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.
Films, fests, unsung, indies, undiscovered - all that and some fun. If you have dope on anything related to cinema or you would like to share something, do write to us at moifightclub@gmail.com.
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After Hulla and Leaving Home (documentary on Indian Ocean), filmmaker Jaideep Varma is busy working on his latest documentary film, Baavra Mann. And here’s a trailer of the film.
Here’s more info on the trailer and the film from its youtube account – A trailer of the rough cut of the full-length documentary feature, “Baavra Mann – a film on Sudhir Mishra & other Indian realities”. A film not only on one of Mumbai cinema’s longest lasting and relevant filmmakers but through that prism on a declining cultural life in India.
Aha, finally some documentation of our cinema and some of its prominent voices. Whenever i think about Sudhir Mishra, i often wonder why is there no making of Hazaroon Khawshein Aisi. It’s such a terrific and landmark film, and has a great story behind it. That needs to be documented. Hopefully we will get to hear some bits in this docu.
This trailer surely looks interesting. Though my only concern is Sudhir Mishra is quite overexposed. If you have been tracking him or his films, you probably know everything about him. But it’s nice to see anecdotes about his personal life too. And the film seems to go beyond Sudhir Mishra and his films. So eagerly looking forward to it.
After its world premiere at the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival, the first trailer of Hansal Mehta’s new film Shahid is out. Have a look.
Aha, welcome back, Mister Mehta. Seems like the film has got the right mood and tone for the subject. And if you missed the earlier post, here’s 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.
Cast and credit 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
Pairon Talle, written & directed by Sidharth Srinivasan, will finally have a theatrical release in India on 5th October. The film is released via PVR Director’s Rare.
To quote from the official release, it tells the story of a simple watchman, who is so devoted to protecting his master’s property, that he has lost the very ability to safeguard himself. When realization of his enslavement finally dawns on him, it does so at a bloody price. Will the watchman take destiny into his own hands or will justice be denied him forever?
The stark contrasts of the rapidly urbanizing NCR (National Capital Region) provide the violent backdrop to the film – this is a Delhi you’ve never been shown before.
– It stars Dibyendu Bhattacharya, Saba Joshi, Avtar Sahni and Geeta Bisht in lead roles.
– The film received the prestigious Hubert Bals Fund from Rotterdam Fest and it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010.
And here’s the trailer of the film…
– To know more about the film, click here for it FB page. And to know more about the director, click here.
After its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, the next stop for Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children is the ongoing Toronto International Film Festival. Earlier four clips from the film were released. And now the official trailer of the film is finally out. Click on the play button and have a look
The trailer looks and feels nice with the correct mood and tone. But why this English Vinglish? Seems odd and out of place.
The film is based on Salman Rushdie’s acclaimed novel of the same name. 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.
And if you missed it earlier, here’s the official synopsis…
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.
Just before its international premiere at Toronto International Film Festival, the makers of Ship Of Theseus have released three new trailers of the film. Looks damn interesting with some powerful visuals.
If it all seems too confusing to you, click here for its official synopsis and all the other details.
And if you missed its unique posters, we are putting it all here. Click to enlarge.
The documentary film “Fire In Babylon” will have a theatrical release in India on 21st of Sept, 2012. It will be released under PVR Director’s Rare series.
If you haven’t heard about the docu, here’s the official release…
From the Oscar winning producers of One Day in September and The Last King of Scotland, comes the relentlessly entertaining cricket film FIRE IN BABYLON. The film charts the glorious supremacy of the West Indies cricket team throughout the late ‘70s and ‘80s.
A display of dominance at the highest level – longer than any team in the history of sport – in a game previously reserved for the privileged elite, their symbolic declaration was clear: people of colour will not be dictated to – on a cricket ground or in any other field of life.
Recounting the defiant and symbolic dominance of the West Indies cricket team throughout the late 1970s and 80s, FIRE IN BABYLON charts the events, which led to the rise of the West Indian cricketers becoming a fearsome and all conquering force to be reckoned with, striking a wonderfully defiant blow at the forces of white prejudice world-wide, inspiring a generation still struggling to emerge from racial discrimination.
FIRE IN BABYLON is told completely from a West Indian perspective, featuring a host of some of the legendary and revered players of the time and significant names from Caribbean culture including Sir Viv Richards, Michael Holding, Sir Clive Lloyd and Bunny Wailer, against a soundtrack of vibrant and classic music by the likes of Bob Marley and the Wailers, Gregory Issacs, Faithless and Horace Andy.
And here’s the new trailer of the film..
Click here to go to its FB page for more details and updates.
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.
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.
Finally, the official trailer of Vasan Bala‘s debut feature Peddlers is out. The film is all set to premiere at Cannes International Critics’ Week.
So what works and what doesn’t? Since he is a good friend, i might be biased. But let me try. The visuals look gorgeous, there is a sudden tension in the mood but it all looks calm on the surface. Great! And the ‘ud jayega‘ raw vocals adds to the creepiness. But the text seems to be too vague. Actually it’s the same as that cryptic synopsis of the film. Why? Who does that? Also, font is dull and boring. And it comes on the visuals. Found it too be distracting.
What do you guys think? Do leave your comments.
To quote the official synopsis,
Peddlers – A ghost town, Mumbai, inhabited by millions. A lady on a mission, a man living a lie, an aimless drifter. They collide. Some collisions are of consequence, some not, either ways the city moves on.
And here’s the cast and credit list..
Director : Vasan Bala
Screenplay : Vasan Bala
Cinematography : Siddharth Diwan
Editing : Prerna Saigal
Sound : Anthony B.J. Ruban
Music : Karan Kulkarni
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 