New Delhi Sonam Kapoor, whose first filmSaawariya was loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky' short story White Nights, has bought the film rights of one of Anuja Chauhan's novels for the sheer love of its femalecharacters. Sonam, who describes herself as someone "who lives to eat and read in that order", says the book has characters that exit in reality and that's what prompted her to buy the film rights. If the story gets translated onscreen, it would be Sonam's third movie based on a novel after Aisha, which was a modern interpretation of Jane Austen's Emma and saw the actress playing a posh Delhi girl. "The idea of taking a book and turning the pages I remember have been the biggest high for me. So, it was imperative for me to play something like this before I get too old. It is about modern Indian women who exist in reality but not in Hindi cinema," she said. The actress was in the city recently to launch Chauhan's third novel 'Those Pricey Thakur Girls' by Harper Collins. The actress declined to name the book that her father Anil Kapoor's production company has acquired from Chauhan's other two novels -- 'The Zoya Factor' and 'Battle for Bittora'. Sonam says she is proud to have played some "real women" on celluloid in her short career in Bollywood. "I could play a little bit of modern Indian girl in Delhi 6 and Aisha. Both were Delhi girls. One was from Chandni Chowk while the other was from Defence colony and both girls exist." The actress believes that reading helps her to imagine new characters and places which in turn helps her as an actor. When asked about people's response to her extensive reading habit, Kapoor said, "People generally get surprised with women with brains."Source: Express India
Want to play modern Indian girl: Sonam Kapoor
New Delhi Sonam Kapoor, whose first filmSaawariya was loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky' short story White Nights, has bought the film rights of one of Anuja Chauhan's novels for the sheer love of its femalecharacters. Sonam, who describes herself as someone "who lives to eat and read in that order", says the book has characters that exit in reality and that's what prompted her to buy the film rights. If the story gets translated onscreen, it would be Sonam's third movie based on a novel after Aisha, which was a modern interpretation of Jane Austen's Emma and saw the actress playing a posh Delhi girl. "The idea of taking a book and turning the pages I remember have been the biggest high for me. So, it was imperative for me to play something like this before I get too old. It is about modern Indian women who exist in reality but not in Hindi cinema," she said. The actress was in the city recently to launch Chauhan's third novel 'Those Pricey Thakur Girls' by Harper Collins. The actress declined to name the book that her father Anil Kapoor's production company has acquired from Chauhan's other two novels -- 'The Zoya Factor' and 'Battle for Bittora'. Sonam says she is proud to have played some "real women" on celluloid in her short career in Bollywood. "I could play a little bit of modern Indian girl in Delhi 6 and Aisha. Both were Delhi girls. One was from Chandni Chowk while the other was from Defence colony and both girls exist." The actress believes that reading helps her to imagine new characters and places which in turn helps her as an actor. When asked about people's response to her extensive reading habit, Kapoor said, "People generally get surprised with women with brains."Source: Express India
National Awards: Paan Singh Tomar best film, Irrfan best actor
Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Paan Singh Tomar, a real-life story of athlete-turned-dacoit, was today named the best picture at the 60th National Film awards while its male star Irrfan Khan shared the best actor honour with Vikram Gokhale for Marathi film Anumati. Usha Jadhav was adjudged the best actress for her portrayal of a rustic housewife in Marathi film Dhag while filmmaker Shivaji Lotan Patil was declared the best director. Bollywood films shared the spotlight with Malayalam and Marathi cinema in the key categories at the awards this year. Bedabrata Pain’s debut Hindi film Chittagong, about Chittagong uprising, shared Indira Gandhi award for best debut film with Siddhartha Siva’s Malayalam film 101 Chodiyangal. Hindi Vicky Donor, John Abraham produced film on sperm donation, shared the best popular film providing wholesome entertainment honour with Malayalam film Ustad Hotel, by director Anwar Rasheed. Vicky Donor actors Annu Kapoor and Dolly Ahluwalia were best supporting actor and actress. Ahluwalia shared supporting actress credit with Kalpana for Malayalam film Thanichalla Njan. Director Sujoy Ghosh was declared the best original screenplay writer for his Vidya Balan starrer thriller Kahaani while another Hindi film Oh My God won the best adapted screenplay for Bhavesh Mandalia and Umesh Shukhla. Kahaani was also named the best edited film (Namrata Rao) of the year. Bolo Na from Chittagong won the best lyrics for Prasoon Joshi and best male playback singer for Shankar Mahadevan. Aarti Anklekar Tikekar was named the best female playback singer for Palakein Naa Moondoon from Marathi film Samhita. Source: The Asian Age,
Now, an IIM course for aspiring women politicians
New Delhi, To groom aspiring women politicians by helping them develop necessary skills, IIM Bangalore today launched a certificate course in political leadership for them. The three-month long programme called as India-Women in Leadership programme by the Centre for Public Policy (CPP) aims to equip aspiring women leaders with the requisite skills, knowledge and expertise in various aspects of governance. It seeks to strengthen their ability to contest elections, lobby for women's rights and strengthen the overall network of politically active women across India, said a statement. The first batch starts on July 16. The objective is to correct the imbalance in the Indian political landscape where women hold a mere 10 per cent of seats in India's parliament, the statement added. City-based Centre for Social Research (CSR), an NGO working on gender empowerment, is also an active partner in designing the course. The programme includes lectures, field visits, as well as a week each of intensive exposure visits in Delhi and Singapore, the statement said. According to the World Economic Forum's 2009 Gender Gap Index, India ranks 24 out of 135 countries for women's political participation. "This programme will enable women to enter, progress, and make an impact in the political arena," said chairprson of CPP at-IIMB Rajeev Gowda said while referring World Economic Forum's 2009 gender gap index where India ranks 24 out of 135 countries for women's political participation. The Centre for Public Policy, a leading policy think tank, was created in 2000 through a partnership agreement between the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Government of India, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and IIMB. Source: Indian Express, Image: flickr.com
Ang Lee’s Life of Pi opened International Film Festival of India
Ang Lee’s Life of Pi will opend the International Film Festival of India at Goa’s Panaji on Tuesday. Adapted to the screen from Yann Martel’s 2002 Man Booker Prize winning novel, Life of Pi is a tempestuous tale of a boy whose ship is wrecked in a killer storm on high seas. The boy, Pi, loses his mother, father and kid brother along with their little zoo when the family is sailing from their hometown of Puducherry or Pondicherry (close to Chennai in India) to Canada. In the end, Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with the most unlikely of companions, a Royal Bengal Tiger. Forced to spend many, many weeks on the tiny boat drifting on the waves, Pi learns to survive against not just Nature’s fiercesome odds, but also a deadly beast. While New Delhi’s Suraj Sharma’s essays the young Pi, whose carelessness on a cyclonic night costs the life of his parents and brother, Irrfan plays the older Pi. During a recent chat with me, Irrfan said that it was an impossibly difficult book to adapt for a movie. It was extremely complex and Lee shot the first parts of the film in Puducherry where the story actually begins, later moving to his native Taiwan for the more complex scenes. He recreated the Pacific Ocean, where Pi’s family perishes on a night of killer waves, in a disused airport. A gigantic water tank was built to simulate the effects of the hurricane in the 3D movie. With the production company, Fox, pulling out all stops, the shoot seemed so easy. As Irrfan averred, money was never a problem and the challenge of getting the tiger and the boy together was not as imposing as it had appeared in the beginning. “They had got four tigers from Canada or Russia, but, of course, in the end, it was all about computer graphics.” Irrfan has only a small role to play in the film and unlike the young Pi, who had a physically punishing and dangerous part to do, the older Pi had to grapple with mental challenges. Sharma was merely 16 when he signed for Lee’s first three-dimensional adventure. "After three years, the movie is now complete and being a part of the film has been a life-changing experience," Sharma said during a recent chat. "It has really changed me and how I perceive the entire world in many ways… People say that I have grown up personally after this movie. Like I went there as a 16-year-old boy. Now, sometimes I feel like I am 40 years old." "Earlier, I used to live in my own little shell and everything was small. Now I have realised that the world is this open place with opportunities. Now I know how to deal with situations in a better way and I can work five times harder without it affecting me because I have already worked like that. I've just become more ready for things," Sharma added. Irrfan agreed with this and said in an important way, the shoot itself had been as perilous as the actual story, where the boy kept the tiger alive and the tiger kept the boy alive. For each, the other was not just a distraction, but a point of hope, a point of survival. Pi wanted to outwit and outlive the animal, while it must have probably felt the same about the boy. So, both gave each other some kind of meaning to exist. “Perhaps the tiger would not have lived had it been alone on the boat. It was the presence of the boy that probably encouraged it to continue its fight to find food and sustain itself.” Irrfan felt that it would be very difficult for an Indian director to replicate Lee’s work in Life of Pi. “We are just not prepared for that kind of complexity.” Also, Indian movie companies and helmers are quite content with what they are producing. They have little desire to reach out to an international audience. However, Irrfan hoped that the new crop of directors would learn to understand the grammar of cinema better, in a way that their own films would hold out a great promise of appealing to a world audience. “Yes, funding would still remain an issue”. Irrfan, who has done some extraordinarily interesting roles in equally fascinating films like Pan Singh Tomar, Yeh Saali Zindagi and earlier Maqbool (based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth), is now shooting for Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Sahib Bibi Aur Gangster 2. Part one did not have Irrfan in it and he is stepping into Randeep Hooda’s shoes, who played the gangster. Irrfan is also doing Nikhil Advani’s latest yet-to-be titled work. With Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart, Dhulia’s Paan Singh Tomar behind him, Khan is all set to dream big. But those like Tabu who helped him evolve (Maqbool, The Namesake) continue to be in his dreams. During a recent promotional campaign for Life of Pi in Chennai, when Tabu said that she appears in Lee’s work much earlier than Irrfan does and does not share screen space with him, the actor had a wonderful rejoinder. “But you are always in my dreams.” I am sure she is, but Irrfan’s dreams must now include still greater performances than what we have already seen. Of course, I have little doubt about this. Source: Hindustan Times
Esha Gupta compromising Family life
The Newbie in Bollywood Esha Gupta is seeing a good phrase of her career. After banging on lead roles in Bhatt camp's movies with Jannat 2 & now forthcoming Raaz 3, Esha looks like on seven sky. The actress has also bang on Ace filmmaker Prakash Jha's next ' Chakravhyu'. But success is not coming on easiest way, one has to compromise with their personal life when the professional life touches sky high. Esha is also facing the same situation, the actress will have to miss her cousin's wedding. She will not be able to attend the wedding function as she will be busy promoting her up-comings Raaz 3 & Chakravyuh. “The wedding is going to be a grand affair starting from 24th August to 17th September. There will also be some royal pre-wedding functions that will be held in Delhi, Jodhpur and Ludhiana. I and my family are all very excited about it. But I am feeling sad at the same time because I won’t be able to attend any of the functions. As RAAZ 3 and CHAKRAVYUH are nearing its release dates, we will be very busy with its promotions, media meets, city tours and other things. I really don’t want to miss it as it will be the first wedding in our family, but I have no option" Said Esha Gupta. Source: Page3Review: Delhi Safari
Animation voiced by: Govinda, Boman Irani, Urmila Matondkar, Sweeney Khara, Akhshaye Khanna, Suniel Shetty, Director: Nikhil Advani
A bunch of animals are off on a mission. To tell the powers-that-be in New Delhi that their forests are in mortal danger, and so are they. Cub leopard Yuvi, his feisty mom, a chatty parrot, a large bear, and a wicked monkey set off on a journey full of adventure. Nikhil Advani’s ‘Delhi Safari’ does a great service to the animation-for-kids genre by stepping out of the tired mythological stories, and creating animals with distinctive personalities. And all through this tale, there are bits and pieces which keep you with the plot. Yuvi (Khara) is cute and anxious, his mom (Matondkar) is properly maternal, the parrot (Khanna) is nice and ‘baatooni’, the `bandar’ (Govinda) is suitably ‘badmaash’, and Bagga the bear (Irani) is big and wise. Some of the animation, in 3D, is slick and fast-paced. But the film, with its major nods to the ‘Madagascar’ series, and a few ‘Lion King’-like scenes, is not madly original. It also slows down in places to include other incidental characters. It is much too dependent on Bollywood clichés : the Bandar is a loud Purabiya character, never missing an intonation but becoming flat after a while, a Rajasthani crane couple is very 'filmi' Marwari and nearly incomprehensible, and so on. And why, why do all animated animals have to sing and dance? This kind of film is fine just the way it is, why should it be burdened with 'item numbers', the biggest cliché of all? And finally, it is great to have a message in your film. But when it makes the film preachy, some of the fun is leached out. Save the environment at all cost, but keep the entertainment ticking. Source: Indian Express
National award for playback won't change my calling: Rupa Ganguly
Though she bagged the national award for her song in the critically acclaimed film 'Abosheshe', Rupa Ganguly, known to millions as Draupadi from the serial 'Mahabharat', does not want to branch out into singing. Recording her song for a film after long 12 years, Rupa said she was more focused on acting than singing and wondered what convinced the national award authorities to pick her up. "The song seemed to feel good more because of the visuals, which created the mood, than the quality of my singing," said Rupa. The 45-year-old actress said her voice was not in proper shape due to back to back shooting and there were far more worthy contenders for the award. "There were many other contenders who did a better job in other films, I guess," Rupa said at a meet to promote the film, which released today. The actress said the director and the script-writer were insistent that none but she could do the playback part and for her part she was determined not to bite the bullet. "I felt like telling them, 'have you all turned mad'? But ultimately I had to give in. They were all so insistent," Rupa recalled. Probably they were inspired by Rituparno Ghosh who, she said, made her sing in full throated voice in the film 'Bariwali' where she had played the character of a heroine present in a shooting. She, however, said she could deliver with proper practice and musical accompaniment as she had brought out a solo Rabindrasangeet album in the past. "It was Rituparno who first made me sing my own number without any musical accompaniment in a film, but he was already a known name at that time unlike Aditi, the director of Abosheshe," she said. Talking about her role of a mother role in the film, Rupa said, "I initially was not very sure if a young girl like Aditi can handle such subtle issues on celluloid at the outset when she came to me with the script by Neel Mitra." But ultimately she acquitted herself very well, Rupa said. 'Abosheshey', which had been screened at IFFI Goa, Thiruvananthapuram, Wasghington DC South Asian Film Festivals and some other festivals, deals with the quest of a son (Ankur Khanna) to discover his mother Suchismita (Rupa) and her roots. About the songs and Rupa's initial reluctance, Aditi said, "We had to assure her that in the event of her voice cracking during recording we would make an alternative arrangement. But nothing of that sort happened as you can see from the audience response to the three tracks by her including "durey kothaye". Rupa said she has no qualms to play roles of mothers in Bengali films now, since she was also acting as mom in "Na Hanyate" by director Ringo. About working with Mithun Chakraborty in two films - - the under-production entertainer 'Buddhuram Dhol' and recently released 'Nobelchor' - - Rupa said these were very different portrayals. "Mithun is a co-actor I would always love to work with. Even when he is not in proper mood he starts cracking jokes," she said. Source: Indian Express
Introducing Sidharth Malhotra in Student of the Year
ROM ASSISTANT DIRECTOR TO HERO: Siddharth Malhotra’s short journey to stardom involved a rickshaw ride that led him to Karan Johar’s office It was one rickshaw ride that changed Siddharth Malhotra’s life. He had come to Mumbai for a film that never took off, but he was managing well with modelling assignments coming his way. He was on the verge of signing an offer with a top brand when the clear blue skies and a bumpy ride gave him an idea he could not get out his head. He wanted to learn basic acting and filmmaking skills. Once the idea consumed him, he went straight to Karan Johar’s
office. Says someone at Dharma Productions and got the job of a trainee assistant director (AD) on My Name is Khan (MNIK). “MNIK was an expansive shoot, but he lasted all through and was one of the finest ADs of the film.” A high school campus romance was what Karan always had in mind, but he’d earlier thought he would produce the film. He changed his mind later. “I wanted to visit the kind of space I hadn’t for a while — the world of music, song and dance and romance. And I found my leads,” says Karan. Siddharth’s father was in the Merchant Navy, and he grew up in Defence Colony, Delhi. Karan still remembers the day he told Siddharth he would be directing the film. “He was zapped! He kept on saying, ‘No you are lying.’” Karan remembers calling Siddharth’s father and mother, Sunil and Rimma (Malhotra). They were speechless. “We are just so happy our son is in the right hands,” said Sunil to Karan. Student of The Year, produced by Dharma Productions and Red Chillies Entertainment, releases on October 19, 2012. Source: Bollywood News
When is John Abraham’s wedding?
John Abraham seems to have learnt a trick that no other Bollywood star has quite figured out — how to stay in the news for just your work, while managing to keep your private life, well, private. He received kudos from one and all as he turned film producer with Vicky Donor earlier this year. Now, fellow actors are full of praise for his portrayal of gangster Manya Surve in the upcoming Shootout At Wadala. Yet, the one thing that he’s managed to avoid discussions on is his impending marriage with girlfriend Priya Runchal. Even as the upcoming Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor wedding continues to have enough drama to rival an Indian soap opera, John has managed to keep things quiet. And we learn that he doesn’t intend to go the big, fat celeb wedding way either. “Although the media and fans want to know about his marriage, it’s most likely to be a very personal affair. He won’t keep it under wraps (once he is married), but since he is a very private person, not many will realise when it happens,” says an insider. Though the wedding is set to take place this year (as confirmed by John in an earlier interview), no date has apparently been fixed. Ask John and he responds briefly: “When I get married, I don’t know how many people will get to know. John and Priya’s relationship started after his much-publicised breakup with ex-girlfriend Bipasha Basu last year. At this point, John’s focus seems to be strictly on his role as Manya Surve in Sanjay Gupta’s film. Ask him about Manoj Bajpayee praising his work and he says, “As an actor, you’re always hungry for appreciation. And if such words come from someone like Manoj, you feel positive.” Even Anil Kapoor, it seems, has told him that the film will be “game changer” for him. In October, John will shoot for the political thriller, Jaffna, in Sri Lanka, Kerala, London and Delhi. Source: Hindustan Times, Image: flickr.com
Vidya Balan receives National Award for The Dirty Picture
GaramGossips, By Gahoi Ad Online Media; She is one actress in Bollywood, who is bold, beautiful and super talented. Well, we are talking about Vidya Balan. Bollywood is truly lucky to have found her. The actress received the National Award from the Indian Vice President Hamid Ansari in New Delhifor her outstanding performance in The Dirty Picture, on Thursday. Vidya, donned a rose pink-coloured Kanjeevaram saree and needless to tell, she looked stunning as always. Vidya Balan after having recieved the award, told reporters, “I am extremely humbled. This (National Award) is the highest honour for any actor, and I feel happy and humbled and I just wish that the team of The Dirty Picture was with me to share this moment. This is truly humbling,”. Vidya’s parents had accompanied her to the event. What was interesting is that her boyfriend Siddharth Roy Kapur was also presnet at the same event, receiving the award for Chillar Party (Best Children’s Film) on behalf of UTV. The 59th National Film Awards ceremony was a grand event. Source; GaramGossipsSubscribe to:Comments (Atom)
