Cashing in on the buzz around Diwali, filmmaker Rakesh Roshan will unveil the teaser of his Republic Day release’ Kaabil,’ starring Hrithik Roshan and Yami Gautam today at 11 am.
The audio-visual presentation will be released digitally, followed by teasers, posters, and motion posters daily till October 26, when the full-length trailer comes out. Given the increasing power and reach of the internet medium, unique activities and innovations have been queued up with leading platforms.
‘Kaabil,’ directed by Sanjay Gupta, which releases on January 26, 2017, is the story of a man who lived his life in darkness until a tragedy fuels the flames of vengeance.
New Delhi: The news of Sussanne Khan and Hrithik Roshan’s separation shocked the whole Bollywood industry, but now it seems the actor has buried his past and ready to move on.
Rumour mills are abuzz with the speculation that Bollywood superstar Hrithik Roshan has found love once again. Wondering, who’s the lucky girl?
Well, if reports are to be believed, the actor has found solace in Bollywood actress Neha Dhupia. Leading entertainment portal Zoom quoted a reliable source saying, “Hrithik Roshan and Neha Dhupia recently went to perform at a marriage out of Mumbai, and the two, after their performance, were spotted spending some quality time together.”
Neha Dhupia is currently hosting a show titled #NoFilterNeha, which has hit the fans. However, nothing has been confirmed as neither Neha nor Hrithik has commented on the issue yet.
Recently, Hrithik and Kangana had been at loggerheads since the ‘Queen’ star purportedly referred to the actor as the ‘silly ex’ in an interview.
Hrithik, who was the first to send the legal notice to Kangana, has demanded that she apologize publicly and clear the air about their alleged affair, which he firmly refutes.
Award-winning singer and music composer Papon, who became a member of Saavn’s Artist-in-Residence (AiR) program this month, said that Indian music has gone beyond classical and Bollywood. Talking about the constantly changing scenario in the world of music, the singer said: “Indian music is changing, and people have a new idea of India through the music that is coming out of the country. Globalization has made people more aware, more accepting of new trends. Indian music is no longer just classical or Bollywood.”
Talking about choosing Papon as the singer of this month Vice President of Entertainment and Original Content at Saavn, Gaurav Wadhwa said, “Papon is an icon in the Indian music scene. We trust that his unique ability to transcend traditional music genres will resonate with our fanbase and continue the AiR legacy.”
Supporting the Saavn initiative, Papon said, “The idea is to come together and work on interesting projects and make them possible. I fully support their idea of enabling artists to translate ideas into music and helping it reach an audience worldwide. This association has also come at an important time for me as I am ready to release some new music.”
Papon, who has sung some super hit Bollywood songs like Moh Moh Ke Dhage, Kyun, Jiyein Kyun, Bulleya, and his folk-fusion band The East India Company, believes it is equally challenging to be an established singer, whether in Bollywood or independent music.
“Both are challenging for different reasons. When you’re an Indie musician and wish to make your music, you put it out for people to discover. Bollywood doesn’t allow you that freedom. You have to work hard to get noticed and get work.”
Saavn already featured two very distinct singers on their Artist-in-Residence (AiR) program – EDM artist Nucleya and Raghu Dixit – earlier, and this is the third program they are hosting.
The world is a vast cauldron of violence, where insatiable lust for power, supremacy, and brutality exist. It is the world where trust and betrayal exist simultaneously, with power flowing from the barrel of a gun. It is the world where crude human nature exists in virgin form.
The extravagant fictionalization of an underworld, actors, and actions has been portrayed in mainstream Hindi cinema from time immemorial. Shakti Samanta’s China Town was an apt portrayal of the underworld in the 1950s. For the last four and a half decades (from the 1970s onwards), this hidden, invisible world of smuggling, dacoity, burglary, horror, bloodbath, and terror associated with it have been exposed to us in the form of entertainment utilizing Hindi films such as Deewar, Don, Amar Akbar, and Anthony, Don, Shakti, Hum, Vastaav, Satya, Gangster, Once Upon a time in Mumbai, Sarkar, Ek Villain, etc., etc.
The audience is thrilled to view such films in the cloister of theater halls. Noted journalist Hussain S. Zaidi has immortalized the underworld in Mumbai through his well-researched books such as Byculla to Bangkok, My name is Abu Salem, Dongri to Dubai: Six Decades of Mumbai Mafia, Mafia Queens of Mumbai, Black Friday, Mumbai Avengers, Headley, and I.
In Bengal, too, the underworld, both colonial and post-colonial, have been researched. Suranjan Das and Jayanta Kumar Ray’s book The Goondas: Towards a Reconstruction of the Calcutta Underworld, Sumanta Banerjee’s book The Wicked City: Crime and Punishment in Colonial Bengal are seminal works on the underworld in Kolkata.
Basudeb Chatterjee’s work covering police in Bengal also has facts and information on the underworld. Debraj Bhattacharyya’s article Kolkata Underworld in the Early 20th Century, published in Economic and Political Weekly in 2004, is a well-researched article and worth reading. Kudos to Srijit Mukherji for endeavoring to unveil this ‘invisible’ world through his latest directorial venture Zulfiqar. The teaser released on social media mentions that in the land of bridges, Rabindranath Tagore, there is another land where illegal activities and parallel economy reign.
In the City of Joy, crime syndicate operates in full swing. The film has a port area comprising the majority Muslim population and a considerable section of the Hindu population. It has dominant Muslim gang members with a Hindu Villain and their turf war for supremacy. Along with land-grabbing, extortion, smuggling, drugs, prostitution, the director has included the jihadi-terrorist aspect. Such a context, especially when India and Pakistan are on the brink of an undeclared war, will escalate the TRP of the film, draw crowds, and make the film more palpable to the audience Jav Leech.
The film has a potpourri of emotions-love, hate, friendship, betrayal, death, revenge, lust for power and carnal instincts, supremacy, fights, actions, etc. However, the ‘real’ underworld is the world where quintessential traits such as specialization of skills, intelligence, information networks, human resource management, organizational ability are required to survive. But the film failed to hint at these aspects. The underworld subculture, including the code language used by gang members, has not found visibility or audibility in this film. It has failed to grasp and portray these inner, subtle nuances prevailing within that world of organized crime and among its main actors.
Though dockyards are an important area for such illegal activities, the historiography of the underworld in Kolkata includes places such as Cossipore, College Street, Taltala, Baranagar, Thakurpukur, Haridevpur, Rajarhat, etc. Though geographical ghettos exist, their associated inherent violence lies mostly in the human psyche. The crime syndicates are not geographically positioned but scattered throughout the length and breadth of the city. The areas indicated in the film mainly comprise Kidderpore, Metiabruz, Garden Reach, which are different from the glitz and glamor of mainstream Kolkata. But this area has its own local history apart from illegal activities. According to information available in Wikipedia, Kidderpore – ‘this’ part of Kolkata produced three jewel poets Rongolal Bandhopadhyay, Hemchandra Bandhopadhyay, Micheal Madhusudan Dutta too.
The general population will definitely admire the film with claps and whistles. It will make the film a commercial success. Yet, for people with an intellectual acumen or students of English literature, ‘Zulfiqar’ as an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra will be a bolt from the blue. In 1981, Shashi Kapoor had produced a film Kalyug. As the director of the film, Shyam Bengal had masterfully borrowed and captured incidents from the epic Mahabharata. He had delicately touched upon the nuances of human relationships, crafting really moving scenes. But such crafting of characters or scenes, which touches our hearts, is not found in Zulfiqar.
The posters of the film, especially Nusrat Jahan, wearing a blue sari with a rose in her hand, appear obnoxious. Even the poster Prosenjit as Zulfiqar (Julius Caesar) surrounded by gang members with guns failed to capture the curiosity, thrills, and horror of a film on the underworld. A larger-than-life image of Zulfiqar in the film does not get established. Prosenjit as Zulfiqar (Srijit’s take on Julius Caesar) is full of mannerisms.
His costumes especially using shoe-laces for kurta buttons and make-up in the form of jatra type beards, are a total misfit. The scene where he is gunned down by Basheer Khan (Brutus) and other syndicate members appears too simplistic. According to Syed Tanveer Nasreen, Professor in the Department of History, University of Burdwan, ‘the film points out how little two communities in Bengal know each other. People do not attend a janaza with their shoes on. Covering just the head is not enough.
Dev, the ‘Mahanayak’ of Bengal, as Markaz Khan, is a mute character. Years ago, in a Hindi film Khamoshi, Nana Patekar had enacted a deaf and dumb role. But Nana Patekar’s expressions and acting skills were impeccable even in that mute role. It goes without saying that Dev lacks Patekar’s acting skills. He appears very muscular, with monotonous facial expressions and eye movements. Parambrata Chatterjee as Tony Braganza has played his character, though we expect more from him as the audience. Kaushik Sen, a theater personality, a seasoned actor, modulating his voice, making it husky, simultaneously portraying the negative and positive shades in the form of Basheer Khan, is appreciable.
Srijit always gives Jisshu U Sengupta a complete makeover with a different role from the rest, and this film is no exception to the general trend. Sengupta as Kashinath Kundu, with a paunch and marks all over his face, enacts his wicked, wily, manipulative character with subtlety and intelligence.
One fails to understand why Ankush, as Akhtar (Octavius) from the next generation, who takes charge of carrying the family legacy of crime, adopts the stereotypical clothes, make-up of his previous generation. The director fails to portray him as a modern gangster. Hence the image and character building with time does not happen as the film comes to an end.
In a film such as Zulfiqar, where the heroes are the protagonist, heroines appear to serve as interludes and mannequins. Nusrat Jahan, who plays Rani Talapatra (Srijit’s take on Cleopatra), appears more a model than an actress. She is very stiff, unable to express the most complex emotions of suffering, helplessness, loneliness, longing through her silence and eyes.
Some of her scenes with both Zulfiqar and Markaz appear too theatrical. Shedding the sari and showing cleavages are not enough to portray molls. Emotions of suffering and sensuousness were required simultaneously, which she failed to enact. However, Paoli Dam, in special appearances, enacting the character Karishma Ahmed (Caesar’s wife), hallucinating deserves praise.
The script, as well as the story-telling, could have been better. The director shows bike racing, but such a scene could have been more realistic had the bikers jumped over burning tires (in reality, this is practiced at the dead of night in many places of Kolkata). Few of the fight scenes appeared too amateurish. It could have been well-directed. The audience in Bengal has viewed slums and dilapidated buildings.
Only the Swing Bridge, a crucial link between Garden Reach and the central and eastern part of Kolkata that opens at an angle of 60-70 degrees between midnight and dawn to allow ships to sail, perhaps has been shown for the first time in the history of Bengali films. Anupam Roy’s songs will be admired by the present generation of youngsters, though the background music is too cacophonic. The photography is above average.
There is no dearth of gangsters in Kolkata. Gopal Pathak, Hemen Mongol, China, Jishnu, Ghutghutey, Phata Kesto, Idris Ali, Sridhar, Swapan Saha, Gabbar…the names are endless. Each life is a tale of the emergence and decline of a gang lord and has the potential to be made into a feature film. The director could have fictionalized such characters. But the incident which received huge media coverage and is etched in the minds of people is the IPS officer Vinod Kumar Mehta and his guard Mokhtar Ali, getting butchered in the by lanes of the port area in 1984.
Srijit Mukherji or any new genre of directors trying to make films should consider the incident of 1984, a watershed incident in the history of the underworld in Kolkata. In the annals of Bengali film, Zulfiqar will be regarded as a mediocre film but marketed very well by the director and the production house. Srijit Mukherji, through his star cast storyline, once again proves that he remains a popular filmmaker, but not a serious one.
And Tollywood still lacks a realistic gangster film.
New Delhi: Mumbai Film Festival, the seven-day star-studded extravaganza, wrapped up last week. Organized by the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI), the widely publicized festival saw about 175 films screened from 54 countries worldwide, besides sessions and appearances by popular faces from the Indian film industry. For the ailing Indian film festival market, MAMI truly upped the game, having a budget equivalent to that of “a small film.” The presenting sponsor for the event was the digital services company Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJio), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Star India was the associate sponsor, and many brands, including PVR Cinemas and JW Marriott, was supporting partners and collaborators.
“When we began, it actually took us 6-7 months to get (investor) partners on board,” said Smriti Kiran, creative director, MAMI. “We wanted people who believed in this because film festivals are a very tough space in terms of returns on investment. The reason we’d forever be grateful to Jio and Star is that we had knocked on every door, and they saw potential and merit in creating this legacy and cultural space, which a lot of other people didn’t. Whatever we built-in 2015 is going to show in 2017. In traditional terms of returns, these people have none for three years.”
Not everyone has been as lucky as the MAMI team. The only sponsor for the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) scheduled for 3-6 November 2016 is Large Short Films, a digital platform for short films by Royal Stag.
“We find that very difficult (getting sponsors),” said Ritu Sarin, festival director at DIFF, adding that the maximum support for them comes from grants and some from the state. “And I think that is because we are in a Himachal Pradesh town, and sponsors don’t find the value that they need to come to us. We always thought that once we pass the three-year mark—and this is our fifth year—we would have more sponsors coming on board, but we’ve not found any. We reached out to all kinds of brands, but they look at it in terms of their marketing budget in Himachal Pradesh which is very limited, but I think we can add a lot of value because we get people from all over the country. So yes, it’s a challenge.”
A few others have discovered other ways, though. The Jaipur International Film Festival scheduled for 7-11 January 2017 charges for delegate registration and film submissions and doesn’t focus on sponsorships. “We may charge anything between Rs.10,000-30,000 for a film screening depending on the theater rate. About Rs.500-1,000 per delegate makes for another Rs.4-5 lakh. Then some people book booths or pay for advertisements in catalogs—anything from Rs.50,000 to Rs.1 lakh. The government may sometimes give Rs.10-20 lakh,” said Hans Roj, head of marketing and corporate communication, invitation, and media at JIFF. “But there aren’t many private sponsors because there is no film industry culture (Jaipur). They may give a maximum of Rs.25,000-50,000.”
The challenges for film festivals in India are many. Firstly, most events, like those in Kerala, Goa, and Pune, are organized by the government and remain embroiled in administrative hassles. Secondly, it is difficult to monetize these festivals for the simple reason that, unlike many countries, laws in India require a ticketed film first to be censored, which dilutes the entire spirit of the kind of independent cinema that comes to these places.
“If we draw an overall conclusion on the film festival market in India, things are at a very nascent stage at both organizational and management levels,” Roj said. “We have so many different kinds of cinema, so many festivals, if the government controls things properly, there is much that can be done. Because of these hassles, it creates an impression globally that there was some random festival started in India that shut down. Another festival that crops up will have to deal with that negativity, and it’ll take much longer for people to start coming to it.”
None of these festivals are currently looking at recouping any of their investment. Not just because the gestation period on their recovery is long but because they’re inherently meant for community and cultural benefit and work as non-profits. “India doesn’t have a film festival identity. You’ve got Goa, Kerala, Kolkata, etc., but it’s not like any of these are the prime destinations for a festival person abroad. None of our festivals are on the world festival map because this is the go-to festival in India. So it’s a tremendous opportunity to create some identity globally,” Kiran said Media Focus.
“Film festivals ideally should not be money-making at all; they should be self-sustaining. So the point is if everybody begins to grow and make their pace robust, India will begin to have a cultural identity which is very important for it to have because it cannot just be known for Bollywood, food, and monuments.”
After awarding subsidy to half a dozen films shot in Uttar Pradesh in 2015, the state government is all set to present cheques of subsidy to 15 more films in a few days. “After being screened through the script and finance committees of the Film Bandhu, we have processed around 15 films for the subsidy. The films shortlisted include ‘Masai’, ‘Thoda Ishq Thoda Lutf’, ‘Bandhan’, ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’, ‘Majaz-E-Gham’ and ‘Hum Hain Jodi No. 1’, among others,” informs Gaurav Dwivedi, vice chairman Uttar Pradesh Film Development Council (UPFDC).
Films like ‘Nil Battey Sannata’, ‘Aligarh’, ‘Babumoshai Bandookbaaz’, ‘JD’ and ‘Jolly LLB 2’ have been cleared by the script committee of Film Bandhu, the nodal agency for handling the film policy that has been formed to ensure availability of all the film production-related facilities under a single roof.
The state government awards a subsidy of up to `2 crores for a film, which has been shot in the state. The number of days a film is shot determines the amount of subsidy it gets. While 30% of the amount is given after the film gets a certificate from the censor board, the remaining is awarded after the film is released or gets the release certificate.
The scheme, which came into effect in October 2015, has proved to be quite a hit with filmmakers and has managed to attract a lot of films with big ticket stars to be shot in UP including Salman Khan’s ‘Sultan’.
Akshay Kumar’s ‘Jolly LLB 2’, Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s ‘Freaky Ali’ and ‘Babumoshai Bandookbaaz’ among others. The scheme has also prompted Hollywood and other foreign filmmakers to send their proposals for shooting in UP of which Victoria And Abdullah will be shot in Agra this month, Hollywood-based Indian producer Swati Bhise will be shooting a film on Rani Laxmibai in Jhansi next year, while British filmmaker Colin Burrows will shoot Daku Sultana, a film based on dacoit Sultana in the Chambal valley and its adjoining areas next year. Around 180 films have been registered with the script committee in a year, out of which some have been shot, some are being shot and a few more are yet to start filming.
AHMEDABAD: Paldi police on Friday arrested four youths connected with a murder of a 26-year-old youth on Thursday afternoon. Police claimed that the youth was thrown in the Sabarmati River by two after a feud over his girlfriend. One of the accused is the son of a police constable, said investigators.
According to Paldi police, the body of Rahul Rathod, 26, a resident of Babunagar Society in Danilimda, was fished out from below Ambedkar Bridge by a team of Ahmedabad Fire and Emergency Services (AFES) at 3 pm on November 3 after Dipen Shah, a resident of Satellite, informed city police control room and fire brigade about an incident he witnessed were two youths on a scooter dragged a youth near the bridge and threw him down.
A G Gohil, an inspector of Paldi police station, said that the two primary accused were identified as Dhaval alias Mitesh Parmar, 19, and Bhargav Parmar, 20, both residents of Danilimda, who had thrown Rathod in the river. “Two others – Malhar, 19, and Rajan Parmar, 19, both residents of Danilimda – were involved in beating Rahul up just before the incident at Mangal Vikas Crossroads and have been arrested,” he said.
Investigators said that Rathod was suspicious of Dhaval and Bhargav that they talked to his girlfriend and asked them not to approach her. Over the issue, they had a scuffle on Thursday morning, but as families had intervened, the youths had got dispersed. The four again approached Rathod at 2 pm at the crossroads and beaten him up before taking him to Mexico.
Rathod’s family had refused to cremate the body till police nab all the accused, including Rajan, son of a police constable. Family members had alleged that police were trying to shield him and were underplaying his involvement. Thus, police investigators had intervened and informed the family that all four persons, named by the family and accused, have been rounded up. Rathod’s last rites were performed on Friday evening.
Family members said that Rathod was the eldest of three children of Shashikant Rathod, an auto driver, and had started working at a unit in Vatva six months ago.
CHENNAI: When the public mood in the city was turning to one of dread over four murders in as many days, the Chennai police said on Friday that they had cracked all of them.
In a span of six days, police have solved eight murders case and arrested 28 suspects. On Friday, six people were arrested for three murders. The Teynampet police arrested Gorak Singh, 34, his friends Maan Singh, 36, and Lalit Kohli, 30, all from Nepal, for murdering 60-year-old Shanthi at her Habibullah Road home.
In a few hours, the Thousand Lights police announced the arrest of S Suganthi, 35, and her boyfriend, A Yohan, 26, for the murder of Suganthi’s house owner Dhanalakshmi, 48. She was killed for asking the tenants to vacate the house. Almost simultaneously came the arrest of a 34-year-old man for the murder of a 58-year-old woman lawyer in Kumaran Nagar on Monday, My general.
This week, police arrested 11people for the murder of three ganja peddlers in Kannagi Nagar on October 30. The next day, a gang chased and murdered a history-sheeter at Vyasarpadi. Six people were arrested in the case. On November 2, five others were arrested for murdering revenue inspector Manimaran.
CHENNAI: Police on Friday arrested a 34-year-old man for the murder of a 58-year-old woman lawyer in Chennai.
Police said M Karthikeyan, a resident of Nolambur here, killed P Lakshmi Sudha at her home in Kumaran Nagar on October 31 when she threatened to expose his illicit relationship with her.
The Kumaran Nagar police arrested him based on eyewitnesses’ accounts. Police said Karthikeyan, who was running a massage center in the area, had met Sudha through a common friend and developed a relationship with her. He used to visit her house often, police said.
Karthikeyan got married in 2015 and started to avoid Sudha My Latest News. When Karthikeyan visited her home on October 31, Sudha wanted him to continue the illicit relationship. She threatened to expose their illicit relationship to his wife if he tried to avoid her. This provoked him, and he stabbed her to death, police said.
BENGALURU: The murder case of RSS worker Rudresh in Shivaji Nagar on Friday took a drastic turn, with Udupi-Chikkamgalur MP Shobha Karandlaje alleging that the minister for infrastructure development and wakf Roshan Baig is behind the murder. Karandlaje said the minister instigated the murder of Rudresh, as the latter was politically growing in stature in Shivajinagar.
“If Baig is not behind the murder of Rudresh, he should impress upon chief minister Siddaramaiah to call for a cabinet meeting and hand over the investigation to a central investigating agency,” she alleged.
Karandlaje alleged that Baig couldn’t find tolerable towards Rudresh and his political growth in the constituency. Thus, he instigated the Popular Front of India (PFI) and Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) activists to murder the RSS workers in My Live Updates.
In response, Baig said he was ready for any investigation as he had no role to play in the heinous crime. “Having come from Udupi-Chikkamagalur, she does not know Shivaji Nagar. I am a born and brought up Shivajinagar boy. Karandlaje is trying to gain cheap publicity from these kinds of baseless statements,” he said.
Baig said, keeping the 2018 elections in mind, the BJP is trying to flare up communal violence in Shivaji Nagar, and these statements were meant to divide the voters in the constituency.
“I am even considering with my legal team on filing a defamation case against Karandlaje. The BJP MP is trying to malign my name by dragging me into this murder. With the government having apprehended the culprits, the BJP has no issue to rake up and are thus keeping it alive with such statements,” he claimed.
