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This Unni could have been named Murali. And why not, as Murali Nair – the one who had debuted with a Cannes Camera d’Or-winning Marana Simhasanam (The Death’s Throne) in 1999 – draws from his own childhood to come up with this delectable mix of innocent storytelling and subtle comments on the societal prejudices as seen through a child’s eyes.

Yes, Nair makes it more tantalizing by telling his audiences - as he did following a screening of his latest film at the 29th Festival of 3 Continents film festival in Nantes in France to an audience comprising yours truly as one of the minority adults amidst a gaggle of highly-curious French school children who seemed overawed after viewing this tale set in rural Kerala – that yes, there are autobiographical elements in his film, but they come with a generous doze of fictional elements. “Which one of the kids …

Hi PFCians. Can you please help me resolve this dilemma? I am often left wondering - What is a ‘crossover’ film? This came to my mind recently, when “Loins of Punjab” got released and many reviews described it as a ‘crossover’ film.

If we go by the commonly-held perception (created by the media that is ever-eager to create a label), a crossover film usually will be one (or mix of more than one) of the following:

1. Its characters speak in ‘Hinglish’ (maybe with a smattering of a regional language).
2. It’s made by an NRI director, with Indian/NRI/mixed caste.
3. It portrays stories of the NRI community.
4. It’s an NRI/Indian film in English.
5. It’s low-budget (big budget films by big names of Bollywood, even if set completely abroad, would never call themselves a crossover film).
6. It’s a low-budget English film made by some foreigner (sometimes by some Desi too) with a part-Desi part-Firangi cast, and shot partly in India

But …

The Indian Panorama for the 38th IFFI (Goa, Nov 23-Dec 3) has been just announced.

Lenin Rajendran’s “Ratri Mazha” (Night Rain) in Malayalam and Samir Chanda’s “Ek Nadir Galpo” (Story of a River) will represent India in the Asian-African-Latin American Competition section. The Panorama section will open with another Malayalam film, Shyamaprasad’s “Ore Kadal”.

The other films in Indian Panorama are B S Lingadevaru’s “Kada Beladingalu”, P R Ramdas Naidu’s “Moggina Jade” K Shivarudraiah’s “Daatu” (all Kannada), Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s “Naalu Pennungal”, Renjith’s “Kayyoppu”,
Babu Thiruvalla’s “Thaniye” (all Malayalam), Bhavna Talwar’s “Dharm”, Sameer Hanchate’s “Gafla” (both Hindi), Sanib Sabhapandit’s “Jaatingaa Ityadi” (Assamese), Mangesh Hadawale’s “Tingya”, Gajendra Ahire’s “Maai Baap”, Bipin Nadkarni’s “Aevdhe Se Aabhaal” and Vishal Bhandari’s “Kaalchakra” (all Marathi), Gnana Rajasekaran’s “Periyar” and Padma Magan’s “Ammuvagiya Naan” (both Tamil), Anjan Das’ “Jaara Brishtite Bhijechilo”, Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s “Ami, Yasin Aar Amaar Madhubala” (both Bengali), Makhonmani Mongsaba’s “Yenning Amadi Likia” (Manipuri).

The jury was headed by veteran …

Laaga Chunari Mein Daag (dir Pradeep Sarkar) is an ‘inspirational’ work. That is what is being said in some sections of the media and the Net.

Here are 4 films which have similar story backgrounds. Decide for yourself.

1. Doghi (Sisters) Marathi (1995)

Dir: Sumitra Bhave & Sunil Sukhtankar; Cast: Renuka Daftardar, Sonali Kulkarni, Uttara Baokar, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Suryakant Mandre.

Synopsis: The story of two sisters, Gauri and Krishna, two ordinary middle-class girl in a village who, as their fate would have it, fall into different circumstances in life. After her husband’s fatal accident, Gauri comes to her poor brother in Bombay only to end up as a sex worker. Her sister, Krishna tries to help her in vain. A social drama with human pathos lifted by superb performances from the main cast.
It went to a lot of international film festivals and won some awards too, including Torino (Italy) where it …

I know I am pretty late in catching up with this film, but I finally watched Chak De! India A lot have been written about it on passionforcinema and elsewhere, but still I would add my two bits here, particularly as I think it’s rare to get a film coming from the mainstream framework to have so much layering that is done commendably well. So here goes my take, point by point:

1. Though SRK has said in an interview that he acted just exactly as he does in any other movie, I think Swades and Chak De are the only two films where he chose to go into the character, rising above the Rahul/Raj image. Particularly in the scene towards the end of the movie when it slowly sinks into Kabir Khan that his girls have done it and the ghost chasing him all the years has been exorcised, SRK …

Pickle, an online journal on the entertainment industry, believed to be backed by one industry body, has reported that the Film Federation of India (FFI) has started the process to select the Indian entry for the Best Foreign Film Oscar in the 80th Academy Award.

It says that a cross section of industry experts and critics contacted by it “squared in on” Feroz Abbas Khan’s Gandhi My Father (Hindi), Ameer Sultan’s Paruthiveeran (Tamil) and Maniratnam’s Guru (Hindi) as their favourite choice for nomination from India for the Oscars.

Some of the other films that are in the “radar of Oscar watchers” are Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya (Hindi), Shanker’s Sivaji (Tamil), Radhamohan’s Mozhi (Tamil) and Rosshan Andrews’ Notebook (Malayalam), it claims. But it adds the rider, “Analysts appreciated the films listed in this para but were not confident to bet on any of these movies.”

According to Pickle, Gandhi My Father and …

Recently I had interviewed Neville Tuli, the founder chairman of the Osian’s Connoisseurs of Art, which organizes the Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian (& Arab - from this year) Cinema, in New Delhi. While some parts of the interview have been carried in my paper Deccan Herald, I am reproducing the whole text of the interview for PFC readers, for I am sure Tuli’s comments would provoke interesting responses. For information, Aruna Vasudev, the lady who built the Cinefan festival, has parted ways from it recently. Unconfirmed reports say Mani Kaul, who was the Creative Director of the Film House of Osian’s, has also quit. It remains to be seen how Tuli steers the festival without Vasudev, who built the festival brick by brick using her wide contacts in the film festival circuit and her reputation as a film critic / historian. So here it goes:

Arab Cinema have already been …

In the hype surrounding the controversies relating to the 53rd National Film Awards, the mention of a special jury award to FTII graduate Vibhu Puri’s Chabi Wali Pocket Watch in the Non-Feature category almost went unnoticed. Well, the fact of the matter is, most of the awards in the Non-Feature section go unnoticed by the media these days, as both channels and newspapers concentrate on the top awards in the Feature section.

But Puri’s film, coming after his earlier film Chauras Chand, shows the definite growth of a young filmmaker who is sooner than latter going to be a sensitive director in the Hindi film industry if he holds on to the ideals he has exhibited in both his films.

Chauras Chand, which was part of the Non-Feature Section of the Indian Panorama at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) a few years ago, was on Avtaar Singh …

Writing this post as I am going through a glossy book that introduces Sudhir Mishra’s Khoya Khoya Chand and a flier on Manish Tiwari’s directorial debut dil dosti etc, both products of Prakash Jha Productions. Sudhir’s film will release on October 26, and Manish’s on September 28.

Manish Tiwari, as the flier introduces him, is a PhD from Cambridge (UK), did a post-doctoral fellowship from Yale (USA) and United Nations University (Japan). He has worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN in Rome, Nepal and India. His monograph, titled Participatory Forest Policies and Politics in India was published by Ashgate (UK). He has produced and directed two documentary films - Lo Manthang and Ramnagar.

Well, the director’s educational and work experience are really, really impressive, and that is why the film, which the flier says has an original story by him, should be worth waiting for if nothing …

Hi friends. One great news - Shyam Benegal has been chosen for the Dada Saheb Phalke Award. He truly deserves it for all the great films he has made, though personally I feel he has slowed down a lot bit in recent years. Here’s the official announcement:

Shri Shyam Benegal one of the pioneers of new Indian Cinema has been selected for the prestigious Dadasaheb Phalke Award for 2005. `The Award is given by the Government of India for outstanding contribution in the field of Indian Cinema. The award will be conferred on Shri Shyam Benegal by the Hon’ble President of India at a ceremony later this year. The award carries a cash prize of Rs.2,00,000/-, a Swarna Kamal and a shawl.

Shri Shyam Benegal is considered one of the leading filmmakers in the country with his first feature film Ankur, which broke new grounds from the cinematic trends of the …

We have Rajat Kapoor the actor – playing the pedophile uncle in Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding, the genial uncle in Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai, the frustrated music company owner in Sagar Ballary’s Bheja Fry and the evil king in Subhash Ghai’s dud Kisna, and a gamut of other characters on the big screen – and yes, in ad films.

And then we have Rajat Kapoor the director, who started off making short films like Tarana and Hypnothesis, both winners of the National Award, before turning feature film director with Raghu Romeo, which again won the National Award.
We all know what Raghu Romeo was – a tragi-comedy that was the story of a ‘small’ guy’s big dreams as it was a critique of the national pastime called television soap operas.

It was a film that signalled the arrival of a director who wanted to make interesting movies, on his own …