Posts tagged international

RA.One goes international

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2 years ago
by Fenil Seta in ,

Shah Rukh Khan has apparently roped in Hans Zimmer of The Dark Knight and The Lion King fame, to compose music for his home production

Sonal Chawla (MUMBAI MIRROR; September 24, 2010)

Though known to be a perfectionist even otherwise, King Khan it seems wants to put all his energies in making his production RA.One, an international success.

Not too long ago, Shah Rukh Khan signed the pop icon Akon to sing one of the songs in the film. And now, the grapevine has it that SRK has signed German composer Hans Zimmer to work on the background score of the film. And if all goes well, this will be the first time Hans will be composing music for a Bollywood movie.

Hans Zimmer is recognised as one of Hollywood’s most innovative musical talents for having worked on super hits like The Lion King, Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Pirates of The Caribbean series, The Da Vinci Code, The Dark Knight, Sherlock Holmes and even the much-talked-abut Inception.

A source from the unit reveals, “Shah Rukh has roped in a lot of foreign technicians for his sci-fi flick.

He wants the film to be of international standards. It was his director Anubhav Sinha who suggested Hans Zimmer’s name for the background score. Anubhav took the help of his contacts to arrange for a meeting between Hans and SRK. With time, Hans agreed to come on board.”

Apparently, Hans has refused several Bollywood offers in the past and this time, he has agreed to make an exception for Shah Rukh’s More >

UTV is Oye lucky, lucky oye!

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3 years ago
by Fenil Seta in

OWNER’S PRIDE… Stills from all the award-winning films

Production house sweeps National Awards with eight trophies…

BINA TRIVEDI Times News Network (BOMBAY TIMES; February 4, 2010)

UTV Motion Pictures would like to believe that 2008 was a very significant year for the production house, when almost everything it touched turned to gold, starting in February that year when its stock soared with Jodhaa Akbar — that historical that created waves by walking away with honours locally and internationally. And from then on, every second month its films made headlines. Naturally, when the National Awards were announced this month, UTV Motion Pictures found itself reaping dividends and winning eight awards across its productions for Jodhaa Akbar, Fashion, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, Mumbai Meri Jaan, A Wednesday and Harishchandrachi Factory.

Here’s a checklist. Priyanka Chopra and Kangna Ranaut won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively for Fashion; Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! won the award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment; Mumbai Meri Jaan won for Best Special Effects; A Wednesday, directed by Neeraj Pandey, won the Indira Gandhi Award For Best First Film of A Director; Jodhaa Akbar won Best Costume Designer for Neeta Lulla and Best Choreography for Rekha and Chinni Prakash; and, finally, Harishchandrachi Factory, UTV’s first Marathi production that released last Friday, won the Best Regional Film Award.

Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO of UTV Motion Pictures, More >

Peepli Live at Sundance-Co director shares his experience

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3 years ago
by Fenil Seta in

By Mahmood Farooqui (MUMBAI MIRROR; February 01, 2010)

// // // The Sundance ‘thing’ started for us in the shuttle as we travelled from the airport at Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah, to Park City where the festival is mainly held. We were sharing the cab with an Iranian origin investment banker from London who had come to attend the premiere of his Arab-origin, New York-based girlfriend’s first film, The Imperialists are still Alive. Sitting at the front was a sales agent from L.A who was good friends, believe it or not, with Gulshan Grover and had helped produce Deepa Mehta’s Earth: 1947. It was all very international and also very US.

Our first screening of Peepli Live took place at the Egyptian theatre, down Main Street, the only screening venue which is located in the Park City. The quaint theatre hall was completely full and the first public screening of the film and also the premiere, went down much better than we expected. A hall full of Americans seemed to enjoy every nuance of what is a very Indian film. The Q and A afterwards, and this was true of every subsequent screening, had charged up Americans wanting to unravel complex economic issues of rural India.

The festival itself is spread out over several theatres several miles from each other and they are all unconventional venues. The Temple theatre is a Jewish synagogue, the Library is located at a school, The Yarrow is a hotel, Prospector is a lodge while the Eccles, the largest of them all, is More >

Om Puri to split with wife of 16 Years?

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3 years ago
by Fenil Seta in ,
Was her tell-all biography the catalyst? By Kunal M Shah (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 28, 2010)

Though veteran actor Om Puri and his wife Nandita were recently seen together at the Jaipur Literature Festival, walking around hand in hand, reliable sources close to the couple reveal their 16-year-old marriage is on the rocks.

Evidently the couple has been having problems for some time but the last straw was the sexually explicit revelations made by Nandita in her biography of her husband, Unlikely Hero: Om Puri.

The references to Puri’s many sexual relationships, especially with his maid and caretaker, became a key talking point for the media, and the actor and his biographer wife had a very public and bitter spat over it. However, at the subsequent launch events, the Puris literally kissed and made up in public.

Close friends, however, say the people named in the biography were not at all amused by their names being dragged through the muck and Puri has had to shell out a pretty penny to settle with them. In fact, in an interview to a website, Om Puri confessed that some of his college friends were upset at the revelations about his early life in the book, and accused him of being publicity hungry. “This embarrassed me,” said the actor.

Another bone of contention is that Puri’s first wife Seema Kapoor, who he was in love with for a long time before marrying her and who was a huge support during his turbulent early days, has not been mentioned in the More >

PRESSURE? Well… I thrive on it!-Loveleen Tandon

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3 years ago
by Fenil Seta in

BOLLYWOOD CALLING: Loveleen Tandon Slumdog Millionaire’s Loveleen Tandon, who’s set to direct a film

ROSHNI K OLIVERA (BOMBAY TIMES; November 24, 2009)

It wasn’t just Anil Kapoor or the cute couple Dev Patel and Freida Pinto who catapulted to international fame with Slumdog Millionaire. It was also a pretty face that emerged from behind-the-scenes. That’s Loveleen Tandon, who co-directed the movie with Danny Boyle. But she has kept a low-profile for a while now. “Yes, I have literally been hibernating in Delhi,” smiled Loveleen, who was in Mumbai recently. “I have been busy with my film script. That’s a full time job.” The only time she took a break was when she was invited to meet the Queen and the Duke to the Buckingham Palace last month. And the Mumbai trip for Eve Ensler and Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal’s play I am an Emotional Creature, where she read the epilogue. “It’s a great co-incidence that Eve’s play is quite similar to my script, the story of a young girl, her desires, emotions and the pressures on her,” says Loveleen, who plans to start her movie next year. Getting good actors shouldn’t be difficult, she believes because “script is the queen.” As she puts it, “People are always on the lookout for a good script. Whether it’s actors or producers, nobody says no to a good script.” All credit for Slumdog’s apt casting goes to Loveleen, but she wasn’t just the casting director for the film, as some initially thought. “That wasn’t the only thing I was doing. Casting

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The law says you can’t marry till 18 but can have consensual sex at 16-Satish Kaushik

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3 years ago
by Fenil Seta in
Satish Kaushik is set to reveal some startling truths with Teree Sang, which deals with teenage pregnancy By Indu Mirani (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 31, 2009)

On the sets of Teree Sang

•    You have been more known for melodrama. What made you take up an issue like teenage pregnancy in Teree Sang?

Every filmmaker needs a change. While surfing the net, I came across a website called standupgirl.com. where I read many stories about teenage pregnancies and the problems it can create. I realised that this subject could be dramatised very well.

•    What makes your film different from others on the subject? In our society, this problem is suppressed a lot, our culture doesn’t allow us to speak too much about it. In our country, there are so many laws that we are unaware of. While making the film, I read that 95 per cent of children and 90 per cent of parents don’t know that there is a law called ‘Age of consent’.  Teree Sang will actually tell you that the age of consent is 16 and not 18 as most people believe. The law says that if consensual sex is practised before this age then, it is punishable. Ironically, nobody knows this.

•    It’s not 18?

No, the minimum age to marry is 18. There is some confusion because the ‘Age of consent’ law was made by the British and the ‘Age of Marriage’ was made by our traditional Republic of India. So, one can have pre-marital sex at the age of 16 but marriage can only happen after 18 years of age. In Manipur, the age of More >

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