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Tag: Lipstick under my burkha

  • National Film Development Corporation reveals 2024 Screenwriters’ Lab finalists

    National Film Development Corporation reveals 2024 Screenwriters’ Lab finalists

    Mumbai: National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) received more than 150 applications this year from 21 states out of which six projects of various genres have been selected for the 17th edition of NFDC Screenwriters’ Lab, an ongoing initiative to develop, nurture, and promote original voices from all over India. The six screenwriters, who also happen to be filmmakers of ad films, short films, novelist, documentaries, and feature films, have written the selected scripts in multiple languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Pahadi, Punjabi, Assamese, Malayalam, Konyak, English & Maithili.

    “We, at NFDC, strongly feel that a well-written script forms the foundation of a compelling story, engaging characters, and meaningful dialogue, all of which are essential elements of a successful film. We are at the forefront of not only training our writers to better develop their unique stories, but also pitch them successfully to domestic and international producers and investors at Film Bazaar, while keeping industry trends and practices in mind,” said NFDC Film Bazaar team

    The three-part intensive Screenwriters’ Lab is part of NFDC Labs’ ongoing initiative to develop original voices and stories from India. Selected participants work closely with noted mentors in an intensive 5-month program to fine-tune existing screenplays through personalized interactions and group sessions under the guidance of acclaimed script experts from India and around the  world. Aimed at domestic as well as international markets, the projects will be pitched to  producers and investors in a specially designed session during Film Bazaar 2024.

    The six selected projects for NFDC Screenwriters’ Lab 2024 are as follows:

    1.  Hawa Mithai by (CANDY FLOSS) Anuritta K Jha – Maithili & Hindi

    A six year-old village boy Tundu and his best friend Bullu set out on a heart-warming and fantastical journey to eat the Sun inspired by the legend of Lord Hanumanji, in order to win back his mother’s love.

    2.  I’ll Smile in September by Aakash Chhabra – Hindi, Urdu, Pahadi & Punjabi

    After getting separated from the love of his life and losing his front teeth in a brutal altercation which ensues after it, a young brass band player in Old Delhi attempts to move on in life by finding his smile back.

    3.  Kalaa Kaali (The Art Of The Dark) by Anam Danish – English & Hindi

    Two siblings along with their friends, investigate a death in the family only to discover a generational curse that looms over them and set out to end it by using their family’s tradition of black magic.

    4.  Konyak by Uddhav Ghosh – Konyak Naga & Hindi & English

    On the fringe of civilisation, amidst Nagaland’s unforgiving beauty, a deadly feud erupts between legendary headhunting tribes. Young warrior Thungpang Konyak, burdened by prophetic visions and haunted by betrayal, embarks on a relentless chase to protect his community and reclaim honor, confronting his former friend turned mortal enemy Sangba, as brother turns against brother in a brutal struggle for survival.

    5.  Mangal – The Holy Beast by Triparna Maiti – Assamese, Malayalam & Hindi

    Captured as an elephant calf, Mangal encounters both love and loss as he is made to join the world of humans. Transported from one place to another, changing hands, he ultimately becomes a revered deity worshiped as God, yet tied in chains, until he decides to break free.

    6.  Piyush Ki Toh…Nikal Padi (To Pee or Not To Pee) by Piyush Srivastava – Hindi

    Piyush, a charming 32-year old, faces a comedic nightmare on his first visit to his in-laws when a packing mistake leaves him without Adult Diapers, risking exposure of his embarrassing bedwetting problem. He must navigate a hilarious & heart-warming journey to procure new ones with his supportive wife’s help, all while keeping his secret hidden.

    About Mentors

    This year’s mentors include the founder of NFDC Screenwriters’ Lab (features) Marten Rabarts (New Zealand), Claire Dobbin (Australia), Ritesh Shah (India)

    1. Marten Rabarts – With more than 30 years of experience in the film industry, Marten Rabarts held his most recent position as the Festival Director of the New Zealand International Film Festival, following nearly 5 years heading EYE International at the EYE, the national film museum of the Netherlands. Prior to this, Marten served as the Head of Development and Training at NFDC India in Mumbai, where he established NFDC LABS, contributing to the success of films like The Lunchbox and Titli, among many others. Previously, Rabarts was Artistic Director of Binger Filmlab in Amsterdam for 12 years, which saw such successes as Michael Roskam’s Bullhead, cult hit The Babadook by Jennifer Kent, Cannes-winning Salvo by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza, and Adina Pintilie’s 2018 Golden Bear Award winner Touch Me Not. Furthermore, Marten was a founding member of the advisory board of Torino Film Lab, is a voting member of the European Film Academy, served on the board of European Film Promotion, and regularly serves on festival juries, including the Berlinale (Short Film Jury, Generation 14plus, Teddy Awards), Skip City Tokyo, Adelaide Film Festival, and Guanajuato Film Festival, among others.

    2. Claire Dobbin – Claire is a globally active script editor, executive producer, and creative producer, collaborating with development agencies, screenwriters, producers, and directors. She has been serving as a script advisor since 2005 for the prestigious international script workshop éQuinoxe Europe, participating as a jury member in key international film festivals, and also organizing and leading international screenwriting workshops in diverse locations such as Italy, Ukraine, India, Norway, Doha, Dubai, Iran, Germany, and New Zealand. From 1986 to 2000, Claire held the position of Senior Executive (Creative) at Australia’s national screen agency. Between 2003 and 2019, Claire chaired the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), overseeing initiatives that made MIFF a cornerstone of the industry. She secured funds for MIFF’s international film finance market and established the MIFF Premiere Fund, investing in over 50 Australian films that premiered at MIFF. Claire’s achievements include receiving the Order of Australia (AM) for Services to the Australian Film Industry in 2017 and the Jill Robb Award for outstanding leadership in the Victorian Screen Industry in 2019. Currently, Claire serves as the executive producer for several films and is actively involved in script editing international feature films and TV series across New Zealand, Australia, Europe, India, and the United States.

    3. Ritesh Shah – Ritesh Shah did his Bachelors in English Literature from Hindu College (1993-1996) and has done his Masters in Mass Communications from MCRC, Jamia Milia Islamia. He began his career as a playwright with Act One Art Group, New Delhi. His works include the fringe award winner Othello – A play in black and white. Ritesh switched to television in 1999. His television writing credits include Josh, Kashmeer, Krishna Arjun and the award winning series Kagaar. Ritesh Shah began his film career by contributing dialogue to movies like Kahaani and Namastey London and then went on to co-write films like D-day and Airlift. His solo screenplay and dialogue credits include films like B.A. Pass, Citylights, Force, the critically acclaimed Pink and Raid. Ritesh Shah has been nominated for Filmfare award for best story for B.A.Pass and best screenplay for D-day for which he also won a Zee Cine Awards Nomination. He won the Filmfare, Zee Cine and Star Screen awards for best dialogue for Pink.

    Previous, award-winning projects that have originated from the NFDC Screenwriters’ Lab include LUNCHBOX (Ritesh Batra), LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA (Alankrita Shrivastava), DUM LAGA KE HAISHA (Sharat Katariya), TITLI (Kanu Behl), SHAB (Onir), A DEATH IN THE GUNJ (Konkona Sen Sharma), ISLAND CITY (Ruchika Oberoi), BOMBAY ROSE (Gitanjali Rao), and CHUSKIT (Priya Ramasubban), In the Belly of a Tiger (Siddartha Jatla), Fire in the Mountains (Ajitpal Singh) Ullozhukku (Christo Tomy) just to name a few.
     

  • Tulsea hires Suchir Batra as SVP: reports

    Tulsea hires Suchir Batra as SVP: reports

    MUMBAI: Talent and content management company Tulsea has hired WME business affairs executive Suchir Batra as SVP, according to a report by Deadline. Batra will lead the company’s expanded international business based in Los Angeles.

    He will leverage his experience as an entertainment lawyer, agent and biz-affairs executive to come up with opportunities that are aligned with Tulsea’s plans and presence in India. He will also work with subsidiaries in India and Africa to generate more opportunities for Tulsea’s roster of talent, corporate and production company clients.

    Batra has previously worked at Fullscreen and Greenberg Traurig. He was also an agent at William Morris Agency before the Endeavor merger, helping to launch William Morris Consulting in the UK.

    Mumbai-based Tulsea, founded by Datta Dave and Chaitanya Hegde, has helped in getting writer and director talent for TV series and films including Sacred Games, Leila, Ghoul, Mirzapur, Made in Heaven, Metro Park, Brown Nation, Lipstick Under My Burkha, Udta Punjab, NH10, Masaan and Uri: The Surgical Strike.

    Additionally, Tulsea is also a strategic advisor for international and domestic studios, production companies and platforms.

  • A week full of damp squibs, despite huge expectations

    Some whiz kid got the idea that to make an Indian version of the popular comic book series Adventures of Tin Tin,blending it with a generous dose of Hollywood musicals and the rest will follow. But this just an idea, a one-liner. Not a script. However, a star fell for it for as he had nothing to lose. One can understand that, but how does a studio fall prey to the idea and commits anything between Rs 300 to Rs 1.50 billion?

    If last week the result was Jagga Jasoos costing around Rs one billion in the making, this week there was Munna Michael which was a straight but unimaginative ‘inspiration’ taken from the films of 1980s, described as disco films. When they were not branded as Disco films, Jumping Jack Jeetendra ruled and later when Mithun Chakraborty took over the mantle of the dancing star, it was the disco era and, he was the disco star!

    While the films in that era boasted of massive twists and turns and emotional appeal, Munna Michael is poorly scripted with nothing except dances and action. Casting Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a film cannot be considered an asset just because he is building a fan base despite not fitting into the scheme of things by any stretch of imagination!

    Not surprisingly, Munna Michael proves to be a loser. It opened such a poor response that immediately on its release, the theatre managements decide to reduce the film’s screening slots. The film collected 64 million on day one, lost some ground on Saturday while improving by around Rs 100 million on Sunday. The film collected Rs 205 million for its opening weekend.

    Lipstick Under My Burkha, a pretentious film based on the lives of women in Bhopal had the maker raise an issue, highlights the lives of four miserable women with their dreams and aspirations, mainly related to sex and freedom but ending without a remedial conclusion or even a suggestion to this end.

    Thanks to the controversy generated at the Film Censors, the film found few viewers mainly in select Delhi and Mumbai multiplexes. The film managed to collect Rs 11.5 million on day one and showed a marginal rise on Saturday and peaking on Sunday to collect Rs 55 million for its opening weekend. The real test for the film will be through the rest of the week.

    Jagga Jasoos, having been rejected, managed the first week’s collections of about Rs 431 million. The second week holds no promise as the film managed to add Rs 12 million on its eighth day compared to Rs 79 million on its first day

    The highly-touted Sridevi starrer Mom collected Rs 71 million in its second week to take its two-week total to Rs 296 million.

    Guest in London added Rs 1.5 million in its second week to take its two-week total to Rs 68.5 million.

  • Munna Michael….. Just a passable affair!

    Munna Michael follows the formula of musical films about disco dancers made during 1980s to the core. You know, the kind of films Mithun Chakraborty was identified with! Such films also provided ample scope for action. Dances were the mainstay of these films. Action and romance followed. But this time TV serials related to dance competitions replace the disco dancing.

    An infant is left in a garbage dump. A dejected Michael (Ronit Roy), just thrown out of a dance group after being told he had passed his ‘best before’ date, is walking home drowning his sorrows in alcohol when he notices this infant. He brings him home and decides to tend to him. Not able to think of a name for him, he just calls him Munna (Tiger Shroff) who later adds Ronit’s character name, Michael, as his father’s name. Munna has an ear for music. As an infant, whenever he cried, all that his father had to do was to play music and the child would stop crying.

    Munna takes to dancing from the beginning. He dances his way through the school and later, as a grown up, rules the clubs. But soon, after an influential lad loses to Munna, he is banned from all Mumbai clubs.

    Munna moves to Delhi and it is time to introduce the baddies. Munna has an altercation with some goons. One of them happens to be the brother of Mahinder Fauji (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a big time land-grabber don of Delhi. Mahinder is supposed to be a strongman and, hence, his introduction is through a fight he is involved in with a bunch of musclemen.

    Like all dons, Mahinder can’t bear his brother being defeated by anybody. He soon sets out to settle the score with Munna. When he spots Munna, he sees him dancing. Mahinder is impressed with what he sees. Mahinder can’t dance at all but it is his weakness because he is in silent love with Dolly (Nidhi Agerwal) who dances in a local hotel. He asks Munna to teach him to dance within a month. Because, Mahinder wants to dance with Dolly and impress her on Valentine’s Day. Munna accepts this impossible job since the money offered is good.

    Meanwhile, the musclemen whom Mahinder had beaten up take him by surprise when he is alone and just when they are about to kill him, Munna turns up and saves his life. Much obliged, Mahinder makes Munna his brother.

    Forty minutes into the film and it is time to introduce the girl. Mahinder takes Munna to see Dolly dance and later makes him his personal courier boy to deliver gifts and messages to Dolly. As usually happens in films, Dolly starts loving Munna. Wanting Dolly to be close to him, Mahinder offers Dolly the job to dance in his own hotel and also gifts her with a flat and a car.

    But, Mahinder’s brother spoils things by trying to molest Dolly and she runs away to Mumbai. Mahinder asks Munna to find her. As expected, he finds her at a studio participating in a dance contest. Munna lets his dancing buddies form a group with her but keeps his dancing talents a secret from her.

    As the dance competition is entering its final stage and getting no result from Munna, Mahinder lands up in Mumbai. On learning that Munna and Dolly are a pair, angry Mahinder wants to kill both.

    The idea of making this into a love triangle does not quite work as both men, Munna and Mahinder loving the same girl. While one can watch dances, too much of same kind of action spoils the fun. There also needed to be some light moments.

    The film is passable through its first part but after interval, it goes off road many times. It is a musical fine but a couple of songs mar the pace of the film. Director Sabbir Khan has earlier worked with Munna in Heropanti and Baaghi, but counting only on his two prowesses, dance and action is not enough. Editing needed to be sharper. Musically, the dance songs are good along with the romantic number – Pyar Ho.

    Performance wise, there is not much to write about. While Munna dances well and is good in action, Mahinder is miscast. Dolly is passable.

    On the whole, Munna Michael has not been received well and the reports mar its further prospects.

     Producers: Viki Rajani

    Direcrtor: Sabbiir Khan

    Cast: Munna Shroff, Mahinder Siddiqui, DollyAgerwal.

    Lipstick Under My Burkha…….Of curtailed lives

    More and more woman oriented films are being made and, most of them try to show the bolder side of the woman or try to get into the inner self of one. Not long ago, there was a film, Parched, which juxtaposed lives of three women from Rajasthan; the film was also directed by a woman director, Leena Yadav. The film dealt with miseries of these women and how they found solace from each other’s company.

    Lipstick Under My Burkha takes up the cause of four women from Bhopal and scans through their aspirations and desires which they can’t air openly.

    The film is about male domination and the patriarchal society. So here there are four women living under the same roof. That being a crumbling mansion owned by Usha (Ratna Pathak Shah). Not much has changed really since instead of men, it is her writ that runs in this house.

    Usha’s subjects are Shireen (Konkona Sen Sharma), a mother of three with a husband played by Sushant Singh, who thinks a wife is meant only for sex and bear children; Leela (Ahana Kumra), owner of a small time beauty parlour in the locality whose sexual desires matter to her and the world be damned and where from she gets it is also immaterial to her; there is Rihana (Plabita Borthakur) who is neither here nor there stuck between her parents’ orthodox ways and her aspirations. Then, there is Usha, who has been discounted as an aunt because of her age. None thinks at her age she also could have desires, which she has.

    The title is suggestive of the hidden desires of women like a woman hidden under a burkha. They are not aired, just dreamt about.

    The thing with Lipstick Under My Burkha is that, it is a film about underprivileged small city women, not that big city women don’t suffer the same fate.

    This is a performance oriented film and while Konkona Sen Sharma, Aahana Kumra and Plabita Borthakur do very well it is Ratna Pathak Shah who hogs the limelight. The male actors are fillers.

    Despite its limited and publicity it got during the Censor controversy, Lipstick Under My Burkha has limited scope at few upmarket multiplexes.

    Producers: Prakash Jha.

    Director: Alankrita Srivastava.

    Cast: Ratna Pathak Shah, KonkonaSensharma, AahanaKumra, PlabitaBorthakur, Vikrant Massey, Sushant Singh, Shashank Arora, VaibhavTatwawaadi, Jagat Singh Solanki.

  • NY Indian Filmfest: ‘Mukti Bhawan’ is best feature, short on Kejriwal is best docu

    NEW DELHI: The Hindi film ‘Mukti Bhawan’ (Hotel Salvation) by Shubhashish Bhutiani on treatment of senior citizens has won the best film award at the 17th annual New York Indian Film Festival.

    The actress Konkona Sen Sharma, who hails from a film family, won two awards: one as director for ‘A death in the Gunj’ and the second as actress for ‘Lipstick under my burkha’.

    The week-long festival premiered 85 shorts, documentaries and feature films from the Indian subcontinent in Hindi and English, and in seven regional languages (Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Marathi, Gujarati and Bengali).

    The best actor award went to K Kaladharan for ‘The Narrow Path’. The best screenplay award went to P Balachandran for ‘Kammattipadam’. The best short was ‘Aaba’ by Amar Kaushik and the best documentary award went to ‘An insignificant man’ by Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla about the meteoric rise of Arvind Kejriwal on the Indian political scene which has already won acclaim overseas.

    ‘Aaba’ has also been selected for the Berlin International Film Festival.

    ‘Mukti Bhawan’ had also received the special mention in the National Awards for producer Red Carper Moving Pictures and director Shubhashish Bhutiani and actor Adil Hussain and had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival on 2 September last year.

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    In addition to film premieres, the festival featured sidebar programming such as Sibling Filmmakers (Deepa & Dilip Mehta), Priyanka Produces (VENTILATOR & SARVANN), Tribute to Om Puri, Mobile Bollywood, “Shoot a Short Film” workshop, industry panels (CAA’s Short Film Initiative), nightly networking events, red carpets and a gala.

    More than 40 filmmakers attended the festival and participated in Q&A sessions after their films.

    The annual festival was organized by the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC): Founded in 1998, the IAAC is a secular, not-for-profit, service and resource arts organization charged with the mission of promoting and building the awareness, creation, production, exhibition, publication and performance of Indian, sub-continental and cross-cultural art forms in North America.

    It also works with artists and arts organizations in North America as well as to facilitate artists and arts organizations from India as well as other countries from the rest of the Indian sub-continent to exhibit, perform and produce their work here. The IAAC works passionately to become an integral part of the amazing cultural diversity of New York City and the United States. The IAAC supports all artistic disciplines int he classical, fusion, folk and innovative forms influenced by the arts of the Indian subcontinent.