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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Manjeet Singh’s debut feature Maumbai Cha Raja has been selected to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in its “City To City”program where “Mumbai” is the focus this year. But the film is yet to be completed. And Manjeet is looking for funds to complete the film.
– TIFF website describes the film as “A young boy comes of age in a Mumbai slum while dealing with his long-suffering mother and violent father, in this gently observational portrait crafted in the tradition of the great neorealist classics.”
– And here’s the detailed official synopsis of the film…
Rahul is a misunderstood and troubled adolescent who lives in the slums bordering the nouveau riche areas of Northern Mumbai with his alcoholic father, ahrd working mother and a kid brother. He hangs out with his balloon seller streetwise younger friend, Arbaaz.
Set during the grand festival devoted to Lord Ganesha over the last two days when huge idols of the elephant headed God are taken in procession to the beach for immersion. Rahul has to handle the chaos in his life amidst the chaos of the colorful and vibrant festival.
It’s a peep into the lives of kids living in the slums of Mumbai. A tribute to their spirit of finding joy in trivial things and living life to the fullest.
– Click on the play button to watch the trailer
– The film also bagged the Prasad Award in Work in Progress Lab at Film Bazaar 2011. And was also selected for Producer’s Lab in Cinemart at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam 2012.
– You can contribute between Rs 2000 to Rs 300,000 for its completion. To know more about the film and to make contribution, click here.
The second part of Anurag Kashyap’s two-parter Gangs Of Wasseypur has finally released. Once you have seen both the parts, then only you can imagine how daunting task it must have been to make these two films, and still hit the right notes at the right places. (Aha, we will be again accused of being biased for his films. Not a single day passes without the accusation anyway.)
The opinion is still divided on whether 1 is better or 2, but one thing is for sure 1+2 = Epic Masterclass in Filmmaking! A rare feat which only few can dare to imagine and then translate it onscreen into cinematic orgasm of almost 6hours. There are few theatres across the country which are showing both the parts back to back (see pics). If you can, you must go for one of these marathons.
And so here’s our QOTD – Pick your favourites. If you are bit confused with who played which character, click here to access the family chart and then vote.
As for me, i would say Part 1 was like wine – slow, smooth and acquired taste. Part 2 is like beer – fast, popcorn-ish and fun! Full dhickiyaoon!
Do put your reasons in the comments section. Let the gang war begin!
We have been hearing a lot about Anand Gandhi’s debut feature Ship Of Theseus, and for a long time. Having seen his shorts, Right Here Right Now and Continuum, we can easily bet that he is an exciting talent to watch out for. The film is going to have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this year.
The poster, few stills and official synopsis of the film is out. Read it, have a look and you can decide if it looks/sounds exciting or not.
And here’s the official synopsis…
If the parts of a ship are replaced, bit-by-bit, is it still the same ship?
An unusual photographer, celebrated for her intuitive work, successfully captures the essence of her experience in her photography. However, she also struggles with insecurities over authorship in the context of larger questions about subjectivity and intent in art.
An erudite monk, who is an ideologue and practitioner of non-violence, and involved in animal rights activism, is forced to make a choice between death and medicine – medicine that is either derived from, or tested on animals. As death closes in, he re-questions all the ideas that he has always taken for granted.
A young stockbroker has a frictional relationship with his grandmother, whom he nurses in a hospital. When it is discovered that a neighbouring patient has had his kidney stolen, he starts out on a trail that leads him to a kidney tourism racket. Altruism and concern leads him to confront the recipient of the kidney, eventually making him discover how intricate morality could be.
Following the separate strands of their philosophical journeys, and their eventual convergence, Ship of Theseus explores questions of identity, justice, beauty, meaning and death.
The cast and the credit list…
Director: Anand Gandhi
Language: English, Hindi, Arabic
Runtime: 139 minutes
Exec. Producer: Mitesh Shah, Ruchi Bhimani
Producer: Mukesh Shah
Production Co.: Recyclewala Films
Principal Cast: Neeraj Kabi, Sohum Shah, Aida Elkashef, Faraz Khan, Vinay Shukla, Amba Sanyal
Screenplay: Anand Gandhi
Cinematographer: Pankaj Kumar
Editor: Adesh Prasad, Sanyukta Kaza, Satchit Puranik, Reka Lemhenyi
Sound: Gábor Erdélyi, Tamás Székely
Music: Rohit Sharma, Naren Chandavarkar, Benedict Taylor
Thanks to TIFF, few stills of Hansal Mehta‘s new film Shahid is finally online. Also, the official synopsis and the cast and crew list. The film is going to have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in its “City To City” programme where “Mumbai” is in focus this year.
The stills look stark and powerful and creates a deadly mood. And now the official synopsis of the film…
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.
And here’s the cast and crew list…
Director: Hansal Mehta
Language: Hindi
Runtime: 123 minutes
Exec. Producer: Jai Mehta, Kunal Rohra
Producer: Sunil Bohra, Shailesh Singh, Guneet Monga and Anurag Kashyap
Production Co: Bohra Bros Pvt. Ltd. and Anurag Kashyap Films Pvt. Ltd.
Principal Cast: Raj Kumar, Prabhleen Sandhu, Baljinder Kaur, Tigmanshu Dhulia, K K Menon, Yusuf Husain, Prabal Panjabi, Vinod Rawat, Vipin Sharma, Shalini Vatsa, Paritosh Sand, Pavan Kumar, Vivek Ghamande, Akash Sinha, Mohd Zeeshan Ayyub, Mukesh Chhabra
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.
Produced by NFDC and directed by debutant Gurvinder Singh, Punjabi film Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan (Alms for a Blind Horse) will be released by PVR Director’s Rare on August 10.
It will have theatrical release in Delhi, Mumbai, Jalandhar, Chandigarh and Ludhiana.
Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan was selected in the Orizzonti Section (which showcases ‘New Trends in World Cinema’) of Venice International Film festival, 2011. After this the film was showcased at the 55th British Film Institute, London Film Festival, and the Busan International Film Festival. The film won the Special Jury Mention and the Black Pearl Trophy at the 5th Abu Dhabi Film Festival and the Special Jury Award at the International Film Festival, Rotterdam for its lyrical and scenic narration.
It also bagged three National Awards – for Best Direction, Cinematography and for Best Feature Film in Punjabi.
And here’s the official synopsis…
On a foggy winter morning a family in a village in Punjab wakes up to the news of the demolition of a house on the outskirts of the village. The father, a silent sympathizer, joins the community in demand for justice for the affected family. The same day his son Melu, a cycle-rickshaw puller rickshaw puller in the city, is participating in a strike by his union. Injured and alienated, Melu spends the day quietly resting and hesitantly drinks with friends in the night as they debate the meaning of their existence.
Cycling through the city streets, Melu feels lost and wonders where to go and what to do. Back in the village, his mother feels humiliated at the treatment meted out by the landlords in whose fields she works. Gunshots are heard in the night and the village is tense. It’s the night of the lunar eclipse. A man wanders asking for the traditional alms while Father decides to visit the city with a friend, even as his daughter Dayalo walks through the village streets in the night.
Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan speaks about the margins where the socially repressed and exploited have been conveniently cast away. This is also a film about the signs of simmering fire and about cleft tongues that want to rise in unison, about the possibility of inchoate desire and the first cry of love.
And the Director’s comment…
The human face is a landscape. The lived reality of the face reflects time: endured, lived and suffered. Cinema unravels time through the movement in space. The visible evokes the invisible through relationships, contexts, gestures, and conflicts. There is the immediate invisible, off screen: the image confronting sound, space confronting space, time confronting time. Then there is the larger cosmic invisible, devoid of cause and effect paradigm, layered through centuries.
Anhey Ghorhey Da Daan tries to evoke the effect of years of subordination of the struggling classes reflected in the macrocosm of events spinning beyond their control. It’s about silent witnesses devoid of power to change or influence the course of destiny, about the invisible violence of power equation and simmering discontent reflected on their faces.
The cast & crew list…
Cast: Mal Singh, Samuel John, Serbjeet Kaur, Dharminder Kaur, Emmanuel Singh, Kulwinder Kaur, Lakha Singh, Gurvinder Makhna
Script & Direction: Gurvinder Singh
Story: Gurdial Singh (based on the novel of the same name)
Dialogues: Gurdial Singh, Jasdeep Singh
Music: Catherine Lamb
Camera: Satya Rai Nagpaul
Sound: Mandar Kulkarni
Editing: Ujjwal Chandra
Production Design: Pankaj Dhimaan
Line Producer: Kartikeya Narayan Singh
Executive Producers: Neena Lath Gupta & Vikramjit Roy
Creative Producer: Mani Kaul
Producer: National Film Development Corporation Limited
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.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 