Category: Movies

MUMBAI: Fox Star Studios will release Khichdi – The Movie, a big screen adaptation of the popular television series Khichdi on 1 October. It is, perhaps, the first time in India that a TV show has been turned into a film.

Produced by Hats Off Productions and written and directed by Aatish Kapadia, the film is an all out fun and crazy ride and is best described as “Comedy Family ki Family Comedy”.

Says producer Jamnadas Majethia, “The TV serial changed the grammar of comedy when it came on television and viewers got addicted to the humour. Khichdi – The Movie will create the same magic on the big screen and hopefully redefine comedy in Indian cinema.”

Bringing Hollywood practices to India where popular and successful television shows like Mr. Bean, Batman, Simpsons, Mission Impossible, Star Wars and Sex and the City get made into films regularly, the studio could be a starting a new trend in the country.

“We are very excited about the research feedback from the audiences that have seen Khichdi – The Movie. Audiences loved the ’saaf suthri comedy’ and found it to be funnier than most recent comedy films. Audiences are looking for new experiences and let’s face it, there are very few good clean comedy films that audiences can go and watch with the entire family and that’s the promise of Khichdi – The Movie,” says Fox Star Studios India CEO Vijay Singh.

Khichdi, which aired on Star Plus in 2002, achieved the highest TVR for a comedy sitcom on television. In its first run, the serial reached out to 8.6 million viewers tickling households across the country and bagged several awards.
 

MUMBAI: A month before his first Indo-Canadian film Break Away goes on the floor, Akshay Kumar has gone ahead and signed a distribution deal with Alliance Films – the studio that earlier distributed noted films like The Lord of The Rings triology and Kill Bill.

Break Away, set against the backdrop of ice hockey, is very close to Kumar’s heart. “I have been always supportive of sports and I’ll do everything I can to ensure that the film shapes up well,” says the producer who is making the film under the banner of Hari Om Productions.

The film will be directed by Robert Liberman and has Canadian born Vinay Virmani pitted against Emily VanCamp.

Viramny, an ice hockey player from Canada’s south Asian community, has trained at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.

MUMBAI: Ramesh Taurani has signed Salman Khan to essay the role of Anthony Gonsalves in the remake of Manmohan Desai‘s 1977 hit Amar Akbar Anthony.

The film, directed by David Dhawan, will have Arbaaz Khan as Amar. It was played by Vinod Khanna in the original, while younger brother Sohail Khan would enact the role of Akbar, originally played by Rishi Kapoor.

The film would be produced by Tips Industries that has acquired the rights from Narendra Hirawat and Ketan Desai.

The project is now awaiting Salman‘s dates.

MUMBAI: Tips Industries has suffered a net loss of Rs 123.25 million for the three-month period ended 30 June, pulled down by its movie production and distribution business.

Tips‘ mega budget action thriller Prince bombed at the box office, shaving its bottom line, as it reversed from its earlier-year quarter profit of Rs 12.75 million.

 The film distribution and production business suffered an operating loss of Rs 120.04 million on an income of Rs 135.82 million. The capital deployed for the segment was Rs 529.96 million.

Tips Industries’ income from operations surged 245.31 per cent during the quarter to Rs 195.43 million, as against Rs 56.6 million in the year ago period, as it had the big budget movie release during the quarter under review.

Expenses, however, rose 857.56 per cent to Rs 304.87 million, mainly on account of film distribution and production costs.

The company suffered a loss of Rs 109.43 million (loss from operations, before other income, interest and exceptional items), as against a profit of Rs 24.76 million a year ago.

The audio product business, however, remained profitable with Rs 27.2 million on an income of Rs 60.22 million. Tips had posted a profit of Rs 40.22 million in this segment on an income of Rs 59.36 million in the year-ago period.
 

Director: Anusha Rizvi Producer: Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao Cinematography: Shanker Raman Editor: Hemanti Sarkar

Peepli  Live is a satire on politics vis a vis farmer suicides and politics, in the process making digs at the media, especially the electronic media.

While news based films generally prove to be drab and boring, ending as hyped up documentaries, the mainstay of Peepli Live is its script, generously sprinkled with humourous scenes and dialogue.

Standing on the premise that the government does nothing to solve the debt-ridden farmers‘ problems who, cornered and exasperated, commit suicide, funnily enough, there is a Rs 100,000 compensation for the family who has lost its breadwinner!! When they fail to redeem their mortgaged land, brothers Raghubir Yadav and Omkar Das are in a quandary. As one of them suggests he commit suicide so that the land could be freed from lien, a stringer for a local newspaper overhears their conversation and as for their bad luck, is ready to carry this piece of news in his paper.

As the news spreads like wild fire, all roads including the electronic media lead to Peepli. What ensues is a circus called vote bank and TRPs. This farmer has a police escort and TV cameras follow him even when he wants to relieve himself and the media even has his poop analysed to tell the viewers his state of mind!

Peepli Live has its strong points in its script and dialogue. However, the ending is tame and unsatisfying, making the whole exercise much ado about nothing.

While director Anusha Rizvi has treated the film in great detail, the film‘s casting wins more than half its battle. First timer Omkar Das Manikpuri seems made for the role and performs as naturally as one could. Raghubir Yadav easily blends into the story and ambience. Actors Shalini Vaysa and Farrukh Jaffer are very good and so are Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Malaika Shenoy and Vishal O Sharma. Music is functional, its appeal limited to the film. Photgraphy is commendable.

Peepli Live has a genre of its own and if any film came close, it was Main Azaad Hoon (Amitabh Bachchan) which in turn was inspired by Hollywood hit Meet John Doe, about politicians, media and the common man.

Peepli Live is an enjoyable satire on rural India made for urban elite – the discerning multiplex audience.

MUMBAI: Amol Palekar‘s English language film, And Once Again, that was to release on 13 August has been deferred by a week as it would have clashed with Aamir Khan‘s Peepli [Live].

Talking about the deferment, Palekar says,” We didn‘t want to take chance with Aamir Khan‘s Peepli [Live] also releasing on the same day. And who can contest a Aamir Khan film?”

This film comes five years after Palekar released his last film Paheli, starring Shah Rukh Khan and Rani Mukerji, on 24 June 2005.

The film deals with intricacies of man-woman relationship and talks about repercussions of violence on human life; its lingering shadow on all of us with its startling shades. Somehow we manage to draw a line between our past and present.

The non-violent film has no glam and glitter and no sexy songs and dance, says Palekar. “In fact the film is about the tussle between the past and the present”, he adds.

The film, written by Palekar‘s wife Sandhya and shot on location in Sikkim, has Antara Mali, Rajat Kapoor, Rituparna Sengupta and Gerson D‘Cunha among others.

MUMBAI: The National Film Awards will be selected on a two-tier system.

It has also been decided that the total cash prize for the international film awards will go up to Rs 20 million and that of national film awards to Rs 10 million.

According to Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) director general SM Khan, the films will first be seen by some regional level juries before the short-list being submitted to the national jury.

Each regional level juries will have a chairman and a member from outside the region. The other three members will be from within the region.

The regional level juries are North (English, Pujabi, Dogri, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Rajasthani and central Indian languages); West (Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati and Konkani); South in two groups (South one – Tamil and Malayalam, and South two – Telugu, Tulu and Kannada); and East – Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, and dialects spoken in northeast India).

The five chairpersons of the regional panels will be ex-officio members of the central jury, apart from a chairperson and five other members.

In the revamped format, new award categories for audiography, music direction, screenplay and dialogues have also been introduced. The category for best film in family welfare has been removed in view of the category on social issues.

Meanwhile, it was also announced that the format for the international film awards will see increased number of national entries (18 films from 15 earlier). And to extend the international competition, North American and European countries have also been added, besides countries from Asia, Africa and South America.

The new guidelines have been issued after considering the report from the Expert Committee on National Film Awards headed by eminent filmmaker and Member of Parliament Shyam Benegal. It has proposed a central jury and five regional juries to cover languages in different regions. It has also outlined guidelines for the regional jury composition. Other recommendations are being studied.

The Committee comprised Sharmila Tagore who also heads the Central Board of Film Certification, Rajiv Mehrotra of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, Sai Paranjpye, Ashoke Vishwanathan, Vishal Bhardwaj, Nagesh Kukunoor, Mohan Agashe, Waheeda Rehman, Jahnu Baruah and Shaji N Karun. The Ministry is represented by the Joint Secretary (Films) DP Reddy as Member Secretary, and DFF director SM Khan.

The regional panels will begin screenings in Delhi on 19 August, while the central panel will sit from 1 September to select the best national awardees of 2009. The award ceremony may take place in the third week of October.

MUMBAI: Reliance Big Pictures will release the Gurdas Mann starrer film Chak Jawana (Punjabi) on 27 August.

Avers Reliance Big Pictures CEO Sanjeev Lamba, “Chak Jawana, not only has a director par-excellence but also explores some social practices that affect our society. We are proud to be associated with such meaningful cinema.”

Says debutant director Simerjit Singh, “The film takes a strong stand against the existent youth issues present in India and how would it be if lead well. The young generation has enormous capabilities to excel. It has some excellent performances and music and I am happy to associate with Reliance Big Pictures for such a beautiful film.”

Chak Jawana has been scripted by the director himself with Rupinder Chahal and has music by Jaidev Kumar.