Archive for the ‘Regional’ Category

Best Foreign Language Film – This is one category which is getting tougher every year. Because an Oscar Award easily turns into big bucks for any film from any country. And this year 65 countries have submitted films for consideration.

Harishchandrachi FactoryMarathi film Harishchandrachi Factory is India’s official entry to this year’s Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film Category. The film is directed by Paresh Mokashi who has been doing theatre since last twenty years. Harishchandrachi Factory is Mokashi’s debut film. The film traces the obstacles and hurdles faced by Dhundiraj Phalke ( or Dada Saheb Phalke, also known as the father of Indian cinema) while he was making the first Indian film Raja Harishchandra in 1913. So,  Harishchandrachi Factory will compete with films from 64 countries!

And here is the complete list of films from 65 countries, in alphabetical order….

Albania, “Alive!,” Artan Minarolli, director;
Argentina, “El Secreto de Sus Ojos,” Juan Jose Campanella, director;
Armenia, “Autumn of the Magician,” Rouben Kevorkov and Vaheh Kevorkov, directors;
Australia, “Samson & Delilah,” Warwick Thornton, director;
Austria, “For a Moment Freedom,” Arash T. Riahi, director;
Bangladesh, “Beyond the Circle,” Golam Rabbany Biplob, director;
Belgium, “The Misfortunates,” Felix van Groeningen, director;
Bolivia, “Zona Sur,” Juan Carlos Valdivia, director;
Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Nightguards,” Namik Kabil, director;
Brazil, “Time of Fear,” Sergio Rezende, director;
Bulgaria, “The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks around the Corner,” Stephan Komandarev, director;
Canada, “I Killed My Mother,” Xavier Dolan, director;
Chile, “Dawson, Isla 10,” Miguel Littin, director;
China, “Forever Enthralled,” Chen Kaige, director;
Colombia, “The Wind Journeys,” Ciro Guerra, director;
Croatia, “Donkey,” Antonio Nuic, director;
Cuba, “Fallen Gods,” Ernesto Daranas, director;
Czech Republic, “Protektor,” Marek Najbrt, director;
Denmark, “Terribly Happy,” Henrik Ruben Genz, director;
Estonia, “December Heat,” Asko Kase, director;
Finland, “Letters to Father Jacob,” Klaus Haro, director;
France, “Un Prophete,” Jacques Audiard, director;
Georgia, “The Other Bank,” George Ovashvili, director;
Germany, “The White Ribbon,” Michael Haneke, director;
Greece, “Slaves in Their Bonds,” Tony Lykouressis, director;
Hong Kong, “Prince of Tears,” Yonfan, director;
Hungary, “Chameleon,” Krisztina Goda, director;
Iceland, “Reykjavik-Rotterdam,” Oskar Jonasson, director;
India, “Harishchandrachi Factory,” Paresh Mokashi, director;
Indonesia, “Jamila and the President,” Ratna Sarumpaet;
Iran, “About Elly,” Asghar Farhadi, director;
Israel, “Ajami,” Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, director;
Italy, “Baaria,” Giuseppe Tornatore, director;
Japan, “Nobody to Watch over Me,” Ryoichi Kimizuka, director;
Kazakhstan, “Kelin,” Ermek Tursunov, director;
Korea, “Mother,” Joon-ho Bong, director;
Lithuania, “Vortex,” Gytis Luksas, director;
Luxembourg, “Refractaire,” Nicolas Steil, director;
Macedonia, “Wingless,” Ivo Trajkov, director;
Mexico, “Backyard,” Carlos Carrera, director;
Morocco, “Casanegra,” Nour-Eddine Lakhmari, director;
The Netherlands, “Winter in Wartime,” Martin Koolhoven, director;
Norway, “Max Manus,” Espen Sandberg and Joachim Roenning, directors;
Peru, “The Milk of Sorrow,” Claudia Llosa, director;
Philippines, “Grandpa Is Dead,” Soxie H. Topacio, director;
Poland, “Reverse,” Borys Lankosz, director;
Portugal, “Doomed Love,” Mario Barroso, director;
Puerto Rico, “Kabo and Platon,” Edmundo H. Rodriguez, director;
Romania, “Police, Adjective,” Corneliu Porumboiu, director;
Russia, “Ward No. 6,” Karen Shakhnazarov, director;
Serbia, “St. George Shoots the Dragon,” Srdjan Dragojevic, director;
Slovakia, “Broken Promise,” Jiri Chlumsky, director;
Slovenia, “Landscape No. 2,” Vinko Moderndorfer, director;
South Africa, “White Wedding,” Jann Turner, director;
Spain, “The Dancer and the Thief,” Fernando Trueba, director;
Sri Lanka, “The Road from Elephant Pass,” Chandran Rutnam;
Sweden, “Involuntary,” Ruben Ostlund, director;
Switzerland, “Home,” Ursula Meier, director;
Taiwan, “No Puedo Vivir sin Ti,” Leon Dai, director;
Thailand, “Best of Times,” Yongyoot Thongkongtoon, director;
Turkey, “I Saw the Sun,” Mahsun Kirmizigul, director;
United Kingdom, “Afghan Star,” Havana Marking, director;
Uruguay, “Bad Day for Fishing,” Alvaro Brechner, director;
Venezuela, “Libertador Morales, El Justiciero,” Efterpi Charalambidis, director;
Vietnam, “Don’t Burn It,” Dang Nhat Minh. 

For more details about the Harishchandrachi Factory (film/director/promos), click on the website link http://harishchandrachifactory.com/ .

Sometimes its difficult to make sense of the world. Of incidents or people around you. And if they belong to the world of cinema, its more insane. Is that him? Is that for a role? If for a reel, why in real life too?

The recent pics of filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh have been quite baffling. He says its all for a role. Click  here to read more about the film Just Another Love Story and his role in the film. Scroll down to see the latest pic on the top left corner. The other pics show him in transition, more or less.

And if you can make sense of anything, put your comments. And if you cant, how does it matter? It’s only the cinema that matters, rite? But then how do you separate the cinema from its maker? Have not been able to do so.

He is one filmmaker whose work I have been following since his debut. Think  he is undoubtedly one of the best filmmaker of our times.  Always has an interesting story or unique take to share. Sometimes repetitive though, but a master at exploring the intimate space between two people. Aha..thats for another day! Check out the pics!

The Japanese WifeRemember those good ol’ days of pen friendship ? And if you were born before the internet era and ever experienced the joy of pen friendship, then you must read Kunal Basu’s story The Japanese Wife. Its one of the most beautiful love stories I have read in recent times. Simple, serene, heartfelt and fascinating. The book is a collection of 12 short stories.

BTW, I bought the book because I loved the cover. The paper quality and the pic looks and feels gorgeous (not so in the pic that I have posted on the left). Call me mad but I love all these, and there is nothing like the smell of a new book. Instead of reading between the lines, try putting your nose between the pages once!

Aparna Sen’s new film is based on the same story and it has the same title The Japanese Wife. The film stars Rahul Bose, Raima Sen, Moushumi Chatterjee and Japanese actress Chigusa Takaku. It is in English, Bengali and Japanese. And here is the synopsis of the film….

The Japanese Wife2Snehmoy (Rahul Bose) and Miyage (Chigusa Takaku) are pen friends who exchange wedding vows through letters. Fifteen years pass but they never meet. Yet the bond of marriage is strong between them. This unusual relationship comes under a cloud when a young widow, Sandhya (Raima Sen), comes to stay with Snehmoy along with her eight-year-old son. Snehmoy and the little boy bond and the arithmetic teacher discovers the joy of palpable bonds and fatherhood. There develops an inexplicable thread of understanding with Sandhya too. But what happens to the love story of Senhmoy and Miyage ? Will not spoil it for you. Read the book or wait for the film.

Lil late on this but just figured out from a friend that the trailer of the film is already online. Take a look. Not sure why they are using the word “grand” in the trailer. Its just the opposite…its intimate! The film has been ready for quite sometime but the producers (SaReGaMa) has been sitting and shitting on it! No clue why!

KanchivaramWho says National Awards don’t matter! It does, atleast to few. And things do change accordingly.

After bagging two national awards (best actor & best film) for Kanchivaran, the makers of the film Percept Picture Company are now ready to have an all India release of the film on 30th October. Almost 2 years after its completion. If am not wrong, earlier the film had it release in Chennai only.

Directed by Priyadarshan, the film is a must watch! If for nothing else, watch it only because of Prakash Raj. What a powerful and moving performance. Saw such acting after a long time. And he looks so so differnt in real life!

Priyadarshan wanted to make the film nine years ago but had no takers that time. Mohanlal was suppose to star in it. But when Priyan got producers for the film, Mohanlal was busy with other films. And so Prakashraj came onboard!

All you who crib about not getting to see regional films, dont miss it this time. And here is a trailer of the film…

 

The Man Beyond The Bridge (Paltadacho Munis) – We wrote about this Konkoni film’s selection at TIFF in this post. And now the good news! The film has bagged the FIPRESCI Discovery Prize, voted by members of the International Federation of Film Critics at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The film is directed by Laxmikant Shetgaonkar.

Laxmikant ShetgaonkarThe jury citation for Shetgaonkar’s film read: “Far from the sensory overload of India’s big cities, this film explores smaller but enduring dilemmas, drawing together keen environmental sensitivity with a nuanced view of village dynamics.”

Shetgaonkar studied theatre arts and began his career as an acting instructor at the National School of Drama in New Delhi. He has directed several theatre productions, as well as both documentary and fiction films.The script prior to its production also went under fine tuning in the Script Lab organized by NFDC in ‘Film Bazaar 2007’.

And here is the synopsis of the film…

man beyond the bridgeThe Man Beyond the Bridge is a story about Vinayak, a forest guard, who lives a lonely life, with just the memories of his dead wife in a Government house in the dense forests of Goa-Karnataka border. His repeatedly rejected pleas for a transfer by his superiors in the Department of Forests have left him bitter. One night, he comes across a filthy, unkempt mentally challenged woman lying in the compound outside his house. He drives her away but she keeps returning. From his initial irritation with her filthy appearance and irate behavior, he slowly gets used to her daily visits looking for food and sleeping in the courtyard. With time, he begins to derive comfort from her presence.

Vinayak’s growing relationship with the woman initially, attracts some comment but evokes a strong protest in the village only when she gets pregnant. The villagers question Vinayak’s right over mentally challenged and helpless woman. They maintain that his relationship is morally incorrect and should be ended. However, for Vinayak, the woman is his companion and the mother of his child and there is no dilemma in his mind over this. Thus begins a conflict between a society that refuses to take responsibility of such a woman and one man’s endeavour to integrate her in his life. 

Harishchandrachi FactoryMarathi film Harishchandrachi Factory is India’s official entry to this year’s Oscars in the Foreign Film Category. The film is directed by Paresh Mokashi who has been doing theatre since last twenty years. Harishchandrachi Factory is Mokashi’s debut film.

The film traces the obstacles and hurdles faced by Dhundiraj Phalke (Dada Saheb Phalke),  also known as the father of Indian cinema,while he was making the first Indian film Raja Harishchandra in 1913. There were 15 other films in the competition including films like New York and Delhi 6. 

Asha Parekh headed the jury of The Film Federation of India (FFI) this year. For more details about the film/director/promos, click on the website link http://harishchandrachifactory.com/ .

And here’s a teaser of the film.

The National Film Awards list is finally out. Earlier we confirmed few winners including Prakash Raj For Best Actor on this post. And like always, we were right. Check out the other winners.

Best Actor – Prakash Raj( Kanchivaram )

Best Actress – Uma Shree ( Gulabi Talkies )

Best Film – Kanchivaram

Best Director – Adoor Gopalakrishnan ( Naalu Pennungal – Four Women )

Best Child Actor – Sharad Goyekar ( Marathi film Tingya ) 

Best Supporting Actor – Darshan Zariwalla ( Gandhi My Father )

Best Supporting Actress – Shefali Shah (The Last Lear)

Best Lyrics – Prasoon Joshi ( Taare Zameen Par)

Best Playback Singer(Male) – Shankar Mahadevan ( Taare Zameen Par )

Best Playback Singer (Female) – Shreya Ghoshal

Best Film on National Integration – Dharam

Best Film On Family Welfare – Taare Zameen Par

Best Film For Overall Entertaintment – Chak De India

Best Screenplay – Feroze Abbas Khan ( Gandhi My Father)

Best Music – Ousepacham for Ore Kadal

Best Film (Hindi) – 1971

Best Film (English ) – The Last Lear

Best Special Effects – Sivaji

Best Art Direction – Om Shanti Om

Best Choreography – Ye Ishq Hai (Jab We Met)

Best Cinematography – Frozen ( Shanker Raman)

Best Audiography – 1971

Best Editing – Naalu Pennungal ( Malyalam)

Best Film on Social Issues – Antardwanda ( Dir – Sushil Rajpal )

Special Jury Award – Gandhi My Father

Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film – Shivajee Chandrabhushan for Frozen

Best Book on Cinema – From Raj To Swaraj : The Non Fiction Film In India by B D Garga

Best Film Critic – V K Joseph ( Malyalam )

In the non-feature/short films category, mentioning only those few which am aware of (read friends or friends’ friend) –

Best Educational/Motivational/Instructional Film – Prarambha (Santosh Sivan)

Short Fiction Film – Udhed Bun ( Siddharth Singh)

Best Cinematography – Kramasha ( Savita Singh )

Best Audiography –  Kramasha ( Ajit Singh Rathore )

Best Music Direction – Echoes of Silence ( English/ Khasi – Zubin Garg)

For the full list of entries and winners click here.

The jury was headed by Sai Paranjpe and members included Ashok Viswanathan and Namita Gokhale. About 102 films and 106 non-feature films were considered.

Prakash RajYes, its confirmed. The rumours have been floating around for since last few hours. And its all true.

Prakash Raj has bagged the National Award for Best Actor for his performance in Priyadarshan’s film Kanchivaram. Atleast this one should be non controversial. Its a truly deserving one. I remember watching it at the Mumbai premeire of the film. And since then, I cant remember anything so powerful and so moving. Its just stunning!

In the film, Prakash Raj plays the role of a weaver who dreams about a silk saree for his daughter’s marriage.  What looks like a simple dream is much more complex than one can imagine. Money, politics, unions, the problems never end.

The acting is so powerful that the young and the old Prakash Raj seem to be two different actors. If you havent seen it yet, do watch. If for nothing else, just for the acting! Happy to hear this news about Prakash Raj, his third National Award! More power to actors like him!

BTW, rumours doing the round suggests that Priyadarshan has also bagged the National Award for Best Director and the film Kanchivaram will get it for Best Film.

Update : Gandhi My Father has also bagged three awars. Best Film ( Prdoucer – Anil Kapoor. Am guessing this one is the hindi language category), Feroze Abbas Khan ( Best Screenplay) and Darshan Zariwalla (Best Supporting Actor).

Unnaipol OruvanIts 50 years of Kamal Hassan, on screen! And these days he insists on playing atleast 50 roles in each film of his. They even say, to call him megalomaniac is an understatement! In an interview, when Naseerduddin Shah was asked about his reaction to Kamal Hasaan playing his part in the tamil remake of A Wednesday, he said – why my part ? He should play all the parts! 😉

Jokes apart, this one looks sane. The trailer of the tamil remake of A Wednesday is out. The film is titled Unnaipol Oruvan and stars Kamal Hassan ( In Naseeruddin Shah’s role) and Mohan Lal ( Anupam Kher’s role). We feel its looking better than the hindi one and hopefully they have cut out the dhoom-dhaam-dhadap camera, sound and edit pattern in this one.

BTW, Kamal’s daughters are also involved with the film. Shruti Hassan has composed the music for the film and Akshara has choreographed a promotional video. And Kamal has sung two songs in the film! 

cinemaWe are the world, if we go by the mind-boggling numbers regarding Indian cinema. Chew on and see if you can digest!

We hav tried to simplify the numbers as mentioned in Focus 2009 – World Film Market Trend, a report by  European Audiovisual Observatory, a public service body gathering and distributing information on the audiovisual industry. ( figures according to 2007-2008 releases)

 – The Indian film industry produced 1132 feature films in 2007. In comparison, the American film industry in 2008 produced 520 feature films, Japan 418 and China 400.

– India also has the cheapest movie tickets for any major film producing nation.

 – For theatre admissions, India’s count was 3.3 billion for 2008 and was higher than the combined total of the next nine biggest film producing countries. The US was the only other country to have more than a billion admissions.

– India has the cheapest ticket price averaging $0.5 (Rs 22). The average price of a ticket in the nine other big film producing countries ranges between $2.2 in China and $11.7 in Japan.

– The low ticket price accounts for the fact that gross box office collections of the Indian film industry – $1.8 billion in 2007 – are behind those of the US and Japan. With $9.7 billion collected at the American box offices in 2008, the US tops the charts followed by Japan with $1.9 billion.

– Among the major film markets, India is the only one in which Hollywood blockbusters, even after being dubbed in various local languages, have not managed to give local movies a serious challenge.

 – Not one of the top 10 films in India ranked by admissions or box office collections was from the US. In contrast, 8 of the top 10 films in the UK and Spain originated from America, Germany had 7 US films in its top 10, Korea and Italy 6 each, Japan 4, France 3 and China 2.

– In terms of multiplex screens – USA has over 29,000 screens, India has only 850, ahead only of Korea among the top 10 film markets of the world.

Aha…the melodrama in our DNA……we, the billion plus!