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Tag: Dev Benegal

  • Satish Kaushik’s ‘Dead End’ wins $15,000 in Seoul

    Satish Kaushik’s ‘Dead End’ wins $15,000 in Seoul

    MUMBAI: Independent Film Week is one-of-a-kind event which brings the international film and media community to New York City to advance new projects and support the future of storytelling by nurturing the work of both emerging and established independent artists and filmmakers.

     

    Through the Project Forum, held at the Independent Film Week, creatives connect with the financiers, executives, influencers and decision-makers in film, television, new media and cross-platform storytelling that can help them complete their latest works and connect with audiences. This one-of-a-kind event will take place from 14-18 September 2014 at Lincoln Center supporting bold new content from a wide variety of domestic and international artists. And Satish Kaushik’s ‘Dead End’ has found place in the coveted few from entries coming from world over.

     

    After winning HAF at Hong Kong, ‘Dead End’ has scored in Korea. The script is making its rounds in the Network of Asian Fantastic Film (NAFF) countries and has made yet another mark by winning the best script at Seoul at Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Pifan).

     

    Dev Benegal’s pitch for a dark comedy ‘Dead End’ was named as the best project at the Network of Asian Fantastic Films. The Bucheon Award is worth $15,000.

     

     ‘Dead End’ is a story of a man who is declared as dead by a shady government department and has to take extreme measures to prove that he is alive. The script is written by Dev Benegal and Sarat Rao and is to be produced by Satish Kaushik Entertainment and Benegal’s August Entertainment. Satish Kaushik will play the main lead.

     

    Talking about the win Satish Kaushik said,” The project has been garnering positive response and now with two awards in its kitty and a cash prize win we can look at kick- starting pre production. ‘Dead End’ will see one of the most successful complex cross country funding and I’m sure it will firm up India’s position in the global cinema market. I have always believed that cinema has no language and ‘Dead End’ has proved it so. A simple village folk from India is now known to all top notches in the cinema circuit. Who could even imagine of such a scope? I had the rights to the story. Dev and I developed it and I want him to direct this project as well.”

     

    After the win at HAF and NAFF, the script has garnered interest from world over. Kaushik has been in talks with The Weinstein Company and the legendary Karl Baumgartner’s partners. Enquiries have been trickling down from countries like Germany, France, Japan, UK, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and US to meet Kaushik and Benegal to lap up the project.

     

    The project is up for funding and will be developed as an international venture. It will release world over as the story caters to international sensibilities and a wider audience beyond India.

     

    The NAFF project platform is a successful market to the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Pifan). Now in its Eighteenth edition the festival has not only made a mark in Korea but also on the global map. This year it hosted 27 local and Asian projects, welcoming 259 executives to 449 formal one-on-one pitch meetings.

  • Dev Benegal wins at Hong Kong Film Bazaar

    Dev Benegal wins at Hong Kong Film Bazaar

    NEW DELHI: Dev Benegal’s Dead, End has won the the Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) prize at this year’s Hong Kong Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF) awards.

     

    Network of Asian Fantastic Films (NAFF) prize is sponsored by the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan).

     

    Benegal’s film is being directed in collaboration with actor-filmmaker Satish Kaushik as producer and actor. It revolves around the story of Lal Bihari, a farmer from Uttar Pradesh, who was declared dead from 1976 to 1994. After a relative, in a bid to usurp his land, proved that Bihari had died, the latter had to fight against the bureaucracy to prove that he is alive.

     

    Kaushik had planned to make the film a decade earlier with Anil Kapoor and took on Benegal because of the manner in which the latter developed the screenplay.

     

    This year, the HAF received around 300 submissions from 11 countries and regions. Each winner receives a HK$150,000 (US$19,300) cash prize.

     

    The forum, that connects Asian filmmakers and their upcoming film projects with film financiers worldwide, was held from 24 to 26 March at the Hong Kong convention and exhibition centre.

     

    Hong Kong’s Angel Whispers and Taiwan’s Private Eyes:1 picked up the main awards at the HAF.

     

    Actress Carrie NG’s directorial debut, a murder mystery about the disappearance of a prostitute, won the HAF Award for a Hong Kong project. She is set to co-direct with Shirley Yung. Chang Jung-chi’s Private Eyes, about a playwright who becomes a private detective, won the award for a non-Hong Kong project. The director’s Touch of the Light (2012) was a HAF project in 2009.

     

    The HAF Script Development Award went to Jack Shih’s The Solitary Pier, an animated film about a fisherman in a small seaside village. The HAF/Fox Chinese Film Development Fund, which comes with a HK$100,000 (US$12,900) prize and a development contract with Fox, went to Shu Haolun’s romance drama Love is Speaking.

     

    The Wouter Barendrecht Award named after the late Fortissimo Films co-founder that comes with a cash prize of HK$50,000 (US$6,440), went to Fazila AmiriI’s documentary Hip Hop Kabul. Presenters Michael J. Werner and Nelleke Driessen praised the project as “very daring”.

     

    Established for the first time this year, the Fushan Documentary Award went to Zhao Liang’s Dust about the coal mines of Inner Mongolia. Zhao will receive a HK$100,000 (US$12,900) cash prize and a development contract with the newly formed Fushan Features.

  • Kareena Kapoor heads for an unconventional path, career-wise

    Kareena Kapoor heads for an unconventional path, career-wise

    MUMBAI: Kareena Kapoor Khan is keen to balance her work in commercial cinema with more challenging films. The 32-year-old Pataudi bahu has announced that she has been signed by director Dev Benegal for Bombay Samurai which features Farhan Akhtar as well as by Rohit Shetty for the sequel of Singham.

     

    While projects with Sudhir Mishra and Aanand Rai are also under discussion, Dibakar Banerjee is keen to cast the actress in his next film venture. Kapoor recently admitted that she missed out on working with Ram Leela director Sanjay Leela Bhansali after she walked out of the film, but claims she has “no regrets.”