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Tag: Seema Biswas

  • Box office sees ho-hum collections this week

    Box office sees ho-hum collections this week

    MUMBAI: Almost all movies failed to get the cash registers ringing at the box office this week.

     

    Renowned artistes like Om Puri, Annu Kapoor, Seema Biswas and Satish Kaushik and the co-writer of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Ranjit Kapoor, couldn’t help salvage Jai Ho! Democracy. People in India don’t need to be reminded about the shortcomings of the polity.

     

    The other release of the week, Kaagaz Ke Fools, fared even worse. No footfalls worth noting.

     

    There was also another release, better than the other two, but with no face value. Hence it failed to bring in the audience.

     

    Much was expected from Nanak Shah Fakir but the film has not worked. The film barely managed to put together a figure of Rs 90 lakh for its first week.

     

    Mr X, a forced 3-D, falls flat and adds one more disaster to the names of Vikram Bhatt and Emraan Hashmi. The film, which managed a weekend of Rs 12.45 crore, barely manages to add another Rs 6.1 crore over the next four days to end its first week with Rs 18.55 crore.

     

    Margarita With A Straw, released at limited screens, fared okay at multiplexes in metros to end its first week with a collection figure of Rs 3.15 crore.

     

    Ek Paheli Leela collected Rs 2.15 crore in its second week to take its two-week tally to Rs 20.85 crore.

     

    Dharam Sankat Mein collected Rs 1.15 crore in its second week. With this, the film’s two week total stands at Rs 8.75 crore.

     

    Detective Byomkesh Bakshyi takes its three week total to Rs 26.68 after three weeks.

  • ‘Jai Ho! Democracy’: Freedom misused

    ‘Jai Ho! Democracy’: Freedom misused

    MUMBAI: Jai Ho! Democracy raises some hope because of a few names in its cast and credits. The film is written by Ranjit Kapoor, the co-writer of the all-time classic comedy, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983), and also has some talented actors in Om Puri, Annu Kapoor, Satish Kaushik and Seema Biswas.

    However, as the film unwinds, rather than entertain, it goes on to belie your expectations.

    There is an incident at the border. A hen lands up in no man’s land and an Indian army cook is asked to go retrieve it. Once in no man’s land, the Pakistani soldiers start firing at him. The Indian troops contemplate whether to retaliate. The media gets wind of the situation and turns it into a ‘on the verge of war’ story.

    Concerned with the media outcry, a committee is set up to look into the matter. The representatives come from various parties and states. The idea is to create comedy through the conflict of communicating due to language barriers. The committee goes by the rule book and instead of discussing the situation, gets entwined into technicalities.

     

     

    A contradiction to the committee’s communication problem is displayed in no man’s land where an Indian and a Pakistani soldier come face to face. They have no problem communicating as both speak Punjabi. They start in Punjabi for which no subtitles are deemed necessary. Both soon embark on a nostalgia trip about the pains of partition and crave for an undivided country.

    The film is only 96 minutes long and yet feels like 36 minutes too long. The script is a total let down and its attempts to create humour fall flat. Of the star cast, which turns into caricatures, only Annu Kapoor does the Tamilian politician act well. Rest fill the bill.

    Direction goes the same way as the script: nowhere.

    Jai Ho! Democracy is a let-down and waste of talent.

    Producer: Bikramjeet Singh Bhullar

    Director: Ranjit Kapoor

    Cast: Om Puri, Annu Kapor, Satish Kaushik, Seema Biswas, Adil Hussain, Aamir Bashir, Grusha Kapoor, Benjamin Gilani

     

    ‘Kaagaz Ke Fools’: Yawn Some

    Kaagaz Ke Fools is a film about a husband-wife relationship, which is always sour. Strangely both love each other but it never shows.

    Vinay Pathak aspires to be a writer but being the honest and principled man that he is, he won’t write anything cheap or filthy. He works for a small advertising agency, writing copy for lingerie and other such products. He is not ambitious while his wife, Mugdha Godse, nurses all the ambitions.

    Producers: Faisal Kapadia

    Director: Anil Kumar Chaudhary

    Cast: Vinay Pathak, Mugdha Godse, Saurabh Shukla, Raima Sen

    Vinay is supposed to be a talented writer but since he won’t break his rules about clean writing, no publisher is willing to publish his work. As a result he is still sitting on the very first book he has penned. Mugdha is a full time nag and the amount of nagging she does to egg him on in his writing would have made any man commit suicide. He loves his wife immensely and tries to placate her every time she starts off.

    There is a gathering at Vinay’s friend’s house where one his friends provokes Mugdha asking about Vinay’s book and how his own book has sold about 1.75 lakh copies. To bring luck, Mugdha even asks a Feng Shui specialist to rearrange her house. Vinay is against all these things and again an argument starts. Vinay is not the suicide type so instead he leaves home trying to find alcohol and shelter in his friend’s house.

    There again he comes across the same friend whose book has sold 1.75 lakh copies. An argument ensues and is about to become violent when Vinay is asked to leave.

    Vinay meets a friendly rickshaw guy who takes him to an illegal bar cum whorehouse cum casino. Here, he is asked to try his luck at game of cards egged on by Raima Sen, a prostitute who hooks her customers from this place. Vinay wins some real money. Seeing a prospective client in him, Raima takes him to a friend’s house to seduce him. Vinay is totally sozzled by then and keeps uttering Mugdha’s name while keeping Raima at bay.

    After some forced sequences which are meant to be comic, Vinay’s book is published, the title having been changed from ‘Ek Thehrisi Zindagi’ to ‘Ek Tharkisi Zindagi’ and, predictably, it becomes a bestseller.

    The problem with the film is that the script is totally contrived. Characters are supposed to be Punjabi and actors trying to use Punjabi slang is hardly funny. Direction is poor with unnecessary cutting and shifting of scenes. Music seems inspired from old time Asha Bhosle repertoire. Cinematography is average. Editing is non-existent.

    Vinay Pathak does what he does in all his films, playing an honest simpleton which, for him, does not take much effort. Saurabh Shukla’s playing of a pucca Punjabi is jarring. Mugdha’s nagging is overdone. Raima makes faces, which cannot be passed off as acting.

    Kaagaz Ke Fools is a poor fare with no hope at the box office.

  • ‘Chaarfutiya Chhokare’ to be premiered in Dubai

    ‘Chaarfutiya Chhokare’ to be premiered in Dubai

    NEW DELHI:The bollywood film ‘Chaarfutiya Chhokre’ directed by Manish Harishankar will have its premiere in Dubai on 24 September.

     

    The film is presented by Wave Cinemas, Ponty Chadha, and Maxor Movies, in association with Raju Chadha. It will be released on 600 screens all over the world. The cast and crew are all set to leave for promotional tours all over India.

     

    The film stars Soha Ali Khan, Seema Biswas, Mukesh Tawari, and Zakir Hussian in the main roles. The music is by Abhijeet-Sameer and Sudeep Banerjee and the singers are by Sharda Sinha, Malini Awasthi, Sudeep Banerjee, and Vibha Dutta Khosla. T-Series releases the audio of the film.

     

    Chaarfutiya Chhokare is a Hindi social thriller on the subject of child-trafficking. The plot revolves around Neha Malini who is an NRI girl returning to India in order to start a school in a village in north Bihar.

     

    Starting off optimistic and happy about her endeavour, she is unaware of the hardships, obstructions and risks awaiting her in this small, serene village. She is pleased after meeting three boys Awadhesh, Hari and Gorakh but soon finds out that it is the beginning of a nightmare.

     

    Being hardcore criminals, these three boys become the centre of her activities. After seeing this, she vows to stop the criminal and sexual exploitation of the children in the village. Her meeting with Janaki (Seema Biswas) – the mother of one of the boys, Awadhesh – helps her understand the deeply embedded political-criminal nexus that pervades the system. Neha is resolute to free the three of them from this world of crime.

  • ‘Manjunath’ travels the film festival circuit

    ‘Manjunath’ travels the film festival circuit

    MUMBAI: Some stories need to be told and ‘Manjunath’ is one such story that Viacom18 Motion Pictures (VMP) in association with NFDC and ICOMO brought to the Indian viewer, making the 27 year old dead Manjunath Shanmugham more than just a headline.

     

    The Indian International Film Festival of Queensland 2014 confirmed ‘Manjunath’ as its opening film for the year and it has won the Special Jury Award (of encouragement) in this circuit. The Indian International Film Festival of Queensland (IIFFOQ) is a celebration of new wave Indian cinema that was held in Brisbane from 28 June to 2 July. ‘Manjunath’ is also to be screened at the Jagran Film Festival on the domestic front on 6 July in Delhi.

     

    ‘Manjunath’, a biopic on the IIM graduate who was brutally murdered for exposing the petrol adulteration scam by the fuel mafia in Uttar Pradesh in 2005 is directed by Sandeep Varma, reputed ad-film maker and the Managing Director of ICOMO. The Cast includes veteran theatre and film actors like Divya Dutta, Anjorie Alagh, Seema Biswas and Yashpal Sharma with debutant Sasho Satiiysh Saarathy playing the lead as Manjunath.

  • Europe’s Largest South Asian Film Event is Back!

    Europe’s Largest South Asian Film Event is Back!

    MUMBAI: Executive produced by actor Emma Thompson, Sold will be the red carpet European Premiere opening night film of the Fifth annual London INDIAN Film Festival (July 10-17). This film is a powerful, survival against the odds tale about a young Nepali girl who is trafficked to Kolkata, India. Gillian Anderson stars with a great Indian and Nepali ensemble cast including Seema Biswas (Bandit Queen). Central highlights of the festival will be the UK Premiere of the true story Million Dollar Arm, from The Walt Disney Company, starring Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Suraj Sharma (Life of Pi). Bollywood’s hottest actor Farhan Akhtar and South Indian cinematography supremo Santosh Sivan will be giving rare screen talks at the BFI Southbank. Closing the festival will be the World Premiere of Hemalkasa, an homage to the revolutionary human rights leader Prakash Baba Amte, starring Bollywood hero Nana Patekar. Many other special guests are expected to a packed week of UK first screenings.

    Now Europe’s largest platform for Indian cinema, the London Indian Film Festival returns to the Capital, in association with Pure Heaven, the British Film Institute, and official Hotel Partner Grange Hotels, celebrating the exploding movement of Indian Independent cinema and bringing to UK audiences a rare selection of cutting-edge films from some of the Indian subcontinent’s hottest independent talents. Going way beyond Bollywood, the festival presents a kaleidoscope of new films that challenge, shock, generate debate and present a more realistic view of India and the subcontinent today, in all its diversity. The festival will stretch citywide, opening in the West End at the historic Cineworld Haymarket, and continuing at BFI Southbank, Cineworld cinemas Wembley, Wood Green, Wandsworth and O2 in Royal Greenwich and ICA near the Pall Mall, so there is a screening near you.

    The first weekend of this high-impact festival launches with Sold, on 10th July which explores the controversial theme of child trafficking; one school girl’s battle against the odds and the dangerous journey to liberate her from the Kolkata mafia; expect a glamorous line up of celebs to follow X Files and The Fall actress Gillian Anderson down the red carpet.

    On 12th July Rotterdam Film Festival headliner Qissa: Tale of a Lonely Ghost, has its UK Premiere, Irrfan Khan (Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi) plays a rural Punjabi father hell bent on having a son and heir, no matter what the consequences. Apur Panchali, based on a true-life story, is an emotionally charged homage to Satyajit Ray’s impoverished child character Apu and the real-life person who played one of the most famous child roles in world cinema. It screens on 13th July. By contrast Slamdance audience winner Hank and Asha explores a new generation of trans-global online romance, at ICA and Cineworlds across London. The festival’s Central Gala is the inspirational true story Million Dollar Arm that follows the uplifting journey of two Indian boys whose lives are transformed by a national TV contest and against the odds end up going to the US to train to become major sports stars.

     

    As well as films in the Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam languages, and UK/Pakistani film Anima State, in Urdu, the festival previews its first Bangladesh based film Shongram (Struggle) directed by Munsur Ali. In terms of special talks, India’s most celebrated cinematographer and acclaimed director Santosh Sivan gives a unique Masterclass at BFI Southbank, 11th July. The multi-talented singer, actor and director Farhan Akhtar rocks into town on 15th July and offers an insight on his high-octane career so far, including his iconic recent role as muscle rippling athletics hero Milkha Singh in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Expect lots of female fans! Bollywood icon Nana Patekar stars in the festival’s uplifting closing World Premiere of Hemalkasa. Directed by Samruddhi Porey it’s guaranteed to make you cry and smile at the same time.

    London Indian Film Festival also includes industry events at BAFTA, exploring UK and Indian subcontinent co-productions. The winner of the annual Satyajit Ray Short Film Competition will be announced at the end of the festival, with short-listed contenders battling it out at the ICA on 15th July. We are delighted to announce that our Major Sponsors this year will include Queen’s Award for Enterprise International Trade winner Sunmark Ltd, producers of Pure Heaven brand and founding sponsor Grange Hotels. The festival is also grant funded for by the BFI Film Festival Fund.

    Emma Thompson comments: “It is wonderful to have our film premiered at London Indian Film Festival, to raise awareness of child-trafficking, which is an issue close to my heart and is shockingly on the increase world-wide. We hope that this film will make people think and highlight the support for key charities such as The Helen Bamber Foundation and others working in this difficult area in India, Nepal and elsewhere”.
    Says Farhan Akhtar: “At its heart, Cinema is about sharing ones culture with the world. Be it on screen or in representation of ones work. I look forward to sharing my experiences, memories and motivations.”

    Cary Rajinder Sawhney, Festival Director comments: “We are delighted that the festival is now firmly established on the London and international scene after five amazing years. If you want to find out more about South Asian cinema, come to London and soak yourself in a week of magnificent, world class cinema”.

  • Jeffrey D. Brown’s ‘Sold’ to open Indian Film Fest of LA

    Jeffrey D. Brown’s ‘Sold’ to open Indian Film Fest of LA

    MUMBAI: The Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) announced on 6 March that its Opening Night Gala film would be Sold, a harrowing and inspiring story of child trafficking directed by Jeffrey D. Brown (Molly’s Pilgrim), executive produced by Emma Thompson (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), and starring Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), David Arquette (Scream), and Seema Biswas (Bandit Queen).

     

    The full line-up of screenings and events will be announced in mid-March. The festival is widely recognised as the premiere showcase of groundbreaking Indian cinema. Celebrating its 12th year, IFFLA will run from 8 to 13 April at ArcLight Hollywood in Los Angeles, the festival’s home since its inception.

     

    Through one extraordinary girl’s journey, Sold illustrates the brutality of child trafficking, a crime experienced by millions of girls every year around the globe. Sold is a clarion call to action and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit.

     

    “Because of Sold’s marvelous script and courageous and brilliant cast,” said Emma Thompson in a press statement, “It is a story that we can all watch, so that we may understand the processes of slavery in modern India and feel able to act without feeling the kind of rage and hopelessness that gets in the way of doing anything.”

     

    Sold is an adaptation of the National Book Award-Finalist novel by Patricia McCormick, based on true accounts. The book has been translated into 32 languages and is a powerful entry point to introduce young people to the issue of modern day slavery.

     

    Director Jeffery D. Brown and select A-list cast and supporters will be in attendance at the Opening Night Gala.

  • IFFI to highlight north-east cinema for the first time

    IFFI to highlight north-east cinema for the first time

    MUMBAI: The 44th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) to be held in Panaji, Goa will for the first time highlight cinema from the north eastern states of India. The opening ceremony for this section will include actors Seema Biswas and Adil Hussain.

     

    The festival has created a special north-east package named ‘Focus: North East’. The section will be inaugurated on 22 November and close on 27 November. A total of 23 films from the north east will be screened between these dates. This will include Ek Pal, as a special homage to its producer Hemendra Prasad Barooah.

     

    The opening movie of the section will be Khawnlung Run, the first-ever Mizo film to be screened in any international festival. Among the other films to be screened is Rupkonwar Jyotiprasad Aru Joymoti, which was directed by the late Bhupen Hazarika.

  • Film on Manjunath Shanmugham in offing

    Film on Manjunath Shanmugham in offing

    MUMBAI: With filmmaker Ramesh Sippy as the chairman of NFDC, the Corporation has returned to filmmaking after a long hiatus. The project will be co-financed by the IIT and IIM alumni.


    NFDC is now working on a new project based on the true story of Manjunath Shanmugham, an IIT alumni, who was brutally murdered for having exposed the oil mafia.


    The film to be directed by debutante Sandeep Verma will star Divya Dutta, Seema Biswas and Rajesh Khattar in the lead roles. The actor who plays the role of Manjunath has, however, been kept under wraps.


    Incidentally, the Manjunath murder case had celebrities like Aamir Khan raise their voice.

  • ‘Water’ to finally make it to Indian theatres

    ‘Water’ to finally make it to Indian theatres

    NEW DELHI: After bagging an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language category and being theatrically released in 57 countries, including the United Kingdom and Denmark, and having already brought in $ 5.6 million at the North American box office where it played in 150 theatres, Deepa Mehta’s Water will finally be seen in Indian theatres early next month.

    The renowned director told a press conference in the Capital yesterday that the John Abraham-Lisa Ray-Seema Biswas starrer was being released on 9 March all over the country.
    The film figured among the final five nominees for the ‘Best Foreign Language Film Category’ for the Oscars beating Indian entry Rang De Basanti. It went to the Oscars as a Canadian entry. The Oscars are being presented on 25 February and will air live on Star Movies.

    The film is the third in the trilogy of films by Deepa Mehta after Fire and 1947 Earth, and deals with the plight of widows in the India of the 1930s. Fire tackled lesbianism while Earth dealt with the subject of India’s partition.

    Set against Mahatma Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience movement of 1938, Water is a deeply moving tale of three women and their uprising against gender injustice and servitude in the ‘widow houses’ of India. The film’s release in India has been made possible by BR Films, a distribution firm owned by filmmaker Ravi Chopra.

    Speaking at the press meet, Chopra said his decision to take up the release of the film in India was not impelled by the film winning an Oscar nomination. “The decision to release the film in India was made before the film bagged the Oscar nomination,” Chopra said. He added: ”It is a very cute film, a beautiful love story. It is a film which has won accolades and box office success galore in the US and in this sense made India proud in the West. This is all the more reason why I felt people in India should see this film.”

    The theatrical release for the film in India comes almost seven years after protests by fundamentalists forced the filmmaker to suspend its shooting in Varanasi and abandon the project. The protestors alleged that the film was “anti-Hindu” and the sets of the film were set on fire by radical Hindu protesters who also burned Mehta’s effigy in the streets and threatened the director. Hundreds of army troops were deployed to protect the cast and crew but the production was finally forced to shut down.

    The film was revived four years later with a different cast. John Abraham replaced Bollywood star Akshay Kumar while model-turned-actor Lisa Ray took the place of Nandita Das. The shooting of the film was undertaken in Sri lanka in 2005 though the locale is shown as Varanasi.

    Asked about the controversy surrounding the film, Chopra said, ”In the film, Deepa Mehta is talking about something that happened in India in the 1930s. One can differ with the director’s take on the hapennings, but nobody can deny that it happened. As an Indian I, after watching the film, did not feel that the film hurts Indian sensibilities in any way.”

    Initially, the film will be released with about 100 prints all over India, including nine in Delhi. ”The film will initially be released in theatres in metros like New Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata. Later, depending on the response, we will take it to smaller centers,” Chopra said.

    Mehta said “winning a nomination at the Oscars is itself a matter of pride. from hereon it does not matter whether the film eventually wins an Oscar.” The film has been shortlisted along with Pan’s Labyrinth (Mexico), After The Wedding (Denmark), Days of Glory and the German Cold War drama The Lives of Others.

    John Abraham said, “Deepa Mehta is an actor’s director. She understands her actors’ sensibilities and projects her characters very well. In fact, I am proud to say that finally I have a Deepa Mehta’s film on my CV.”

    Released by Fox Searchlight in the US in April last year, Water went on to become one of the best reviewed films of the year, and the highest grossing Hindi-language drama
    ever released in North America. It received the Freedom of Expression award from the National Board of Review, was named one of the top ten best pictures by the New York Film Critics online and received their humanitarian award.

    Besides the Oscars nominations for Best Foreign Language film, Water has earlier recieved nine nominations and three awards at the 26th annual Genie awards (Canada’s Oscars), including an award for Seema Biswas for ‘Outstanding Actress in a leading Role’, ‘Achievement in Music-Original Score’ award for Mychael Danna and ‘Achievement in Cinematography’ award for Giles Nuttgens.

    The film also won for Deepa Mehta the Best Director and Lisa Ray the Best Actress award in the 2005 Vancouver Film Critics awards and recieved a nomination for Best Canadian Film.

  • Deepa Mehta’s ‘Water’ in Oscar race

    Deepa Mehta’s ‘Water’ in Oscar race

    MUMBAI: Nominations for the 79th Academy Awards were announced yesterday. It is likely that Star Movies’ ratings for the show, which it will air on 26 February, will be higher than last year.

    That is because Deepa Mehta’s Water is competing in the foreign film category.

    The film deals with the plight of widows in India in the 1930s and was submitted by Canada. It stars John Abraham, Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas. The film was not allowed to be shot in India. The favourite to win the foreign language film award though is Pan’s Labyrinth from Mexican filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro. Mongrel Media and Fox Searchlight, which released Water in Canada and 57 other countries, including the UK and Denmark, have, in the past few months, launched a nomination campaign in Hollywood to attract the attention of the Academy.

    Best director is once again a fight between veterans Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorcese. Eastwood made two great second world war films Flags Of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. He has ben nominated for the latter film which tells the story of the battle at Iwo Jima from Japan’s perspective. It has Japanese subtitles.

    The former releases in India tomorrow 25 January and tells the story from America’s perspective. Scorcese has been nominated for the gangster film The Departed. Two years back Eastwood won for Million Dollar Baby beating Scorcese who had been nominated for The Aviator.

    Best picture is less clear. Dreamgirls which had been considered the favourite has not been nominated for best film though it got a leading eight nominations. Besides the films of Eastwood and Scorcese the other films competing for best picture are The Queen about the two weeks following Princes Diana’s death, the global film Babel which has five languages and the comedy Little Miss Sunshine. There is no front runner.