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  • India to be promoted as filming destination in ‘Incredible India’ campaign

    India to be promoted as filming destination in ‘Incredible India’ campaign

    NEW DELHI: India is to be aggressively promoted as a filming destination.


    The Incredible India Campaign and the cinemas of India are to be promoted at various international film festivals in India and overseas, thanks to a memorandum of understanding between the Information and Broadcasting and Tourism Ministries.


    The MoU is expected to enhance the reach of “Incredible India” through the medium of cinema, develop synergy between tourism and film industry and provide a platform for enabling partnerships between the Indian and global film industry. It was signed today in the presence of I&B Minister Ambika Soni, Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahay, and Minister of State for Tourism Sultan Ahmed.


    It is expected that this innovative partnership will facilitate the promotion of India as a filming destination for foreign producers. In 2011-12, 20 permissions were granted for shooting in India, down from 20 in the prior year and 23 in 2009-10.


    The aim is to create and build upon a Film Tourism vertical of Incredible India Campaign by promoting cinemas of India as a sub-brand of ‘Incredible India‘. The emphasis will be on its linguistic/cultural/regional diversity. This will also provide an impetus to frame policies and guidelines for facilitating shooting of International films in India and promote India as a filming destination, both for international and domestic film producers.


    Another key objective is to initiate dialogue with State Governments and Union Territories within India for development of locations for film shootings and promotion of tourism.


    At the institutional level, the attempt is to constitute a National Level Committee for coordination with various stakeholders for promotion of India as a film and tourism destination and for facilitating visas for film units from overseas. On some of the key aspects, the roadmap will be charted out through mutual consultations between the two ministries.


    The Tourism Ministry would provide budgetary support for identified film festivals, markets and events. The Ministry would facilitate publicity through the available content based on existing audio visual material and print designs. The joint participation of the two ministries would cover the Cannes Film Festival and Market, International Film Festival of India in Goa including the Film Bazaar, and the European Film Market at Berlin.


    The agreement reiterates the branding of ‘Incredible India’ at critical outreach positions at the identified film festivals markets and events. This includes the display of the logo of Incredible India, through wall hoardings, stalls and the screening of the promotional film.

  • DAM 999 exits from Oscar race

    DAM 999 exits from Oscar race

    MUMBAI: Producer-director Sohan Roy‘s DAM 999, the country‘s only hope at the Oscars this year, has failed to secure a place in the final nomination list of the 84th Academy Awards.

    Commenting on the result, Roy said in a statement, “I consider this as an achievement that my film travelled this far in the Oscars and I am happy with that.”

    Roy was waiting for Tuesday to decide the future course of action for marketing his debut film. “We are now getting ready to participate in the European Film Market which begins in Berlin next month where the marketing of the film would be finalised,” Roy added.

    DAM 999 tells the tale of a cracking dam built during colonial rule and revolves around nine characters and their emotions.

    The film stood a chance to feature in the best picture, best original song and best original score categories.

  • Five debut films nominated for European Film Awards

    Five debut films nominated for European Film Awards

    MUMBAI: Five debut films have been nominated to be presented at the 24 European Film Awards on 3 December.

    The film films are: ‘Adem‘ (Oxygen), Belgium/The Netherlands (director Hans Van Nuffel); ‘Atmen‘ (Breathing), Austria (writer and director Karl Markovics), ‘Michael‘ Austria (writer and director Markus Schleinzer); ‘Smukke Menesker‘ (Nothing‘s All Bad), Denmark (writer-director Mikkel Munch-Fals) and ‘Tilva Ros‘ Serbia (writer-director Nikola Ležaic).

    The Europen Discovery 2011 – Prix are presented by FIPRESCI
    (International Federation of Film Critics) as part of the European Film Awards to a young and upcoming director for a first full-length feature film.

    This year‘s nominations were determined by a committee consisting of observer Yves Marmion (EFA Chairman, France), Board Members Els Vandevorst (the Netherlands) and Cedomir Kolar (France), EFA Members Pierre-Henri Deleau (France) and Jacob Neiiendam (Denmark), as well as Alin Tasciyan (Turkey), Paulo Portugal (Portugal), and László Kriston (Hungary), all of them members of FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics.

    The nominated films will now be made available to all 2,500 members of the European Film Academy. They will vote for the winner who will be announced at the 24th European Film Awards on 3 December in Berlin.

  • Stephen Frears to get European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement award in Berlin

    Stephen Frears to get European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement award in Berlin

    LONDON: Stephen Frears, director of films like Dangerous Liaisons, The Hi-Lo Country, and The Queen is to will receive this year‘s European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding and dedicated body of work.


    “I don‘t know what to say,” Frears said on getting the news.


    Having already received various awards like the Spanish Goya, the French César and the British Bafta, he said, “Well, they‘re always nice – if you get them,” and added: “But I‘m very grateful, it‘s very nice to be complimented by Europe.”


    The director remembered his long relationship with the European Film Academy: “I was there when it was founded; I came flying back from the Oscars to get there.”


    “Of course, I‘m never quite sure whether England is part of Europe. We‘re divided about this and have complicated feelings,” he said, adding: “But what matters is to keep European film going! And I‘m totally committed to that. Nothing else matters. If the films are good, then people will go and see them.”


    Frears will be an honorary guest at the 24th European Film Awards Ceremony on 3 December 2011 in Berlin.


    Having begun his career in British television, Frears made his breakthrough in 1985 with My Beautiful Launderette. Earning him nominations for the Oscar and Bafta, the film was based on a screenplay by Hanif Kureish with whom he collaborated again in 1987 for Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. Frears then made the Joe Orton biopic Prick Up Your Ears (1987) and Dangerous Liaisons (1988), which won three Oscars, two Bafta and a French César for the director.


    Among his other films are The Grifters (1990), Mary Reilly (1996), The Hi-Lo Country (1998), High Fidelity (2000), Dirty Pretty Things (2003), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005), and Tamara Drewe (2010). His film The Queen (2006) was a major international success; it was nominated for virtually every award there is and won the Spanish Goya as well as an Oscar, Golden Globe and European Film Award for Helen Mirren.

  • CNN launches ‘The Screening Room’

    MUMBAI: CNN will launch a new show The Screening Room. This is a monthly half-hour film show, hosted by British television personality Myleene Klass. The first edition of the show airs on 31 March at 1 pm and at 7 pm.

    On the set, on the carpet and on location, The Screening Room takes the audience through the stages of film-making from production to premiere. A cast of the world’s best actors, directors, cinematographers, writers, composers and animators demonstrate each month what goes into making a masterpiece.

    Opening the series, Klass explores the age-old question – major movie house or independent film? On the one hand, a multi-million dollar budget with directorial handcuffs; on the other, creative freedom limited only by concerns over cash. ‘The Screening Room’ tested the water at this year’s first major film festivals, Sundance and Berlin, and found the boundaries are becoming blurred.

    Also in this opening show, CNN’s Femi Oke reports from Africa, the focus of much recent Oscar attention and glory, thanks to ‘Blood Diamond’ and ‘The Last King of Scotland’ which shone the spotlight on the continent. After the last Oscar is handed out and the Versace and Valentino returned to the closets of Hollywood’s elite, what remains for Africa beyond Forrest Whitakers’ arresting acceptance speech?

    The Screening Room concludes in March by turning the clock back by two and a half thousand years. The rich history of the ancient Greeks has provided Hollywood studios with an even richer box office bonanza through their blockbusters ‘Alexander’ and ‘Troy’. Now they’re at it again with ‘300′, a story of Spartan soldiers who battled a large Persian army, and which is already on track to being the most successful March movie release at the box office in history. Myleene meets the finest of the ‘300′ at the film’s sparkling London premiere.

  • Discovery expands content offering on Google Earth

    Discovery expands content offering on Google Earth

    MUMBAI: US media firm Discovery Communications has expanded its expansion of its collection of world-class content on Google Earth.

    It has added over 150 video segments for destinations around the globe. A pilot partner for Google Earth’s new showcase of multimedia overlays, the Discovery Networks World Tour; can be accessed through the Featured Content checkbox in the Google Earth sidebar. This expansion follows the April announcement of Discovery being the first provider to bring video content to Google Earth.

    Google Earth is a satellite imagery-based mapping product that combines 3D buildings and terrain with mapping capability and Google search. Over the past year, there have been more than 10 million unique Google Earth downloads from around the world.

    Discovery senior executive VP for strategy and development Don Baer, says, “As promised, Discovery has continued to populate the world with engaging video to help Google Earth users explore the wonders of our planet. Discovery is dedicated to growing its showcase on Google Earth, giving virtual globetrekkers a journey of infinite proportions.”

    The initial collection included companion video for 10 of America’s most popular national parks,including Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore and Dinosaur National Park. Drawing from its rich stable of programming and to enhance viewers’ experience with its TV brands, Discovery has expanded the offering to include 48 world landmarks, national parks, American and European cities, and African location.

    Google Earth users will find videos on everything from the design process used to create the face of George Washington on Mount Rushmore and how to make authentic Belgian chocolate, to the history of China’s Terra Cotta soldiers and why fire is one of the most important natural forces in Yellowstone Park’s ecosystem.

    Users can access the video elements by clicking on Discovery’s globe icon, shown at destination sites where Discovery video content is available. An interactive broadband player hosted by Discovery launches into a selection of rich and compelling two- to four-minute videos. Destinations include the following:

    • National Parks and Landmarks — Representing the natural diversity of the United States,videos are available for Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, the Everglades, Point Reyes National Seashore, Niagara Falls, Mt. Rushmore, Alaska National Parks, Arches and Canyonlands National Parks, Santa Monica Mountains National Park, Carlsbad Caverns and Dinosaur National Park.

    • US Cities — From the Lincoln Memorial to the Golden Gate Bridge, users can explore the history, architecture and food of some of America’s favorite cities; Atlanta, Boston,Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

    • European Cities — Users can discover cathedrals, museums and neighborhoods while learning about the history, people and cultures of Europe’s greatest cities and regions: Amalfi Coast, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bavaria, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, Edinburgh,Florence, Interlaken, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Naples, Paris, Rome and Zurich.

    • Africa — Unlocking the majesty of the world’s most diverse continent, users can learn about Ghana on a virtual tour with its president, uncover the ruins of a once great empire in Zimbabwe or get a glimpse inside King Tut’s famous crypt.

    • World Landmarks — Spanning thousands of years and hundreds of cultures, the human race has created astounding feats of architecture, engineering and beauty. Users can marvel at the majesty of some of the world’s greatest wonders, including the Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall and Terra Cotta Army in China, El Tajin in Mexico, the Great Pyramids in Egypt and the Shrine of Itsukushima in Japan.

    • Coming Soon — Special features based on the upcoming global series Discovery Atlas. This is an HD project, offering video for 35 different locations in China, Brazil, Italy and Australia, the first of 30 countries in the multiyear programming franchise.

  • Avaya handles nine trillion bytes of data and voice transmission during the Fifa World Cup

    Avaya handles nine trillion bytes of data and voice transmission during the Fifa World Cup

    MUMBAI: Handling everything from players’ and journalists’ accreditations, to transmitting photos and match details around the world in real time, the converged network from Avaya, an official partner of the 2006 Fifa World Cup has managed a communication network that’s free of errors.

    Avaya, which provides business communications applications, systems and services. The converged network – which combines voice and data on the same infrastructure — connects the 12 host stadiums, the stadium media centers in Munich, Berlin and Dortmund and the Fifa headquarters in Berlin.

    Players, coaches, volunteers and fans alike benefit from the network that is being used to issue accreditations for players and journalists, report results, track materials and inventory, confirm accommodations at Fifa’s official hotels and maintain security systems.

    According to Avaya, at the halfway point in the tournament, the network has performed flawlessly and without any downtime, which is critical for a highly visible event such as the Fifa World Cup. For example, for the first 20 matches, the cumulative worldwide television viewing audience was almost 1.26 billion people. The total of voice and data bytes transferred over the network since it went ‘live’ on 1 June 2006 is 9.8 terabytes (or 9.8 trillion bytes of traffic). The average amount of traffic transmitted on Avaya network each day during the Fifa World Cup is 250,000 gigabytes.

    People have logged onto the converged communications network approximately 567,000 times, to date, and over 296,000 phone calls have been made on the network, which represents 632,297 minutes of calling time.

    Thousands of people have been using the high-speed Wireless Lan access from Avaya that have made connectivity easy and convenient for staff working temporarily in an area of the stadium or Fifa Headquarters Hotel.

    Journalists and photographers working in the stadiums can quickly connect to the Internet via an Avaya wireless Lan network and send photos and stories directly from the field.

    Avaya’s Fifa World Cup programme director Andrea Rinnerberger says, “Whether it’s our team of Avaya technical experts or the team of players on the field, the same rules apply: excellent preparation is critical to success. For months, the network Avaya built for the Fifa World Cup underwent rigorous testing in configuration, fail-over and resiliency.

    You might say we were in ‘intensive training’ for the tournament. Achieving 99.99 per cent network availability and reliability to date is the result of these high-powered IT ‘workouts’ that enable us to be fully ready for the expected and unexpected.”

    The unexpected arrived for the Avaya team of technicians working at a match at the Fifa World Cup stadium in Munich when Argentine football great Diego Maradona ducked into the stadium’s technical center to escape autograph seekers, and found himself surrounded by blinking monitors and racks of media servers and gateways that comprise the network Avaya built for Fifa. After his — and the Avaya team’s — initial surprise, the former football star was introduced to the world of high technology, with a tour of the network that Avaya deployed.

    Rinnerberger said, “It’s a ‘World Cup moment,’ but it illustrates Avaya’s dedication to being prepared for anything and everything. We bring the same dedication to the enterprise customers we serve around the world.”

  • STMicroelectronics drives in-car mobile TV during soccer World Cup

    STMicroelectronics drives in-car mobile TV during soccer World Cup

    MUMBAI: STMicroelectronics which supplies semiconductors to digital consumer and automotive industries, has announced that its complete system solution for Mobile TV will be used in Europe’s first implementation of Terrestrial – Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB ) receivers in the car.

    The pilot project, done in cooperation with Blaupunkt in Germany has been timed for the ongoing Soccer World Cup.

    As part of the trial, World Cup matches will be broadcast over DMB in 12 German cities, including Berlin, Munich and Cologne. Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) is a digital transmission system for sending data, radio, and TV to mobile devices, based on the Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) standard. The T-DMB Mobile TV service uses the existing DAB infrastructure, which is operational in Germany and most other European countries.

    Connected to the Dab radio receiver inside the car, the T-DMB decoder is based on ST’s t Nomadik mobile multimedia processor, the STn8810. ST says that the device emerged as a clear choice for the project, thanks to its video and audio quality, scalable performance, low power consumption, and advanced security features with digital rights management (DRM) support.

    Moreover, Nomadik’s software platform including video and audio codecs (e.g. MPEG4/H264, BSAC, ACC+) brings key advantages for product implementation and reduces time-to-market constraints. Nomadik’s distributed architecture combines a ARM9 processor with smart accelerators for audio and video decoding and an advanced power management unit on a single chip.

    The Nomadik SoC also features a set of peripheral interfaces for connection to the external components, including the car radio, digital-to-analogue converters for top-quality audio and video playback, memory cards (SD/MMC), or USB. Associated DMB software includes a Receiver Data Interface (RDI)decoder, error detection and correction software, the latest video (MPEG-4/H264) and audio (AAC) codecs, and software blocks for rendering and synchronizing audio and video data.

    The in-car Mobile TV solution is part of ST’s hardware and software platform, ready to address the demand for Multimedia convergence in the car. The platform is centered on ST’s Nomadik application processor and benefits from ST’s leadership in GPS receiver, radio tuner and Bluetooth ICs.

  • 3G operator in UK to launch mobile World Cup TV show

    3G operator in UK to launch mobile World Cup TV show

    MUMBAI: 3G, the UK-based mobile media company, is set to launch the first commissioned sports programming for Mobile TV. Berlin or Bust, which airs on 5 June, will be an irreverent and entertaining look at the tournament, providing fans with previews and reviews of every day’s action throughout the year’s most important event.

    Fronted by presenter Sam Delaney and with a host of footy-loving celebrities on the guest list, from the Kaiser Chiefs to Ray Winstone, Berlin or Bust will be a riotous magazine show, in contrast to the BBC and ITV suited and booted studio commentary teams. Football legend Ray Wilkins will join Sam to analyse the day’s play and news from the tournament, states an official release.

    3 customers will be able to tune in to two daily editions of Berlin or Bust’s flagship show, timed to ensure fans are kept entertained while on their way to watch games or on their way back from the pub.

    The show will be available free to all 3 customers throughout the tournament. 3’s World Cup related mobile TV programming also includes free 4-minute highlight packages of all 64 matches just five minutes after each match ends, adds the release.

    The preview show does what it says on the tin – previewing what could happen during the day’s matches, players to watch out for and refs that could prove tricky. The show will also include special reports from Ally McCoist “Man in Germany”, reporting on the latest gossip from the England camp and updates on what is happening on the ground in Germany. Preview Show special features include:

    * The Jock Report – 3’s embittered Scottish correspondent gives his unashamedly biased and abusive assessment of the day’s England news.
    * Ref Watch – A potted biog of the referees of the day’s key matches as the presenters pick holes in their performance so far.
    * Face-Off – The worst pre-match painted faces and comedy hats.
    * Journo-balls- Sam’s pick of the strange stuff, outrageous predictions and general news from the morning’s papers.
    * Flashpoint – The two players in the game most likely to clash.
    * Fan Updates – Video rants, messages, crazy celebrations; a round-up of the best amusing World Cup related content sent in by 3 customers.

    Fans will be able to access further updates throughout the day until the Review Show airs after the final match with more features and frank opinions on the day’s action. Features include:

    * Seven Faces of Sven – A gallery of the seven separate facial expressions of the England manager as he manages the team in his last major tournament.
    * The Furniture Store – A quick look at the World Cup tables to see who’s on the up, who’s struggling and who’s already heading home.
    * Ref Rant – The fans get their say about the refs of the day, with prizes for the best.
    * Table top analysis – pub-style tactical analysis featuring pint pots and ashtrays as the key players.
    * The Sub Plot – The hidden theme of the match, noticed by “the 3 sofa” whilst everyone else was focusing on the main action.

    3G UK marketing director Graeme Oxby says, “This is the first World Cup since the launch of 3G and we expect to see a massive difference in the way fans keep up with the action when compared to 2002. 3 has been keeping football fans up-to-date for the last three seasons with Premiership highlights, match updates and news and now its time to take this expertise into the World’s biggest sporting tournament. The launch of Berlin or Bust means that fans can now enjoy their best ever World Cup by making sure they are never out of touch with the action.”

    3’s free World Cup content will also include match highlights made available following every game, five minutes after the final whistle. A new match centre application for the 2006 Fifa World Cup will also offer minute-by-minute text commentary and in-match statistics from every game.