KAUFMAN - "Or cramming in sex, or car chases, or guns. Or characters learning profound life lessons. Or characters growing or characters changing or characters learning to like each other or characters overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. Y'know ? Movie shit."
Kaufman is sweating like crazy now. Valerie is quiet for a moment - from "Adaptation".
We are all about CINEMA. That movie shit.
NOTHING is sacred.
NOBODY is spared.
Because we talk about films, dammit.
Not your sex life.
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Toronto International Film festival (TIFF) has announced 10 Indian films in its “City to City” segment where the focus this year is Mumbai.
Out of the selected ten films, four film will have its world premiere at TIFF. These four are Manjeet Singh’s Mumbai Cha Raja (The King of Mumbai), Anand Gandhi’s Ship of Theseus, Mohit Takalkar’s The Bright Day and Hansal Mehta’s Shahid. The other six includes Anurag Kashyap’s two-parter Gangs of Wasseypur, Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely, Habib Faisal’s Ishaqzaade, Dibakar Banerjee’s Shanghai and Vasan Bala’s Peddlers.
Since we have been covering Gangs Of Wasseypur, Miss Lovely, Peddlers, Ishaqzaade and Sanghai extensively, we are going to put out the info about the rest of the films now.
—> Shahid. Director : Hansal Mehta
Shahid is the remarkable true story of slain human rights activist and lawyer Shahid Azmi, who was killed in 2010 by unidentified assailants in his office. From attempting to become a terrorist, to being wrongly imprisoned under a draconian anti-terrorism law, to becoming a champion of human rights (particularly of the Muslim minorities in India), Shahid traces the inspiring personal journey of a boy who became an unlikely messiah for human rights, while following the rise of communal violence in India. This story of an impoverished Muslim struggling to come to terms with injustice and inequality, whilerising above his circumstances is an inspiring testament to the human spirit. Starring Raj Kumar, Prabhleen Sandhu and Baljinder Kaur.
—> Mumbai’s King (Mumbai Cha Raja). Director : Manjeet Singh
Rahul roams the streets with his balloon-seller friend Arbaaz. These two kids escape the grim realities of their lives by gambling, roasting stolen potatoes, stealing an auto rickshaw for a joyride, and chasing girls. But soon Rahul has to “take care” of his violent father, who has forced him to live on streets. Starring Rahul Bairagi, Arbaaz Khan and Tejas Parvatkar.
—> Ship of Theseus. Director : Anand Gandhi
For Poster, Stills and Official synopsis of the film, click here.
—> The Bright Day. Director : Mohit Takalkar
Yearning for meaning in his life, a coddled young man abandons his girlfriend and family to set out on a spiritual quest across India. Shot with sophisticated DSLR cameras and reflecting a new passion for personal filmmaking, The Bright Day finds images to chart a soul’s progress.
Yes, you read it right. Local, Kung-Fu, Rs 95,000, martial arts and a comedy! So over to the film’s lead actor, writer and director Kenny Basumatary, who tells us more about it. The trailer of the film is also attached. Have a look and give your feedback in the comments section.
Ten or eleven years ago, I went to Siri Fort Auditorium to watch Paanch. Anurag Kashyap, Kay Kay Menon and Tejaswini Kolhapuri were present, and I could see that Anurag was visibly thrilled about the first public screening of his debut film. Now, in 2012, my debut film, Local Kung Fu, is being premiered at the same place, and to add to all the excitement, in the same category as Anurag’s own Gangs of Wasseypur 2. I’m thrilled to bits!
We shot Local Kung Fu on a budget of Rs 95,000, inclusive of a Canon 550D, a 55-250mm lens, a Rode VideoMic and various shooting and fighting paraphernalia.
I think that for getting somewhere, one needs to reach the Bohot ho gaya *$#&@# point. One needs to be really tired of waiting for things to happen, and then go out and bloody well make ‘em happen. I reached my first Bohot ho gaya point towards the end of the Sankalan Script Lab, when my script Ek Plate Kung Fu might have made it from the top 6 to the top 3 were it not that a nice little film called Chandni Chowk To China came out and made a mess of things. But never mind that.
The next Bohot ho gaya point came when a wannabe producer/hero with negligible fighting skills came to my uncle, who teaches martial arts, wanting him to act in his film. I said okay, that’s it! If this chap can try to make a martial arts film, what on earth’s stopping me! By then we had already made about a dozen shorts, including 5-6 fight videos, and we’d gained a reasonable amount of knowledge and confidence about choreographing, shooting and editing fights.
I made a list of resources: which family members and friends were good actors, which of uncle’s students were good fighters and could get bashed up convincingly as well, which places we could stage our fights in without too much trouble and whose homes we could use as locations. We wove all these into a compact little script. It’s rather surprising now when I look back – that all those ideas and possibilities I’d written down have been distilled into a seemingly simple plot. At the time, I was wondering how on earth we could bind all these strands together.
And one more thing I’ve realized is that we really do try to do too much in our first efforts. The script was 90 pages, in anticipation of a 100-105 minute film, but the addition of a few really good improvisations and the duration of the fights took the initial run time to about 2 hours 10 min. After lots of cutting and whittling and showing friends, I’ve boiled it down to 92 minutes.
When we started out, we were just thinking of an online release. Thanks to the encouragement of friends, we’re now looking at the possibility of a theatrical run as well. Hopefully, things will work out just fine. For now, excitement and nervousness are building up as I head for Osian’s.
(Local Kung Fu is having its World Premiere at Osian’s Cinefan on Saturday 28th July at 10 AM. Entry is free, but to avoid the last-minute rush, one should register online)
– For more info on the film, visit its Facebook page here.
So does it follow the Bhandarkarism theory of filmmaking? You don’t need a high IQ to figure that out. But will there be any surprises? Are we missing anything? Or as DrDang pointed out in his tweet..
So no gays in the trailer so far. what else is missing?
Here’s the contest. You have to guess the story of Heroine. At least the main plot points. What happens next? The one who can guess the maximum number of plot points, will be the winner. We are not sure about the prize now but hopefully it will be something good for sure. If nothing, let’s play for cheap thrills! Because not everyday you get to apply the Theory Of Bhandarkarism. Just remember – every frame (of trailer) counts!
Post your answers in the comments section. We will declare the winner the day the film releases.
It’s been raining trailers and how! We are adding two new interesting trailers to the list. First one is Ang Lee’s Life Of Pi. Based on the book of the same name by Yann Martel. It has Irrfan Khan (Older Pi), Tabu (Pi’s mother), debutant Suraj Sharma (Piscine Molitor ‘Pi’ Patel) and Adil Hussain (Pi’s father) in lead roles. Here’s the trailer which released today.
What’s wrong with the first 1min? Looks fake and poorly done. Rest of it looks magical. And Royal Bengal Tiger Mister Parker looks scary and delicious. There was a great buzz for its 3D at Cinema Con. We are waiting and how. In Ang Lee, we trust.
Click here to read the unofficial synopsis if you haven’t read the book.
The makers of Prague have just released the first teaser of the film. It really doesn’t say anything about the film but gives you its mood – Trippy is the keyword here. Click on the play button and enjoy.
Directed by debutant Ashish R Shukla, it stars Chandan Roy Sanyal, Arfi Lamba, Mayank Kumar, Sonia Bindra, Elena Kazan, Lucien Zell & Vaibhav Suman.
With the announcement of its world premiere at TIFF, the official website of Midnight’s Children has also been launched. Click here to go to the site.
Though the trailer is not out yet, four clips of the film have been uploaded. Click on the play button and enjoy.
1. Killing fields
2. Emerald meets the General – starts with General Zulfikar arriving at Sinai family residence
3. Tell me a poem – Amina and Nadir chatting in her parent’s basement
4. Saleem and Parvati kissing
The film stars stars Satya Bhabha, Shahana Goswami, Shabana Azmi, Soha Ali Khan, Darsheel Safary, Rajat Kapoor, Seema Biswas, Shriya Saran, Siddharth, Ronit Roy, Rahul Bose, Samrat Chakrabarti, Sarita Choudhury, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Anupam Kher, Anita Majumdar and Zaib Shaikh.
– To quote from the official release, here’s the synopsis….
“Born in the hour of India’s freedom. Handcuffed to history.”
Midnight’s Children is an epic film from Oscar-nominated director Deepa Mehta, based on the Booker Prize winning novel by Salman Rushdie. At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, as India proclaims independence from Great Britain, two newborn babies are switched by a nurse in a Bombay hospital. Saleem Sinai, the illegitimate son of a poor woman, and Shiva, the offspring of a wealthy couple, are fated to live the destiny meant for each other. Their lives become mysteriously intertwined and are inextricably linked to India’s whirlwind journey of triumphs and disasters.
From the unlikely romance of Saleem’s grandparents to the birth of his own son, Midnight’s Children is a journey at once sweeping in scope and yet intimate in tone. Hopeful, comic and magical – the film conjures images and characters as rich and unforgettable as India herself.
So what’s common between all three? Desi connect and all female directors. Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) unveiled it’s official selection list for this year. And here are more details about these three films.
One of the most anticipated films of the year is Deepa Mehta’s adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s novel Midnight’s Children. It stars Satya Bhabha, Shahana Goswami, Rajat Kapoor, Seema Biswas, Shriya Saran, Siddharth, Ronit Roy, Rahul Bose, Anita Majumdar and Zaib Shaikh. The 148-minute long film has a screenplay by Rushdie himself. And here are some new stills. Click on one of the pics to view the slide show and make the images bigger.
To quote from the TIFF page…
Spanning decades and generations, celebrated Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta’s highly anticipated adaptation of Salman Rushdie’s Booker Prize®–winning novel is an engrossing allegorical fantasy in which children born on the cusp of India’s independence from Britain are endowed with strange, magical abilities.
If Deepa Mehta is here, can Mira Nair be far behind? She is also ready with her new film – an adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s acclaimed book, The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The principal cast includes Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber and Nelsan Ellis. The film is also opening the Venice Film Festival.
To quote from the TIFF page…
Kiefer Sutherland, Liev Schreiber and Kate Hudson co-star in this adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s international best-selling novel, about a young Pakistani man (Riz Ahmed) whose pursuit of corporate success on Wall Street leads him on a strange path back to the world he had left behind.
And the third film which is completely desi is debutant Gauri Shinde’s English Vinglish starring Sridevi, Adil Hussain, Mehdi Nebbou and Priya Anand. To quote from the official release…
Legendary Indian actress Sridevi returns to the screen after a fifteen-year absence in this funny and touching story about an Indian woman who struggles to learn the English language in order to help provide for her family.
But fest insider tells us that isn’t all. There’s more to come in TIFF 2012! We will keep you posted about all the Desi connect.
Blame it on that thing called life, we have been bit irregular with that other thing called cinema, and so the updates have been missing. Here’s a fresh start with a new film called Prague.
Prague is the directorial debut of Ashish Shukla. And since Ashish is a good friend, we might be bit biased. But that doesn’t take away anything from his talent and his previous works which we have seen and loved. And hopefully you all will agree soon. Here’s the first look of Prague – an interesting poster and some stills from the film.
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And here’s the official synopsis….
A city with a history of heritage, myth and superstition. A passionate architect with hang ups and delusions about love and life. A Czech gypsy girl looking for her identity and love. Add to that a mean friend you can’t get away with and can’t trust. And a left out- left over of someone who isn’t really there but doesn’t leave you alone. All of them come together, interfering, manipulating, coaxing and torturing each other as their search for peace, freedom and love continues.
This film is a psychological thrilling ride which takes you to the darkest corners of your mind, the shut down alleys of your soul and the graveyard of your heart.
– It stars Chandan Roy Sanyal, Arfi Lamba, Mayank Kumar, Sonia Bindra, Elena Kazan, Lucien Zell & Vaibhav Suman.
– Interestingly, it’s the debut feature for most of them which includes the Producer, Director, DP, Composer, Cast (Arfi Lamba, Sonia Bindra, Mayank Kumar), Costume Designer, Production designer.
Other credits and details are as follows….
Title : PRAGUE
Language : Hindi/ Czech/ English
Duration : 105mins
Genre : Psychological Drama, Romance
Songs : Background Scores/ OST
Shooting Locales : Prague/ Mumbai/ New Delhi
Produced by : Rohit Khaitan, Sunil Pathare
Executive Producer : Bombay Berlin Film Production
Cinematographer : Udaysingh Mohite
Editor : Meghna Manchanda Sen
Sound : Sanjay Chaturvedi
Music : Atif Afzal, Daniela Fojtu (Czech original Score)
Lyrics : Varun Grover
Concept : Rohit Khaitan
Story : Ashish R. Shukla
Screenplay & Dialogues : Sumit Saxena & Ashish R. Shukla
– The film will have its world premiere in the “Indian Competition” section of the Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival. For more details, click here and here.
Fatema Kagalwala puts on those nostalgia-wala goggles and remembers Rajesh Khanna.
I have a very 70’s generational angst. I have a theory that we, all of us born in the 70’s are marked. And politely speaking quite fucked. We are the in-between generation constantly straddling two worlds, one full of a traditionalism no longer serving us, and another of modernisation hurtling us to a place that has stripped us completely of our original identities. We have one foot in both. Our childhoods were wrapped in what was probably the blackest period of modern India – the 80’s where decay, political, social and personal was at its ugliest, poverty and disillusionment with the Great Indian Dream had left us utterly hopeless and arts were a shadow of their original selves. Maybe, it is for this that I (we?) continue to feel like an alien in this uber-modernised, superficial millennium and keep asking myself ‘Where do I belong?’ And probably it is this that makes me misty-eyed with nostalgia, sense of loss and emptiness when I but merely watch a yester-year film song especially of the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s.
Films and the heroes we loved in our childhood keep us connected to our past and the entire world it embodied. No other medium or star can do that for us, but yes, film heroes can. And that’s why when I heard of Rajesh Khanna’s demise yesterday I had a lump in my throat like he was a long-lost childhood friend. His going brought up all that sense of immense loss and pain that had been growing ever since Dev Anand and Shammi Kapoor left us.
I was having lunch when I heard it. My first reaction was ‘Don’t go!’, ‘Don’t do this to us…’ ‘We need you…’ I was screaming inside, ‘You don’t know the way you keep us connected us to ourselves…’ ‘We don’t recognise this world we live in but with you it’s bearable…’ ‘What will we do without the dreams you gave us to dream?’ I felt I had lost yet another link to myself, my past, my world. It wasn’t about cinema anymore. It was about the world Rajesh Khanna was a part of, the world he kept alive for me. The world I could go to at will, to rejuvenate myself. A sort of coming home when tired… Rajesh Khanna, Dev Saab, Shammi Kapoor symbolised a world of gentility and innocence that I was born in and then rudely shaken out of before I had my fill. They kept me connected to what was no more…And now they are…
Rajesh Khanna the star and Rajesh Khanna the man were both something that I wasn’t personally attached to, like I was to Dev Anand, the first man I ever fell in love with. Yet, his charming smile, the innocence in his eyes, the warmth he invested in his characters and his eccentrically crooked style, all remained endearing to me no matter how frail a shadow of himself he became. In my eyes, he remained Anand, Arun, Raj and Kamal, none of his later life pursuits ever diminishing all the beautiful worlds he had created for me in my childhood. It must be the dreams he (and others before him) sold to my wide-eyed child that makes me cling to a world that has long past…
A world where innocence meant thinking that when actors died in films they died in real life…
Where women scraped the mud of an actor’s car tyres and marked their foreheads with it as sindoor…
Where an autograph or a mere sighting of our favourite star would leave us in a tizzy for days…
Where the word ‘matinee’ gave us shivers of delicious delight be it pre-fixed to our loved idol or show…
Where we dressed up for a film outing and carried tiffins to movie halls…
Where we were willing to sit on the aisles if need be and would get up dance when we felt like…
Where we could sit on the footpath to watch a film being projected at a random street celebration…
Where we made films run for months and months never tiring of watching it for the 5th or 15th time as long as it was in the halls…
Where it was a big big deal to escape school / college to watch that film’s first day first show…
Where first day first show meant a lot more than our careers ever would…
Where men were gentlemen and women ladies…
Where stars were gods…almost…
…until they passed on. And left us bitter about the fact that they are mortal after all.
This is less of an obituary to a man we all loved and will continue to and more of an obituary to the passing of an era he and many like him embodied. An era that holds the key to me, an era that gave me my roots only to find that they no longer sustain me in this weird world I find myself living in. I will always live by the dreams that you, my childhood stars showed me and hope it will suffice. Because now that you are gone, what else do I have?
Saying goodbye with one of my most favourite Rajesh Khanna song.
Thank you for that world
Thank you for those dreams
Thank you for those movies…
Without them, my childhood wouldn’t have been half as beautiful.
In her twitter bio, Svetlana Naudiyal describes herself as Murphy’s favourite child. So over to the child who is just back from a country where there is almost no cinema culture and she was trying to make them understand what is the point of a film festival. Back to India and here’s her recco of the film Kshay, which has been doing the rounds of film festivals since quite sometime.
There is no local popular cinema in the theaters. The only theaters are the ones in the malls. From malls to pirated dvd stores – all you’d prominently see is Hollywood. I’ve just returned from Cebu City, so to say, the second largest city in Philippines. The townesque city is burgeoning with Malls, Multiplexes, BPOs and all possible American Chains. The city glistens, roads are well done, cab drivers never say no and their peso is better placed against dollar than the rupee. In this seemingly ‘developing’ state of affairs, local cinema has no ground beneath its feet. I get to meet a few Cebuano Filmmakers and see their films. Great work and talented, no doubt! But what do they do?
Cut to – my country, my crazy cinephile country.
Here back home, I see Kshay on the big screen, and I am moved by the mere thought that here someone can not only make the film they want to but also hope that it would see the light of theatrical release someday.
But is that why you should support it? Just because someone really struggled to make an Indie film and then eventually managed to get it to the box office?
——
Kshay, as the very poetic title suggests, corrodes.
Corrodes the being.
Chhaya, a simple housewife, becomes strangely obsessed with an unfinished idol of Goddess Lakshmi. Her husband, Arvind, works for a reckless building contractor and struggles to make ends meet while reeling under the guilt of not being able to give Chhaya the life he promised to. Their lives are thrown in a downwards spiral as Chhaya slowly becomes oblivious of their circumstance and succumbs to faith turned into obsession.
It is not often that the frames and sequences of a film hover in your mind for long after you see it. They corrode the mind, resonate with life and create a surreal-real world of obsession, hopelessness and love. It’s beautiful how the textures, lights and score accentuate the psychological corrosion of Chhaya. Together with Arvind’s frustrations and the hopelessness a viewer sees in their situation, the film builds a strange tempo as it progresses; it might not be evident in the pace but most certainly so in the feeling it leaves one with.
Shot in black and white, the cinematography by Abhinay Khoparzi, is highlight of the film. The eerie absurdity of dreams, delusions, reality and the textures, all stand out in black & white frames. The background score is by director Karan Gour himself is the perfect companion to it. Rasika is unbelievably real as Chhaya and beautifully brings out her pain, coldness, obsession; Alekh complements her as much in portraying Arvind’s frustrations, hope and hopelessness. Even the small roles of building contractor and neighbour lady, are marked by really fine performances.
To me, story apart, Kshay also questions – questions faith, questions reason and questions the merciless set up we live in. It’s a world where WTC crash becomes table-top merchandise.. Exploiters continue to have their cake and eat it too.. Exploited barely find a way.. It’s a world of faith becoming obsession and obsession ending only in….
Coming back to the question – Don’t watch it because it’s another oh-so-poor-striving-for-support indie film, watch it because it’s good cinema, that totally deserves your time and money.
———————————————————————————–
– Here’s a preview of Kshay’s hauntingly gorgeous music –
Kshay OST – Home
Kshay OST – Everywhere
– And the trailer
– To know more about the film click here. And click here for the FB page of the film.
– PVR JUHU (Mumbai) will have one show running in the next week at 6:35PM. Don’t miss this one!
….wonders filmmaker Kushan Nandy. And if you are smart and well aware of the discussions in social media platforms, you can connect the dots too.
Last night I watched Shanghai.
The entire 114 minutes of its running time, I did not flinch. Brilliantly scripted, performed and directed, it is a film where every department competes with each other to underplay. A rarity in Indian Cinema today.
I was truly entertained.
There were twenty-four people watching the Friday evening show along with me, a few had dozed off, three men sitting behind me were giggling and farting away and another gentleman was screaming and spitting into his cellphone.
Obviously they weren’t entertained.
Back home, I read the trade reports that claimed a 15% opening. The film hadn’t entertained a soul.
I was the idiot.
Indian Cinema, now almost 100 years old, the largest movie industry in the world says entertainment is the only driving factor that persuades people to go to a movie theatre.
Sad. Because porn entertains too. And you don’t need to pay for it.
Sad. Because even one of the most stressed out, autocratic, poverty-stricken countries, Iran, doesn’t say that. They go out and make A Separation instead.
Sad. Because, entertainment has a new name. Constipation-remedy.
Poverty. Corruption. Quality of Life. Our audience is stressed out, they say. They need a release. Which makes it sound a bit like constipation looking for relief.
And what hits me every Friday, in the name of this entertainment or laxative is more frightening. I see men flying at ninety-six frames per second, defying gravity. I see inane, asinine humor, which doesn’t even make my driver laugh. I see the same item number, repackaged with different breasts every time.
And all these films have not made a penny less than a 100 crores. They have obviously entertained someone, somewhere. Well, quite a few someones who belong to an India I don’t understand. These someones who have discovered laxative and named it entertainment and vice versa.
And yes, I love entertaining cinema. I love Sholay. I love Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro. I love Hrishikesh Mukherjee. I love Parinda. I love Paan Singh Tomar. I love the Ram Gopal Verma films which were made before the dinosaurs went extinct.
So I will go out and watch Shanghai again. I will hope it picks up. Makes money. So that more people make more Shanghais. So that I get the weekly dose of entertainment I prefer.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 