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• Date: Jan 18, 2011
The three-day Flashpoint Human Rights Film Festival, which brings together eight extraordinary films from around the world that deal with human rights issues, gets under way in New Delhi on Thursday.
The films urge people to reflect, react, revolutionalise and act as a ‘flashpoint’ to usher in change. The festival has already been held in Mumbai from December 8-10, 2010. The New Delhi edition would include special focused thematic screenings and panel discussions.
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• Date: Nov 17, 2010
Amazon.com Inc is entering film production with a website that will allow aspiring screenwriters and filmmakers to submit scripts and films that could eventually hit the screens.
The Web retail giant announced on Tuesday the launch of Amazon Studios in a partnership with Warner Bros Pictures.
To start with, Amazon Studios (http://studios.amazon.com) is offering $2.7 million for "top submissions" of scripts and test films received by December 31, 2011. Those would subsequently be developed as commercial feature films. Full-length feature films will be tested for feedback at an early...
• Date: Nov 11, 2010
Hollywood and Bollywood, two of the largest film industries in the world, agreed to strengthen their cooperation Wednesday with the signing of a historic agreement.
As part of the pact signed Wednesday, Hollywood and Bollywood have agreed to “develop and strengthen motion picture production, distribution, technology, content protection and commercial cooperation.” The two industries also supported the creation of a Los Angeles-India Film Council to encourage Indian film production in Los Angeles.
This is the second major step towards economic development and cooperation this...
• Date: Oct 16, 2010
The Sanjay Dutt starrer Knock Out may have been released on Friday, but the Bombay High Court's judgment that eventually allowed Sohail Maklai Entertainment (SME) to release the film has been landmark in its own way. This the first time that an Indian court has admitted that Bollywood infringed a Hollywood copyright. That much, for sure, is landmark.
Thursday had been a day of high drama. First, a single judge bench of the High Court of Justice Roshan Dalvi restrained the producers from releasing the film on Friday. Justice Dalvi did this after watching both Knock...
• Date: Oct 10, 2010
The film based on JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit is all set to become the most expensive film ever made. Sir Peter Jackson’s cinematic rendition, the two-part precursor to The Lord of the Rings biopic trilogy, will cost $500 million.
The entire three-part The Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King – had cost $281 million in contrast. If all goes according to plan, the first part of The Hobbit will open in December 2012, with the second following a year later.
The...
• Date: Sep 24, 2010
The controversy over the 'Zandu Balm' song in the film Dabangg and the subsequent rapprochement between the ointment manufacturer and the film producer is a classic example of a farce being played out in full public glare.
It was a farce all right. But such a poor one that it couldn't even make one laugh. The contending parties of course have started sleeping together. Happily so.
Dabangg has been one of the biggest hits in recent times. Its first weekend box office collections of Rs 48 crore broke all records. It overtook the first weekend collections of Aamir...
• Date: Aug 4, 2008
“We have reached a time when we must open warfare on mediocrity, greyness and lack of expressiveness and make creative inquiry a rule in cinema.”
His oeuvre rests on this simple rule, which lies framed in his study. On the wall opposite is a poster with a pigeon nesting on tangled strips of film. And for Buddhadeb Dasgupta, too, his concerns zoom through the mesh of life to explore the inexorable truth of life and living.
But, as Dasgupta himself says, “If creative inquiry is a rule for cinema, then a filmmaker never makes one in expectation of an award. But when one gets one,...
• Date: Jan 1, 1999
The roots of Indian cinema are almost as old as those of the medium itself. Within eight months of taking Paris by storm, the touring agents of Lumiere brothers' Cinematographer landed on the shores of India. On July 7, 1896, The Times of India carried an advertisement heralding the arrival of "the marvel of the century" and "wonder of the world". Four screenings took place that historic evening at Watson's Hotel in Bombay (now Mumbai). The entry fee was one Rupee. The show received an overwhelming response. Motion pictures were subsequently introduced in Calcutta towards...
