 3, Wii Yoga, and Sony’s soon to-release Street Cricket.


    Agent Vinod is Gupta’s stepping-stone to Bollywood which he believes is an untapped market.