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Pancham UnMixed: An Unending Journey, is a film-documentary on RD Burman, by Brahmanand Singh.

It is more than a film, in fact, the film is a tribute or a Shradhanjali to the legend Rahul Dev Burman.

The film explores RD Burman’s life through his works, colleagues, family, close friends and admirers, which include personalities like: Gulzar, Asha Bhosle, Shammi Kapoor, Shakti Smant, Bhupinder, Pt. Shiv K Sharma, Pt. Hari P Chaurasia, Louis Banks, Vinod Chopra, Javed Akhtar, Vishal Bhardwaj, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Shantanu Moitra, Leslie Lewis and many more. So the film should have quite few interesting and exciting anecdotes….

KCP, regular reader of PFC, was/is part of the Film, and this is what he had to say about the film, the director and experience:

The journey started when we came to know that one Mr Brahmanand …

The other day a friend of mine buttonholed me as he was itching to narrate his debut feature film script. Off drinks, off non-veg, he was a bit put off by my not adhering to Bollywood convention of listening to a script. Somehow he had always given some weightage to my opinions—perhaps that was the reason—as he agreed to go ahead with the narration in this non-Bollywood ambience sans drinks also.

Into five minutes of story telling, my vanity was punctured . He was narrating the script not to get my opinions but to show off his oratorial and directorial skills—whatever they were. More than the plot and characterization he was into camera angles—How the jimmy jib will move from low angle to up up in the sky!How the steadicam will capture the unsteady walk into the wild..Gauging a puzzled look on my face, he started adding …

An excerpt from Nikhil’s Personal Diary: ‘A lost Saturday Evening’

I had just finished doing what I had set out to do, but wasn’t happy. This feeling of being outdone by things totally out of my control. I did not know what it was or why was it so pricking; just this feeling of utter despair. Maybe retracing an evening that had clawed into closure would do the trick.

You see it’s not about being organized or anything as much as it is about finding the right stuff at the right time. I had nothing better to do and hence decided to bring in some order. All it seemed to require was some good old hand-eye co-ordination. I was looking to set a pattern of sorts; wanted all my 10’s stacked together, all my 50’s arranged neatly, my 100’s and all my 500’s demarcated perfectly. My 1000’s?? Naah…. I …

There has been a trend in Hindi cinema that only people from Urdu background could write songs for the films. In some senses it sounds true but upon revisiting the Hindi music scenario one has to believe that only writers with progressive thoughts had written good songs. Be it shailendra or Majrooh Sultanpuri. But since I have discussed these lyricists in my earlier posts it’s time to revisit other lyricists. In this today’s hinglish era everone could write lyrics. For them, it’s not necessary to become a progressive or possess any ideology. It’s a truth because progressive writers like Nida Fazli and Raahat Indori has been left behind in this race. Earlier Kaifi azmi has never considered as a very respectful name in urdu adab (the height which saahir achived) but these factors only could never marginalize their contribution to hindi film music.

These writers always possessed an …

Yes. I said it. I called Prabhudeva a renaissance man.

This is not going to be an objective post. A glowing hagiography is more like it.

He may be the most talented person working in Indian movies today (hyperbole never hurt anyone). But he is wonly a dancer you say. No.

Item Dancer, Choreographer, Actor, Star, Director, Writer.

Writer/Director? Yes. That too of hit movies.

He was the original male item number. Nowadays a lot is made of Shah rukh, Abhishek or Hrithik dancing in some film they are not acting in. But he was there first. Many may not have seen this song of his. It was from a Rajni movie that bombed but this song was a hit.

How awesome was that?

His first appearance on the screen was as a backup dancer at age 17 in Mani Rathnam’s Agni Nakshathiram….

Theres no way I can remotely hope to recount the effect of watching “The Killing Fields”, no amount of words can effectively portray the heart wrenching effect the movie had on me and millions who saw it. Regardless of ‘when’ you watch it, it still resonates within you, the emotional aspect of the story as much as the craft of narrating this true story visually.

This comment on IMDB says it all,

“Based on the Khmer Rouge revolution in Cambodia, this is an excellent tale of hardship and friendship. Basically director Roland Joffe` did an wonderful job in exposing the detailed facts so simply in the film that you believe that you are in that time in person. The two actors, Sam Waterson and Haing Ngor both displayed godlike pieces of acting. It’s unfortunate Waterson couldn’t join Ngor in Academy Awards. In addition, the director’s credit is to highlight both the …

iView Author:
Indraneel Majumdar
(Mumbai, India)

Email:
indraneelmj [at] gmail [dot] com

Kundan Shah to Ashwani Dhir

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (Dir: Kundan Shah)…that was the film I saw in 1984 and it went on to become one of India’s biggest cult satires ever. A homage had to appear..but in this form!

Ashwani Dhir, if I got the director’s name right, was the person behind “Office Office” a cult serial on Indian Television that laughs at us with us. Nice. He comes to the big screen and decides to make a comedy. He also decides to pay homage to “JBDY”..but One Two Three??!!

One gangster goes by the name of Demellos Yadav. Remember the laash (Dead Body) from JBDY - Satish Shah in a memorable role. Mukesh Tiwari, a capable actor otherwise, embodies that fabulous name from the earlier movie. But I dread to tell here what happens …

In Anjaadhe Mysskin has proven what film makers, story writers, screenplay writers, creative people in general can DO, if given the liberty by the people with money who think they have figured out what audience want.

In spite of so many masters who have made so many masterpieces, thamizh cinema is still a local fiefdom where the produers and distributors decide what is the movie that is worth seeing the arc light in a dark theatre. So it is a wonder for me that Anjaadhe even got made, let alone distributed and screened. From a distributor’s angle in a multiplex world, the film did not possess a star hero (After Chithiram Pesudhadi, the director could have approached and star and made a movie with him), ‘A’ list music director, commercial heroine, or a hefty villain with 50 henchman. It has only one plus from a distributor -producer angle - the film …

I know it is on Tuesday, but on last night K For Kishore show Amit Kumar, Bappida and Sudesh Bhosle played an April Fool prank. I could not believe it. Well, actually the show played a prank on its audience and contestants. But still, I still cannot believe those three were part of the prank.

April fool banaaya to unako gussa aaya
Toh mera kya qasoor zamaane ka qasoor
Jisne dastoor banaaya
April Fool banaaya

So without further ado, the title for this week is:

April Fool

[Sunday 100: Rules: Exactly 100 Words]
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“I’d give anything to be you and hear that for the first time”.

Have you felt that way before? When you want to go back in time and savor again that first time when you read, listened to or watched something which has since become a life-long passion. Or has the relentless march of time ensured that like everything else, diminishing returns have set in. Do you wonder how would it be to go back and start it all over again with a clean slate?

Coming back to that quote - “I’d give anything to be you and hear that for the first time” – credited to Woody Allen when he watched an acquaintance buy his first record of Sidney Bechet. In his authoritative biography of Woody Allen, Eric Lax speaks about Woody’s life-long obsession with New Orleans-style jazz and the way music seeps itself into his cinema. Woody, himself, is an …

iView Author:
Gajendra S Shrotriya
(Jaipur, India)

Email :
gshrotriya [at] yahoo [dot] com

PICNIC – A short thriller

After a long gap, I am back at PFC, though not with a new film as promised in my last article. However, I have more exciting information to share with PFC readers. I have just completed the shoot of my new film PICNIC, a short 35 minutes thriller in Hindi, shot in 4 days schedule from start to finish. The film at present is in post production and very soon, a teaser would be released. The film is shaping up well and I am really excited as this time it is a very different experience than what I have had so far. I have worked with the crew of 20 people and managed to keep them perked up all through the four consecutive grueling hot days.

Artists …

A few days ago I was chatting online with a friend of mine about an upcoming project of hers for an NGO she works and in the midst of our banter she happened to mention an documentary film festival that they organize each year. She went on to ask whether I would be interested to do programming for it. Now I love documentaries as much as I love burritos (a lot) and I was flattered but also totally bemused.

The reason being that I am the the polar opposite of somebody who would be the poster boy for such a job. For starters you would never associate me with being deep / intellectual and I while I do possess a social conscience, I am totally not interested in politics. I’ve never voted and will never do so. I only read the sports and entertainment section of the newspapers and most importantly …

Anand sent in this link that gives the first look of what Harry Baweja’s Love Story 2050 will be. First we are no fans of Mr. Baweja. Second, we thought this was gonna be one trash of a movie, cause (a) It’s a love story by Mr. Baweja who gave us the dreaded “Teesri Aankh” (b) Not much was expected from the special effects that would be needed to build a city in the year 2050.

So, reluctantly I clicked on the link (video was on mute, cause I was attending, a supposedly very important meeting)… and voila… me thinks it’s not bad, not bad at all… but then that’s just a 30 odd second preview and the ghosts of Teesri Aankh are still somewhere around.

Fingers crossed… Check the video out, below and you decide…

Buzz - PFC …

It’s the first big hit of 2008 and the trend continues …heyy babyy ….welcome and now Race …..it’s one of the most amateur effort seen in recent times ……One can tolerate Heyy baby or a welcome ….. they don’t claim to be serious whereas on the other hand we have Race,which is heavily promoted as a thriller and what it turns out to be is laughable ….the twists are so childish and senseless that you feel like banging your head against your laptop…you don’t trust a single character and I would not have been surprised if in the end they would have revealed that Saif is actually Katrina and Akshaye is actually Bipasha and they are gay and they get married…doesn’t make any sense….ditto for the twists in the movie …. …..the performances are either over the top or way below the par …

RAWNESS IN HINDI MOVIES

There were movies in 80s and early 90s which can be defined as rough movies. These films had rawness in their treatment. Those movies were not sophisticated, not stylish. Here director does not want to impress you by stylish action, weared camera angles, soft music…but had only story, action & dialogues.

Story is situated mainly Mumbai or small town- …. The hero and his team of unemployed youth, neglected by society….one gang leader/politician… gang war…something happens…hero and his team/family is in trouble…they fight against system… and at the end they go to jail or return back to social life.

There were some particular qualities/symptoms of these movies like…

Here protagonists mainly fight with hockey sticks, talwar, rampuri chakoos and cycle chains…and in rare case revolver…

They live in the world of majdoors, workers, bekaars, scooters, union leaders, goons, maruti omnis, fiats, jeeps, chai ki dukan, canteens…

Love between hero and heroine …

Shantaram may bring an OSCAR to Amitabh Bachchan in the category of best supporting actor. If Khader Bhai’s character is given same importance in the film as it has been given by Gregory David Roberts in his book then this character provides a solid ground to AB to play the role in a wonderful manner and perhaps he grabs an OSCAR for this powerful supporting role.

David might have created character of Khader Bhai , the Mafia boss, on the basis of some real life mafia dons of Bombay but he certainly had kept personality (may be on screen persona) of Amitabh Bachchan in his mind while defining traits of this character. While reading the book, it seems at so many places that Amitabh is present in the book in the form of Khader Bhai.

This can be a life time role for Amitabh Bachchan. Film can put …

It all started off from PFC only and a link in a post not at all related to Screenwriting. A wonderful person had put a link to the workshop and I thought “Why Not?” so promptly wrote off a concept that was brewing in my head for quite sometime and sent it to the jury who, although my concept was written like a teaser & not complete, seemed to like it and called me over to join the workshop at Goa between the 17th and 23rd of March 2008. This article is only about that week and all the fun we have had. There were 10 participants and the event was held in the International Center, Goa. The main sponsors of the workshop were the British Council, Sa Re Ga Ma, Eelenora Images, Business of Cinema & a few others. The workshop was structured extremely well and we had 2 …

A couple days ago we received an email from Omi Vadiya of Red Tide Entertainment and they are looking for a screenplay writer for their next project - film.

And so if you are interested in the job then, here is more information on the job and the film:

Red Tide Entertainment is seeking and experienced feature screenplay writer for a new comedy film. Name Talent already Attached to project.

Writer must:

1. Have atleast 1 feature screenplay completed. (Awards, Options, Sold scripts a plus)
2. Have clear understanding of 3 Act Structure, Screenplay Format, 30 Beat Outlines, etc.

Story is about a Simple Indian Villager who travels to America and gets into a lot of trouble when he is mistaken for a famous Indian professor. This film explores the culture and politics of modern America through the eyes of an innocent, seemingly unintelligent, immigrant man.

If you are interested …

iView Author: Talabgaar (Ann Arbor, U.S.A)

EMAIL: withheld

Starstruck on Amitabh Bachchan’s 60th Birthday

It was the morning of October 11, 2002. I was on an impulse trip to Bombay, having driven from Pune the previous night. Staying with my in-laws in the suburb of Andheri, I had woken up at 4:30 that morning, pleasantly surprising my IAF Officer father-in-law, who always hoped that I would rise early every day, and go for a good brisk jaunt of a mile or so…or perhaps, ten.

His hopes seemed to quickly fade away however, when I showered and shaved, dressed up and left mumbling something about an early morning meeting.

A quick rickshaw ride later, I was in Juhu at the address where all roads in Bombay seemed to lead that morning. I wasn’t quite at the address, but rather across the road from it, since the …

iView Author:
Bharat Vineeth
(Boston, USA)

EMAIL:
plan32 [AT] gmail [DOT] com

An Evening with Mira Nair

Mira Nair is one of the top Indian directors in Hollywood at present. I was lucky enough to be present at Distinguished Artist Series at northeastern university, Boston on march, 20th.

Nair, who was born and raised in India, moved to the United States when she was 19 to attend Harvard University, where she graduated with a degree in sociology. While she was initially drawn to acting, she soon found something else that drew her in – film making. Beginning as a documentary filmmaker, Nair was recognized for some of her first films, including India Cabaret, which won for Best Documentary at the American Film Festival.

In addition to being nominated for an Oscar, Salaam Bombay!, Nair’s first feature film, won the Golden Camera Award at …