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Tag: Cannes Film festival

  • Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout to have world premiere at Cannes Film festival

    Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout to have world premiere at Cannes Film festival

    MUMBAI: Amidst the buzz surrounding the upcoming edition of the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, Guneet Monga and Anurag Kashyap’s latest offering Monsoon Shootout has been shortlisted to be screened at the midnight screening of the Festival.


    Starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Neeraj Kabi, Geetanjali Thapa and Vijay Verma, the film will have its world premiere at the film festival.


    Produced by Sikhya Entertainment along with UK based Yaffle Films and Pardesi Films, Monsoon Shootout marks Amit Kumar‘s directorial debut.


    Monsoon Shootout revolves around a rookie cop’s moment of reckoning, to shoot or not to shoot.
    Kumar with his cast and the producers are expected to be present at the festival.


    The film has additionally been sold for numerous territories including television rights to a noted French company and is being represented by Fortissimo Films internationally.

  • Great Gatsby to open Cannes Film Festival

    Great Gatsby to open Cannes Film Festival

    MUMBAI: Baz Luhrmann‘s The Great Gatsby, an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s account of Roaring Twenties America, will open the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

    The film combines serious literary heritage and A-list star power with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role.

    For the first time since 2007, DiCaprio will put in an appearance at the festival. The opening gala, preceded by a glitzy red carpet fashion parade and followed by parties along the palm-lined Riviera will also be attended by megastar Amitabh Bachchan and US rapper Jay-Z. The festival runs from 15 to 26 May.

    "It is a great honour for all those who have worked on The Great Gatsby to open the Cannes film festival," Luhrmann said in a statement. “F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of the most poignant and beautiful passages of his extraordinary novel just a short distance away at a villa outside St. Raphael," he added.

    DiCaprio plays Jay Gatsby in the 3D movie, Carey Mulligan is Daisy Buchanan and Tobey Maguire is Nick Carraway, the narrator. The film also has Amitabh Bachchan in a important role.

  • Gangs of Wasseypur to screen at Glasgow film fest

    Gangs of Wasseypur to screen at Glasgow film fest

    MUMBAI: Anurag Kashyap‘s Gangs of Wasseypur will be screened at the Glasgow Film Festival in Scotland to be held from 14 to 24 February.

    Writes the festival website about the film, “Acclaimed as India‘s The Godfather, Gangs of Wasseypur was one of the discoveries of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Director Anurag Kashyap blends the ferocious energy of South Indian action movies with the sweep, scope and richness of a gangster epic by Sergio Leone or Martin Scorsese.”

    Both the parts of the film will be screened on 23 and 24 of next month.

    Another Indian film, Vanishing Point, a short film by Abhijit Mazumdar will compete in Adrift: International Competition section of the Festival. It tells the story of a location scouting trip that falls into disarray.

    The Glasgow Film Festival, that was launched in 2005, is known as one of the fastest growing festivals in the UK.

  • Gangs of Wasseypur releasing on 22 June

    Gangs of Wasseypur releasing on 22 June

    MUMBAI: Viacom18 Motion Pictures is set to release Gangs of Wasseypur, its co-production venture with Anurag Kashyap, across India on 22 June. The film has already got an ‘A” certificate.

    Even though the content of the film is for adults, Kashyap is confident of having a decent audience.

    “All films are not for kids. This film is not at all for children. Adult audiences will come to watch it for sure,” he observes.

    To be released in two parts, the film, a story spanning three generations from 1941 to 2009, is set against the backdrop of the coal mafia operating in North India.

    The first part of the film, which begins at the end of the colonial era in India, follows the story of Shahid Khan who robs British trains in the garb of the legendary Sultana daku. An outcast, Shahid becomes a worker at Ramadhir’s colliery and starts a revenge battle that passes on to generations.

    The plot then moves to the end of the decade where Shahid’s son Sardar Khan, whose motto in life is to avenge his father’s honour, makes him the most feared man in Wasseypur. The town, heavily influenced by Bollywood and gun culture, adds quirk to this realistic politival revenge drama.

    While the first part of this film of 5 hrs and 20 minutes will release on 22 June, the second part is also expected to release before the year end.

    The film was recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival.

  • PVR bags India rights of Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

    PVR bags India rights of Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist

    MUMBAI: PVR Pictures has acquired the India rights of Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a political thriller based on Mohsin Hamid’s novel.

    It tells the story of a young Pakistani man working on Wall Street who is deeply affected by the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

    PVR had evinced keen interest in a separate Indian version of the film where references to sensitive issues such as terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism would be toned down. However, Nair was not for it.

    There was also talk about dubbing the film in Hindi for the Indian market but Nair disallowed it too. She is of the belief that one version of The Reluctant Fundamentalist should be released in India and the rest of the world.

    Munich-based K5 has acquired the international rights of the film and represented it in Cannes Film festival.

  • Michel Franco’s After Lucia tops at Cannes’ sidebar competition

    Michel Franco’s After Lucia tops at Cannes’ sidebar competition

    MUMBAI: Mexican director Michel Franco has won the top prize in the Cannes Film Festival‘s sidebar competition, Un Certain Regard for his film After Lucia. The film was chosen from a slate of twenty films by a jury headed by actor Tim Roth.

    The jury’s second prize went to Benoit Delepine and Gustave Kervern’s French film Le Grand Soir while a special distinction citation was presented to Bosnian film Djeca by Aida Begic.

    Un Certain Regard focuses on new and emerging filmmakers.

    It has been earlier reported that the top prize, the Palme d‘Or was bagged by Michael Haneke‘s Amour.

  • Madagascar-3 releasing 8 June

    Madagascar-3 releasing 8 June

    MUMBAI: Paramount Pictures and Viacom18 Motion Pictures have lined up Madagascar-3: Europe’s Most Wanted (3D) to release on 8 June in India. The film recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

    For the first time, a Madagascar film has been made in 3D.

    Alex the Lion, Marty the Zebra, Melman the Giraffe, and Gloria the Hippopotamus set out to return to New York after escaping to Africa. Dependent on the mechanical knowhow of the notorious chimpanzees and penguins, their plan inevitably goes awry and they find themselves stranded in Monte Carlo where they try to escape Europe from animal control led by Captain Chantel DuBois by joining up with a traveling circus by chance.

    Led by the venerable Siberian tiger Vitaly, the animal-centered circus has seen better days. During the course of a tour through a series of European cities that ends in a fabulous big top in the heart of London, Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria help Vitaly the tiger, Gia the jaguar, and Stefano the sea lion rediscover their passion for show business and reinvent circus performance.

    The film features Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and King Julian (Sacha Baron Cohen).

  • Fortissimo Films acquires international rights of Miss Lovely

    Fortissimo Films acquires international rights of Miss Lovely

    MUMBAI: Days before the Cannes Film Festival, Amsredam-based Fortissimo Films has acquired the international rights of director Ashim Ahluwalia‘s Miss Lovely.

    The film will have its premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at 65th Cannes Film Festival. Taking advantage of the situation, Fortissimo will also market the film at the festival.

    Set in the lower depths of Bombay‘s “C” grade film industry, Miss Lovely follows the devastating story of two brothers who produce sex horror films in the mid-1980s.

    Commented Fortissimo in its official website, “The film gets under the skin of the Bollywood underground, an audacious cinema with wild cinemascope compositions, lurid art direction, rollicking background soundtracks and gut-wrenching melodrama.”

    The production, sales and distribution company has been behind films like Wong Kar Wai‘s In the Mood for Love. It had earlier acquired international rights of Indian director Anand Gandhi‘s Ship of Theseus which is currently under production.

  • Cannes fest announces line-up

    Cannes fest announces line-up

    MUMBAI: The Cannes Film Festival has announced the lineup for its 2012 edition. Among the filmmakers in the mix the mix this year include Michael Haneke, Ken Loach, Cristian Mungiu, Alain Resnais, Carlos Reygadas, Matteo Garrone, Jacques Audiard and Abbas Kiarostami.


    Films in the In Competition section are Amour, The Angels‘ Share, Baad el mawkeaa, Beyond the Hills, Cosmopolis, Holy Motors, The Hunt, Killing Them Softly, In Another Country, In the Fog, Rust and Bone, Lawless, Like Someone in Love, Moonrise Kingdom, Mud, On the Road, The Paperboy,Paradies: Liebe, Post tenebras lux, Reality, Matteo Garrone, Rust and Bone, Taste of Money, and You Haven‘t Seen Anything Yet.


    Films in the Un Certain Regard section are: 7 Days in Havana, 11.25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate, Antiviral, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Confession of a Child of the Century, Laurence Anyways, Despues de Lucia, La Pirogue, La Playa, Xavier Dolan Le grand soir, Les Chevaux de Dieu,Loving Without Reason, Miss Lovely,Mystery, Student, Trois mondes and White Elephant.


    Notably missing from official competition will be American directors Terrence Malick and Paul Thomas Anderson. Representing the US instead would be Lee Daniels with The Paperboy and Jeff Nichols with Mud.

  • Chandrabhushan’s The Untold Tale invited to Cannes

    Chandrabhushan’s The Untold Tale invited to Cannes

    MUMBAI: Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s film The Untold Tale has been invited to be screened in the Cannes L’Atelier section at the forthcoming Cannes Film Festival in May. It is one of the 15 scripts selected for the Cannes L’Atelier section.

    The occasion gives the filmmaker a good chance for interaction with potential financiers and distributors. The organisers have already helped the filmmaker find a French co-producer for this multi-lingual project.

    According to the director, the idea for the new film has been with him for five years now. “My co-writer Triparna Banerjee and I wrote 15 drafts before sending the script to Cannes. We are still tweaking it before the filming begins,”he adds.

    The story of The Untold Tale begins with a girl who realises that her grandmother was a Flamenco dancer who fell in love with an Indian man in the ’50s. Her search for her roots then takes her through France, Spain and India.

    The film will be shot in Bikaner, Barcelona and Roussillona, a small French town close to the Spanish border.

    It may be recalled that the director came out with the idea of making the film when he was in Spain to promote his film Frozen in 2007. It was then that he discovered that the traditional Flamenco dance form has its roots in Kathak. Further research revealed historical records that gypsies from north-western India journeyed to Spain. That is, perhaps, how Flamenco evolved.