Pickle June 2020 Virtual Cannes Film Market Edition 2

www.pickle.co.in JUNE 2020

INSIDE

24

STORIES

7

Future of Cinema: A New Beginning Post Covid-19

The Show Must Go on: Jérôme Paillard Pickle Critics’ Pick: Best of the Cannes Official Selection 2020 Films

30

16

Re-Emergence of Cinema and Audience Engagement

Is Man no more at Home on Earth? Is Cinema no more at Home in Theatres? by Pierre Assouline 7 2 India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

32 www.pickle.co.in

INSIDE

STORIES 56 Most Awaited Films of India IFFI: The 38 Stage is 34 Getting A Ray that Still Lights The Way

Ready

42

Strings of Genius: Pandit Ravi Shankar

48 Driving Future of Immersive Entertainment

52

7 3

Cannes Takes Virtual Route India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

W W

e are delighted to present the latest issue of Pickle at e are delighted to present the this year’s Virtual Cannes 13th edition of Pickle at Berlinale Film Market (June 22-26).

This is the and European Film Market 2020.

Berlinale, which is celebrating fourteenth consecutive editionitsof 70th Pickle anniversary this year with over 200 brand for Cannes and Marché delegates. new films, has been put together by festival It is quite fascinating that the world’s co-directors Carlo Chatrian and Mariette largest virtual Rissenbeek, who havefilm beenmarket working has hard been to put together by Marché’s dedicated bring freshness to the festival after Dieter Kosslick final bow last year. team took by his working from home. When we met Jérôme Paillard, executive Four films from India are in the Berlin director of the Cannes Marché du Film Film Festival programme this year. India at has Berlinale’s in the last Indian week of also a strong EFM presence (seven February 2020, there were no signals talents) in Berlinale Talents 2020. Indian filmmaker Rima Das is of oneCannes of the Jury from that 61st Edition will be a India at Berlinale for Generation 14Plus. Five virtual market.

Indian films will also be screened in the EFM In the post COVID-19 world, Cannes Screenings. Our hearty congratulations MarketShedde, has successfully integrated to Film Meenakshi India and South variety of tools enabling delegates from Asia Delegate, Berlin Film Festival for discovering fresh and talents from every part of films the world to seamlessly India.

Beginning year, Meenakshi will participate in this the market.

While nothing lead as delegate from India at Berlin Film can come close to face to face human Festival. interaction, virtual meetings are the only possibility today . WeIndia interacted Over 100 delegates from are participating Berlinaleand andthey EFM. with manyatdelegates areThe quite Ministry Information Broadcasting happy of to e-meet.

Many&maintained that has set up an India Pavilion at MGB Central they will be able to engage in business Hall in association with Confederation of andIndustry. negotiations.

ItFacilitation is only the first Indian The Film Office timers, who may find it difficult at the Indian Pavilion is ready to provideget anyonboard guidancetoon filming in India. The FFO engage. website www.ffo.gov.in is a Market one-stopgets source Normally , Cannes Film 11,500 for filming needs in India. delegates and over 9,500 delegates have registered year.ecosystem (more on Page 6).

With Indianthis media changing For the first time, NFDC Film Bazaar fast, these are exciting times to be in the is Indian business.

New ways to produce, partfilm of the Goes to Cannes section with distribute andinmonetize across five Work Progresscontent films. This will Indian M&E landscape are emerging fast. open new opportunities for the Indian Independent Filmmakers. Our best wishes to NFDC and five filmmakers who will be pitching for global breakthroughs in ‘Goes to Cannes’

section.

Film Bazaar, over the years, has become a dynamic space for the exchange of ideas, the incubation of new projects and for co-production opportunities.

Around 90 Indian delegates from 60 companies are participating at the virtual 2020 Cannes Film Market. A large number of Independent Filmmakers are Our coverfor story in this edition focuses scouting co-production opportunities onand the getting Changing Bollywood, highlightingby their films discovered how directors and actors equipped with global film festival programmers. These daring themes are challenging the mass are challenging the aftermath market cinema in times India, inwhere enough of the coronavirus pandemic. room is present for the growth of domestic asMedia well asGuru foreign M&EKhanna, companies.

Also, Amit visionary the are geared towards ofgovernment the Indianpolicies Media and Entertainment providing an enabling environment and industry, has spelt out an incisive lowering market barriers to propel growth. analysis on where we are heading and what will the to new dueintothe the Do drop in be a line getnormal connected Indian M&E business.

Meet Pickle Berlin coronavirus pandemic.

Theatinsights orfrom do drop a linewill to get connected in theon thein article give a clear path Indian M&E business. navigating the entertainment industry and Feel reset free goals. to email your thoughts and 2020 will also mark centenary suggestions. celebrations of two legendary icons -Satyajit Ray and Pandit Ravi Shankar.

Saibal Chatterjee has featured them in this issue and theirnrelevance has been vidyasagar pickle media fascinatingly mapped. nat@pickle.co.in, We plan to update this edition with fresh www.pickle.co.in features and conference takeaways over the next five days. Feel free to email your thoughts and suggestions.

n vidyasagar pickle media nat@pickle.co.in, www.pickle.co.in

Pickle Volume XIII 8th edition Published by Pickle Media Private Limited Email: natvid@gmail.com l Mumbai l Chennai No.2, Habib Complex Dr Durgabhai Deshmukh Road RA Puram CHENNAI 600 028

Printed by Bon Graphics New #7, Arumugam Nagar, Dayalan Garden, Chinna Porur, Chennai – 600 116 Mobile: +91 9884816263 Email: bon_graphics@yahoo.co.in

Editorial Coordinators : M Sai Design: Sunil, Kitcha, Jose, Julie Photo Editor : K K Laskar Email: natvid@gmail.com

For advertising: natvid@gmail.com / pickle@picle.co.in

C

64 7 4

Pickle Business Guide 2020 Copyright 2020 by Pickle Media Pvt Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Pickle is an ad supported business guide tracking the filmed entertainment business in India.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in www.pickle.co.in

12 - 15 October 2020 Cannes, France

The World’s Entertainment Content Market

For the love of television

7 5

www.pickle.co.in India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world MIPCOM® is registered trademarks of Reed MIDEM - All rights reserved

Cannes takes digital avatar

The Show Must Go On Jérôme Paillard Over 9500 delegates from 5700 companies have registered for the five-day virtual Cannes Film Market beginning June 22. This is the 61st Edition of Cannes Film Market (first online edition) bringing producers, sales agents, distributors, buyers for acquisition of films from over 130 countries

Jérôme Paillard

Executive Director Cannes Marché du Film

C

annes Marché du Film has successfully integrated the online Cannes Film Market as close to the physical market with a clarity on how delegates from across the world can navigate and click through various aspects of the world’s largest film market.

Over 9500 delegates from 5700 companies have registered for the fiveday virtual Cannes Film Market beginning June 22. This is the 61st Edition of Cannes Film Market (first online edition) bringing producers, sales agents, distributors, buyers for acquisition of films from over 130 countries.

Jérôme Paillard, executive director of the Cannes Marché du Film in his recent address to Cannes Film Market

7 6

delegates explained how registered particpants can navigate different parts of the Marché’s virtual meeting place: Sales Agents, Cinemas, Institutions, Cannes Docs, Cannes XR, Conference Programs, and the Petit Majestic (networking place and online concerts/music shows).

"This year's event looks different, but the spirit of the Cannes Film Market continues to be business as usual," said Paillard. "Cannes market delegates are virtually present from every corner of the world for this unprecedented event, where we continue share emotions and ideas, to sell, buy and produce films".

"Now is the time to engage and collaborate about the future of cinema, and do business again. Human con-

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

nection is the driving force behind Majority of the countries who are the magic of the Marché du Film. We normally present at physical Vilhave designed a fully immersive VR lage International have set up online experience for delegates, where you booths at the market. Institutions can work and connect as if you are in have designed their own national Cannes," explained Paillard. pavilion web page and promote activities, conferences, screen films, do "Now more than ever before, the one-to-one meetings and world needs powerful use the Cinando Networkstories, to reach audiing Platform tools. ences, and Cannes is DELEGATES ready to help film projOver 850 film producers ects get the right partare part of the Producers 9500 ner," stated Paillard Network this year. The presenting partner coun"We hope this event COMPANIES tries at the Producers will bring energy back Network in Cannes Onto the film industry and 5700 line Market 2020 are Britinspire optimism and ish Film Institute (United courage to bring the BUYERS Kingdom), Cinema Chile new era of film produc(Chile), Dirección del Cine 1360 tion and distribution". y Audiovisual Nacional – "The show must go on.

MEMBERS OF PRODUCERS NETWORK ICAU (Uruguay), National May the spark of virFilm Center of Latvia (Lattual madness be the 850 via) and Ukrainian Film spark of change we all Institute (Ukraine). The need right now." said INSTITUTIONS Producers Network is the Paillard in an optimisgo-to place for producers tic tone.

60 for meetings and is speOver five days, around cifically designed to cre150 events, panels, keySALES AGENT EXHIBITORS ate opportunities to build notes, speed meetings peer network and get in250 and round-table discusternational co-production sions, as well as excluprojects off the ground. sive concerts of film MARKET SCREENINGS The criteria for access to scores from renowned Producers Network is that 260 soundtrack composers a producer should have are in store. done at least one feature VOD Cannes Film Market film with a commercial rewill screen over two lease within the past three 100 Platforms dozen films from 2020 years.

Cannes Official SelecCANNES XR COMPANIES Registered delegates will tions in the market have access to Marché’s (sales agents will have 200 digital Welcome Bag, the discretion to give acwhere you can find schedcess to buyers for viewules, trailers, brochures ing during the market). and conference schedules. In the According to Marché du Film, over Marché’s home page there is also 60 institutions representing film drop down menu for press rack, commissions, country pavilions and where online versions of trade publifilm agencies have confirmed particications (including Pickle) and dailies pation at the Cannes Virtual Market. will be uploaded.

7 7

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

My objective at Cannes Virtual Market...

India Pavilion at Virtual Cannes Film Market FICCI is managing the Virtual India Pavilion at the online Cannes Film Market under the aegis of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India. The objective of the India Pavilion is to promote Indian cinema across linguistic, cultural and regional diversity, with the aim of forging an increasing number of international partnerships in the realms of distribution, production, filming in India, script development and technology, and promoting Indian films abroad.

360 Konnect works with regional filmmakers in India to license their films across new media digital platforms globally. Our objective at Cannes Virtual Film Market is to seek meetings with international buyers to license cinemas from India that has an appeal across age and has a global crossover value.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Devyani Gandhi Founder-Partner 360 KONNECT DIGITAL MEDIA SOLUTIONS LL

We are looking for International Sales Agents, Festivals, Distributors and Buyers for our film, Two Friends, which is the debut feature film of Prasun Chatterjee and is selected in the ‘Goes to Cannes’ section. __________________________

Prasun Chatterjee Director/Producer KATHAK TALKIES

7 8

We wish to promote and market our latest film project Avijatrik, details of which are available on filmavijatrik.com

________________________________________________

Gaurang JALAN Director - Producer GAURANG FILMS We are primarily looking at acquiring films having awards potential which can be released theatrically. The last few films distributed by our firm are Parasite, Colette, Divine Love, Berlin Syndrome, etc. _________________________________________________

Ashwani Kumar Sharma Director iMPACT fILMS

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Star Entertainment is India’s most reputed and oldest independent English film distribution company since 1985. Our objective is to acquire Big Budget, Star Cast/Special Effects laden films for theatrical release simultaneous with USA release. We would like to acquire classics and popular hit films from the past for TV /VOD/ Internet To acquire Animation, Educational, Children and Special interest programs, TV comedies, TV serials. __________________________________________

Jiten Hemdev Managing Director STAR ENTERTAINMENT P LTD To present our Award winning Children cinema, Bollywood films and other productions to prospective buyers. Market our studio services such as Digitization, Restoration, Colorization, VFX, 2D to Stereoscopic 3D Conversion, SD to HD conversion, HD to 4K conversion, DI (Colour grading), Dubbing, etc. Acquire international content for distribution in India and to find new projects for coproduction. ________________________________________

Rajat Aggarwal Director ULTRA MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT PVT. LTD

To buy Hollywood films for India, joint ventures in production in India and to market Bollywood titles to different countries in the world. We have over 100 Indian titles to offer you under one roof with superstars like Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai & many others. ______________________________________

Sanjay Jumani Buyer - Seller Sunstone Entertainment

Present primary objective and focus is to acquire all rights for Commercial Driven, Action, Adventure, Special Effects, Fantasy Big Budget Genre films and programs with ‘A’ credits or franchise films for India and Subcontinent which can be exploited in all the platforms in India & SubContinent. ______________________________________

Kamal Jain CEO - Managing Director Superfine Films We are looking for international distributors for Vinod Chopra’s latest directorial Shikara, an untold story of the forced migration of Kashmiri Hindus in the early 1990s. ______________________________________

Dubey Abhishek Business Head VINOD CHOPRA PRODUCTIONS

We are looking for collaborators for our feature film Americano (currently in post-production) Co-production, Sales/ Distribution. We are looking for collaborators for our short film - My Blue Sky (In post-production)- ( Co-production, Sales/ Distribution). We are looking for collaborators for two of our feature films in development and aimed at the global audience.

______________________________________________________

Suchita Bhhatia Director-Writer METAPHYSICAL LAB 7 9

We are looking for distribution partners for Hollywood and Korean films for release in india. ______________________

Barkha Kumar Whole Time Director THE GENERAL TALKIES PVT LTD

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

INDIA’S FIVE

A quintet of independent Indian films, all feature debuts, will be pitching for global breakthroughs in Marche du Film’s ‘Goes to Cannes’ section Saibal Chatterjee

F

ive films-in-post, all debut features, constitute the ‘NFDC Film Bazaar Goes to Cannes’ selection for the Marche du Film, which will this year be a wholly digital platform.

The Indian quintet will join 15 other films – five apiece from Hong KongAsia Film Financing Forum (HAF), Poland’s New Horizons International Film Festival and the Thessaloniki Film Festival – in vying for the attention of sales agents, distributors and festival curators at the premier event

7 10

scheduled from June 22 to 26.

Two of these titles – Ajitpal Singh’s Hindi-language Fire in the Mountains and Natesh Hegde’s Kannada film Pedro – were NFDC Film Bazaar 2019 Work-in-Progress (WIP) Lab winners.

Prasun Chatterjee’s Bengali film Dostojee (Two Friends) was part of Film Bazaar Recommends last year, while Ashish Pant’s Uljhan (The Knot) and Irfana Majumdar’s Shankar’s Fairies, two Hindi films set in Lucknow, were in the WIP Lab lineup.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

DOSTOJEE (TWO FRIENDS)

D

ostojee, an independent Bengali film, has taken seven years out of the life of young writer-director Prasun Chatterjee. All the effort and time have borne fruit: the film is now on the Cannes bandwagon.

It is set in the early 1990s in a rural Bengal outpost, as far away as one could have got from the reverberations of the Babri Masjid demolition and the subsequent Mumbai serial blasts.

Through the prism of an “innocent friendship” between two village boys, Palash and Safikul, Dostojee examines how two cataclysmic events that took place three months apart impacted the two boys and their village.

Chatterjee, who has designed the film’s sound without banking on music, wrote the script in 2013. “I have been travelling in the area for the last 12 years. I even lived there for two-anda-half years to understand the struggles of the exceedingly poor people there,” he says.

Besides a few theatre actors, the cast of Dostojee has 150-plus villagers, all non-actors. The two main roles are

IT IS SET IN THE EARLY 1990S IN A RURAL BENGAL OUTPOST, AS FAR AWAY AS ONE COULD HAVE GOT FROM THE REVERBERATIONS OF THE BABRI MASJID DEMOLITION AND THE SUBSEQUENT MUMBAI SERIAL BLASTS

played by boys from the border village, Ashik Sheikh and Arif Sheikh. One is the son of a migrant worker; the other’s father works as an earth-digger for a local brick kiln. To help them ease themselves into the unfamiliar job of acting, Chatterjee would sit down with the two schoolboys every day and assist them with their homework.

Ashik and Arif weren’t the only ones who learnt on the job during the Dostojee shoot. Director of photography Tuhin Biswas did, too. Biswas is an award-winning photographer (and primary school teacher in Ranaghat, Nadia district) who was hired to click working stills. He took over as the cinematographer. His work is earning accolades on the evidence of the trailer alone.

“We shot the film in different seasons. A rain-making machine cannot produce showers to replicate natural rain,” says Chatterjee. “Also, in the period that Dostojee is set, there was no electricity in this village (which is located in the last subdivision on this side of the India-Bangladesh border between Murshidabad and Rajshahi).

Everything had to be filmed in light from natural sources and from candles and lanterns.”

Chatterjee says he will be pitching Dostojeeto both festival heads and sales agents.

FIRE IN THE MOUNTAINS

T

he Hindi-language Fire in the Mountains, directed by Ajitpal Singh, is set in an Uttarakhand village where tradition still hinders the path of modernity.

A woman saves money with the intention of making life easier for her disabled son. Her husband, on the other hand, has his eyes set on her savings.

He has a shamanic ritual in mind as a means to curing the child.

Fire in the Mountains is produced

by Ajay Rai of JAR Pictures, who came on board after seeing Singh’s 2018 short film Rammat Gammat. Veteran French cinematographer Dominique Colin (who has worked with Gaspar Noe and Cedric Klapisch)is the film’s director of photography.

A personal tragedy triggered Singh’s first narrative feature. The filmmaker lost a cousin because her husband believed she was possessed and therefore refused to take her to a hospital. “I was angry and dealing with the shock when the idea struck me,” says the writer-director. “My cousin was a progressive woman married to a conservative, old school guy.”

It is a similar clash between tradition and modernity that Fire in the Mountains explores. “In Uttarakhand, I found out about shamanic practices like ‘jaagar’ in which gods and spirits are summoned to cure ailments. It was the perfect setting for this kind of film.”

Debutante Vinamrata Rai (she has been in short films before) plays the female lead opposite the NSD-trained Chandan Bisht. Fire in the Mountains also has Sonal Jha in a secondary role.

About the Film Bazaar Goes to Cannes programme, Singh says: “If the pandemic hadn’t happened, I would have had a clear picture, but now I am going along and trying to figure out what is really happening in the market.”

The Marche du Film participation, he hopes, will help him know what the industry’s strategy is going to be in the current situation. “I just want to know where we stand and how we should plan ahead,” says Singh.

PEDRO

P

edro is directed by Natesh Hegde, a filmmaker based out of a small village near Dharwad in Karnataka. The project won the WIP Lab’s DI Support Award at the 2019 NFDC Film Bazaar.

The film is about a middle-aged electrician (played by Hegde’s father) living with his mother and his brother’s family in a remote village. The man commits an act that upsets the villagers and elicits an unexpected reaction from them.

“My father is an electrician. The film is based on some incidents in his life,” says Hegde. “There is a great deal of fic-

THE FILM IS ABOUT A MIDDLEAGED ELECTRICIAN (PLAYED BY HEGDE’S FATHER) LIVING WITH HIS MOTHER AND HIS BROTHER’S FAMILY IN A REMOTE VILLAGE. THE MAN COMMITS AN ACT THAT UPSETS THE VILLAGERS AND ELICITS AN UNEXPECTED REACTION FROM THEM

tion in the film although the characters are real. They are from my village, and some are even relatives.

In Pedro, I want to navigate between documentary and fiction.”

Hegde hopes, first and foremost, to tap the Goes to Cannes section to land a good festival premiere. “I will, of course, also be looking for distributors,” he adds.

Hegde, a self-taught filmmaker, regards the late G. Aravindan as his principal creative lodestar. “I have been aspiring to be a filmmaker for 6-7 years now,” he says. “The director who inspires me the most is Aravindan. “In his films, the line between the real and the imagined is blurred.”

Hegde cites Aravindan’s Thampu, a film about circus performers shot in documentary style, as a case in point.

“It is hard to fathom how he managed to shoot the close-ups of those people.

His films were disarmingly simple but they had important things to say,” says the young filmmaker.

SHANKAR’S FAIRIES

S

et in early 1960s Lucknow, Shankar’s Fairies is based on “the childhood memories” of director Irfana Majumdar’s historian-mother. The film is about a nine-year-old child of a senior police officer and her bonding with a family retainer, Shankar.

Majumdaris a Varanasi-based theatre director, teacher and solo performer.“In terms of aesthetics, visuals and the film’s spatial feel, I’ve relied on the instincts that my theatre training has given me,” she says.

The cast of the film has a mix of trained performers and non-actors, with whom she did a lot of work for several months before the shoot. “The main actor lived in the house and worked as a servant in preparation for the role,” says Majumdar.

The short synopsis of Shankar’s Fairies on the Marche du Film site reads: “A little girl belonging to a privileged family and a village man who is the family servant share a relationship based on imagination and stories. Underlying their innocent bonds are divided worlds:

THE FILM IS ABOUT A NINE-YEAR-OLD CHILD OF A SENIOR POLICE OFFICER AND HER BONDING WITH A FAMILY RETAINER, SHANKAR city and village, master and servant, adult and child.”

In Shankar’s Fairies, Majumdar has used her mother’s recollections to craft a non-linear, fictionalized film in which most of the incidents in the film take place in houses similar to the Lucknow Cantonment bungalows that officers of the Uttar Police Force lived in. “The setting is very real,” she says.

Her expectations from the Marche du Film? “This is our first feature film and we’ve made it completely independently. We are looking for anyone who might partner with us to help us get the film seen and get it out to the world,” Majumdar says.

ULJHAN (THE KNOT)

T

he second Lucknow film in the NFDC Film Bazaar selection, Ashish Pant’s Uljhan (The Knot) homes in on a middle-class couple whose car is involved in an accident one night. The conflicting reactions of the two to the incident drives a wedge between them and turns the spotlight on their values and beliefs.

Produced by Kartikeya Singh (Anhey Gorhey Da Daan, ChauthiKoot, Soni), Uljhan is Pant’s first feature.

He is a writing and directing alumnus from Columbia University who worked in theatre, assisting a lot of directors.

He now teaches film in New York.

The Knot (Hindi, Urdu, Awadhi) has its genesis in a real-life car mishap that happened when Pant was seven years

old. He says: “Within a few minutes the car was surrounded by people banging on the windows. They assumed that we had made a mistake. I was terrified.

That image stayed with me.”

“Lucknow,” Pant says, “has always been portrayed on the screen in the historical context. But my film is totally contemporary.”The central character in Uljhan is a small businessman. Says Pant: “It is very much about the class structure but the difference is that we have restricted the perspective to the middle-class couple.”

“The third character,” he explains, “comes from outside this class, but any judgement that the audience will make will emerge from the perspective of the middle class.

My intention is to get the viewer to think what they would have done had they been in a similar situation.”

Vikas Kumar (Hamid), Saloni Batra (Soni) and Nehpal Gautam play the three main roles in Uljhan. “The film is pretty much complete, so we are looking for festival slots,” says Pant. “But we will also explore sales and distribution opportunities.”

PICKLE CRITICS’ PICK

BEST OF THE CANNES OFFICIAL SELECTION 2020 FILMS Pierre Lescure, President of the Festival de Cannes, and Thierry Frémaux, the festival’s Artistic Director and General Delegate, announced its 2020 lineup of 56 Cannes labeled films. The curated film titles that have got the Cannes 2020 official stamp of approval will get a big boost at the Cannes Virtual Film Market, film festivals, theatres in the coming months. A record 2,067 features films were submitted for consideration for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival (1,845 films in 2019).

Of the 56 films picked in the Cannes official selections, 21 are French films. Of the 56, sixteen were made by women directors. Four animation films found a place in the selection. Here’s our critics’ pick of 15 films that are likely to conquer minds, award ceremonies and festivals in the coming months, as we live amidst COVID-19.

7 16

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom opened the Cannes festival in 2012. A Fox Searchlight film, The French Dispatch is set in the French foreign bureau of a Kansas newspaper. A big tribute to Journalism.

The French Dispatch (USA) The French Dispatch (USA)

Director: Wes Anderson Production: INDIAN PAINTBRUSH PRODUCTIONS/ AMERICAN EMPIRICAL PICTURES International Sales: FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES

A moving film on adoption. Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. Their parenthood is shaken by a call from Hikari who claims to be the child’s biological mother. What happens next forms the rest of the critically acclaimed movie.

TRUE MOTHERS

Director: NAOMI KAWASE Production: KINO FILMS CO Sales: PLAYTIME

TRUE MOTHERS | ASA GA KURU (Japan)

It stars Mads Mikkelsen in the lead role.

Druk by Thomas Vinterberg is the story of a tortured alcoholic and his journey.

The Danish film runs for 115 minutes.

Mikkelsen plays the protagonist named Martin.

Another Round DRUK (Denmark) Another Round | DRUK (Denmark)

Director: Thomas Vinterberg Production: ZENTROPA International Sales: TRUSTNORDISK

Maïwenn was twice in Cannes Official Competition. DNA is a fictional, touching film. Maïwenn, besides helming the movie, also stars in this film. Besides Maïwenn, the film also stars Louis Garrel, Marine Vacth, Fanny Ardant and Dylan Robert.

DNA (Algeria/France) ADN

Director: Maïwenn Production: WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS International Sales: WILD BUNCH INTERNATIONAL

7 17

DNA (Algeria/France) ADN

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Set in the year 2086, Last Words is a fictionAl film that is about end of the world. Very few people have survived and a young man embarks in search of the last remaining community of humans. It will resonate with peculiar times we are experiencing now. A handful of survivors on an island of greenery, regain hope by watching old movies, but cough and fall under the effect of a virus.

Kalipha Touray, a 19-year-old Gambian refugee plays “the last human being on earth”.

LAST WORDS (USA) LAST WORDS (USA)

Director: Jonathan Nossiter Production: STEMAL International Sales: THE PARTY FILMS

Epic comedy, it is the story of two men who meet by chance. The duo then take a trip, searching for a taste of happiness. Their experiences form the crux of the film.

HEAVEN: TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS (South Korea) Director: IM Sang-Soo Production: HIVE MEDIA CORP International Sales: FINECUT

HEAVEN: TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS (South Korea)

Based on Hector Abad Faciolince’s cult novel, the film portrays the life of Héctor Abad Gómez, a prominent doctor and human rights activist in the polarized, violent Medellin of the 70s. This story seen through the eyes of his only son, Héctor Abad Faciolince. One of the most outstanding writers in modern Spanish-language literature.

Forgotten We’ll be (Spain) EL OLVIDO QUE SEREMOS Forgotten We’ll be (Spain) EL OLVIDO QUE SEREMOS

Director: Fernando Trueba Production: CARACOL TELEVISION International Sales: FILM FACTORY ENTERTAINMENT

A new film by Lithuanian master Sharunas Bartas. Lithuania, 1948. War is over, but the country is left in ruins. 19-year-old Untė is a member of the Partisan movement resisting Soviet occupation. They do not fight on equal terms, but this desperate struggle will determine the future of the whole population.

IN THE DUSK (Lituania) Au crépuscule

Director: Sharunas Bartas Production: KINOELEKTRON International Sales: LUXBOX

7 18

IN THE DUSK (Lituania) Au crépuscule

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

It’s British director Francis Lee’s second LGBT romance after his much acclaimed debut, God’s Own Country. Ammonite is a 19th century love story starring Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan. Lee said the film a story about the “the power of love; the power of a deep, intimate, human relationship; the power of touch; and hope.

AMMONITE (UK) AMMONITE (UK)

Director: Francis Lee Production: SEE-SAW FILMS International Sales: CROSS CITY FILMS

This biopic of German cinema’s prolific Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Enfant Terrible, is directed by Oskar Roehler. Oliver Masucci (Hitler in the satirical Look Who’s Back) plays Fassbinder. When 22-yearold Rainer Werner Fassbinder storms the stage of the ‘Antitheater’ (Anti-Theatre) in Munich, 1967 and seizes the theatre production without further ado, nobody suspects this brazen nobody to become one of the most important post-war German filmmakers.

ENFANT TERRIBLE (Germany)

Director: Oskar Roehler (Germany) Production: BAVARIA FILMPRODUKTION International Sales: BAVARIA FILMPRODUKTION

ENFANT TERRIBLE (Germany)

It is a period films, from McQueens BBC/Amazon anthology series. Mangrove, is about a group of British black activists who were arrested in 1970 after demonstrating against police harassment A topical film today. McQueen has dedicated this film “to George Floyd and all the other black people that have been murdered, seen or unseen

MANGROVE by Steve McQueen (UK) MANGROVE by Steve McQueen (UK)

Director: Production: TURBINE STUDIOS LIMITED International Sales: TURBINE STUDIOS LIMITED

Pascal Plante directed short films, including Blond With Blue Eyes (Best Canadian Short Film, VIFF 2015), Nonna (Slamdance 2017) and BLAST BEAT (Slamdance 2019). Young and in her prime, Nadia decides to retire from pro swimming after the Olympic Games to escape a rigid life of sacrifice. After her very last race, Nadia drifts into nights of excess punctuated by episodes of self-doubt.

NADIA, BUTTERFLY (Canada)

Director: Pascal Plante (Canada) Production: NEMESIS FILMS International Sales: WAZABI FILMS

7 20

NADIA, BUTTERFLY (Canada)

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Ninja Thyberg’s film is an intimate, authentic and humorous journey into the everyday grind of the porn industry and among the people behind the stereotypes. A 20-year-old ambitious girl moves from her small town in Sweden to Los Angeles for a shot at a career in the adult industry. With the help of her three porn actresses roommates, she discovers a world dominated by males in which she has to push her personal and sexual limits to become the next big porn star.

PLEASURE (Sweden) PLEASURE (Sweden)

Director: Ninja Thyberg Production: PLATTFORM PRODUKTION International Sales: VERSATILE

Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut is a dark family drama in which he also stars.

John Petersen lives in California with his partner Eric and their adopted daughter Monica. His father Willis, a farmer, belongs to a much more traditional world, far from the new family codes. Upon retirement, Willis decides to be closer to his family and John welcomes them into their home. If Willis can get closer to his granddaughter Monica, the wounds of the past will reopen with John and his sister Sarah.

FALLING (USA)

Director: Viggo Mortensen Production: PERCIVAL PICTURES International Sales: HANWAY FILMS

FALLING (USA)

Born in Lebanon, now in Paris, Danielle Arbid’s two feature films Dans les champs de bataille and Un homme perdu have been selected for the Quinzaine des réalisateurs at the Cannes Film Festival.

Passion Simple is based on the popular 1992 novel

by Anne Ernaux. A love story, full of emotions. A French academic embarks on a passionate affair with a married Russian diplomat.

PASSION SIMPLE (Lebanon) PASSION SIMPLE (Lebanon)

7 21

Director: Danielle Arbid Production: LES FILMS PELLÉAS International Sales: PYRAMIDE INTERNATIONAL

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

7 22

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

7 23

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

A NEW BEGINNING

What will be the new normal? What happens to Indian Media and Entertainment and other pastimes?

Writer, filmmaker & media guru Amit Khanna find answers to these questions, as he spells out how M&E sector will fare in a post-Covid-19 world

By Amit Khanna

7 24

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

I

n the past 5000 years, there have been perhaps less than 50 watershed events which have changed human history and life on the planet. Every mythology has its own definition of such epic events. Arguably in the 20th century, the most cataclysmic changes were triggered by the two World Wars. In retrospect, it is the Great War of 1914-18 (together with the Spanish Flu which was co-terminus with its end) perhaps is the most moment which changed the way we had lived earlier. Let’s not forget there are several modern inventions which came into use around the same time. Wireless and railways (a little earlier), Electricity, Telephone, Penicil-

I AM NOT PREDICTING DOOMSDAY, ONLY RESET OF EXISTING NORMS. YES, IN 10 YEARS FROM NOW GLOBAL GDP WILL BE AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH AND INDIA WILL BE A $10 TRILLION ECONOMY. THE PROBLEM WILL BE A LOT OF US WILL BE ON THE SIDE-LINES NURSING LOST OPPORTUNITIES. THIS IS THE TIME TO UNLEARN, RELEARN AND RESKILL. IDEOLOGIES, HISTORY, DREAMS WILL CHANGE. WE ARE ABOUT TO SEE HUMANITY RESET

lin, Insulin, Processed food, Automobiles, Planes, Recorded music, Films, Radio, Television, Home appliances etc. It was also the first time when almost the entire world was impacted by the war in a far-reaching manner. Life changed forever. But, this was only expedited by rapid changing geopolitics, economy and technology, which followed in the next few years until Second World War. It was during the same time mass media enabled mass entertainment for the first time ever. The spectacular rise of newspapers, radio, films and -- a little later -- TV is virtually how humans continue to amuse themselves. In the last three decades, rapid digitalisation has not only changed media formats but given birth to the Internet, the present-day fountain head of information and entertainment.

A 100 years later, a simple virus, COVID-19 or Coronavirus is about to change much of this. Let me stick my head out and say nothing in our past has altered our lives as much as the present pandemic. Germaine to this article is the way entertainment will emerge in the post Coronavirus world.

If the last month, where almost the entire world is under lockdown, is any indication, the change will be much more than what we can even imagine at this stage. Existing occupations, jobs, habits, pastimes in fact from economy to lifestyle will change. It’s like looking into space and not blue skies.

How does one predict what will happen?

LIFELINE FOR THE NATION Media & Entertainment is a $2 trillion industry worldwide and $35 billion in India.

Here, it is also one of the largest employers providing jobs to around 5 million people besides offering indirect employment to another 5 million. However, more than the financial aspect, while media is the news and information lifeline for the nation, entertainment keeps people engaged for over 5-6 hours a day. Entertainment is the safety valve of an overstressed society. A billion-plus people are hooked on to various devices, from a mobile phone to TV set, watching some programming. Over a crore of people visit a cinema theatre every day.

Millions of others listen to the radio, attend live performances or play an online game.

Countless folk artistes, classical musicians and dancers, puppeteers, acrobats drama

FROM THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY, ENTERTAINMENT IS ONE OF HUMANS’ GREAT OBSESSION. FROM CREATIVITY TO COMMERCE IT’S AN ALL-EMBRACING ACTIVITY

troupes keep us entertained every day.

From the beginnings of history, entertainment is one of humans’ great obsession.

From creativity to commerce it’s an all-embracing activity.

Or they did till the coronavirus triggered a lockdown. What will happen when this Armageddon is over? How will people live after the 21st century Mahabharata ends? What will be the new normal? What happens to Media and Entertainment and other pastimes?

Let’s look at Cinema. I think visiting cinemas will now be an event rather than a casual outing. India has too few screens, only 9000 for such a large country, so they won’t shut down. However, new social distancing norms, for example, leaving every alternate seat blank, wearing masks may be mandatory, thermal checks, sanitisation and deep cleaning between shows will help in instilling confidence among cinema goers. Ticket booking and Food & Beverage sales will become online rather than physical sales to avoid crowding. Similarly, show timings will be staggered to avoid large gathering of people in and around the cinemas. Cinemas will be the weekly out of home experience for most Indians.

SCREEN & STREAM What about films themselves? India presently makes 2000 films annually, of which less than half are released theatrically.

This number is not sustainable. Going forward, not more than 200 to 300 films across languages will release in cinemas. The rest will have to rework their economics and work on a non-theatrical model. Increasingly, the number of films online through streaming services will increase dramatically. However, there is a limit to how much programming can one consume in a day. Some estimates suggest that 6 hours of engagement via multiple screens is the optimum for most people in a day. This engagement includes everything from social media, news, TV, gaming and films. While the pie will keep growing, the slices will become smaller. Talent and others in the value chain across various stakeholders have to rework their numbers.

7 26

Coming to television. Linear broadcasting already had an expiry date looming large. In India, it was still a decade away.

This equation will change. I am not saying that TV channels will shut down. But, it’s time the broadcasters concentrate on lesser channels and more on compelling content. Competing programming, for example, talent contests by the dozen cannot survive. The same endless family sagas will disappear with audience fatigue faster. Attention deficit will yield to new social pressures. Most TV programmers in India have failed to innovate and will suffer consequently. Lazy creativity will just not work.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

LET ME STICK MY HEAD OUT AND SAY NOTHING IN OUR PAST HAS ALTERED OUR LIVES AS MUCH AS THE PRESENT PANDEMIC

CONTENT FOCUS Driven by the false security of TV ratings, advertisers and their media buyers have been recklessly pumping money in mediocre content. In the new post-Corona world, lifestyle choices will drive up eyeballs but monetizing of these eyeballs will share and far more divided. The total number of hours of traditional broadcasting will increase in the immediate term but then, very quickly, the slide will begin.

For news, topicality is what determines viewership. The loss of credibility of TV news is directly linked to the personal biases of the channel and its anchors. I see

7 27

the tendency of getting a dozen talking heads (all half-baked experts) night after night as a recipe for disaster in the time to come. With curated news available on the fly, apps like Google News and Daily Hunt will become the primary source of news.

Viewing habits are already changing among certain segments of the audience. The younger demographic is tuning on TV sets. More people will switch to on-demand viewing much quicker than before in the post-pandemic world. Increased bandwidth is just a matter of a year or so and data prices will continue to be among the cheapest in the world.

In spite of an increase in data prices at least half the audience will engage with online content most of the time.

Digital entertainment so far in India has been dominated by short-form video and music. In recent months especially since the lockdown, there has been a sharp rise in streaming subscribers as well as time spent on such services. One of the reasons for the slow offtake of streaming video in India has been the wrong content. A minute section of the audience, the early adopters of Netflix, Amazon etc may be hooked on to dark content both foreign and Indian. However, the mainstream audience is still looking for entertainment they are used too.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

FOR THE ATTN OF BOSSES

CONTENT FOCUS Driven by the false security of TV ratings, advertisers and their media buyers have been recklessly pumping money in mediocre content. In the new post-Corona world, lifestyle choices will drive up eyeballs but monetizing of these eyeballs will share and far more divided. The total number of hours of traditional broadcasting will increase in the immediate term but then, very quickly, the slide will begin.

For news, topicality is what determines viewership. The loss of credibility of TV news is directly linked to the personal biases of the channel and its anchors. I see the tendency of getting a dozen talking heads (all half-baked experts) night after night as a recipe for disaster in the time to come. With curated news available on the fly, apps like Google News and Daily Hunt will become the primary source of news.

Viewing habits are already changing among certain segments of the audience.

The younger demographic is tuning on TV sets. More people will switch to on-demand viewing much quicker than before in the post-pandemic world. Increased bandwidth is just a matter of a year or so and data prices will continue to be among the cheapest in the world. In spite of an increase in data prices at least half the audience will engage with online content most of the time.

Digital entertainment so far in India has been dominated by short-form video and music. In recent months especially since the lockdown, there has been a sharp rise in streaming subscribers as well as time spent on such services. One of the reasons for the slow offtake of streaming video in India has been the wrong content.

A minute section of the audience, the early adopters of Netflix, Amazon etc may be hooked on to dark content both foreign and Indian. However, the mainstream audience is still looking for entertainment they are used too.

7 28

Of course one can move beyond banal overproduced and gauche soaps, but drama and romantic comedies are what will drive viewership in India. It is a matter of months before bosses at Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Apple, Sony and a handful of Indian platforms like MX Player, Zee 5 and Alt realise this and revamp their programming. Whether they have the financial muscle to scale up is another question. India is too big a market to dump elitist programming.

Even the stand-up comedy shows on a few of these platforms are too tangential for the large family audience in India. Gratuitous violence and profanity don’t make the programming appealing or engaging for a vast majority of Indians. A section of younger demographic especially the non-English speaking elite rather watch Savita Bhabhi clones on YouTube on their mobile phones than some of the zombie and dark content on streaming platforms.

While online gaming globally is a huge business over USD 150 billion, in India it is relatively small. It will expand exponentially in the years to come. My prediction is it will be a USD 5 billion Industry in 3 to 5 years. Social media is spawning not only junk but more of the same. Ennui is a matter of time. How much of short-form video and trolling are self-destructing themselves to boredom?

One segment which will suffer a lot is Live entertainment and Live sport. For months they may remain an embargo in any event which requires large gatherings in closed spaces. Social distancing, masks, health checks and sanitisation are here to stay. The more worrying thing is that people, by and large, will be reluctant to venture out for live events in the years to come.

A weak global economy with substantial job losses and wage cuts will not only lead to the tightening of belts but a change in discretionary spending habits. The silver lining for Event managers is the recent attempts at virtual concerts, performances and events. These may miss the vibe of live events but if executed well they can for a lot of people become a healthy alternative.

The recent concerts- Sangeet Setu- organised by the Indian Singers Association (ISA) is one example of how virtual concerts may evolve.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

NOT A PLAY THING One of the biggest revenue earners entertainment is Live sports. From the Olympics to IPL, soccer and basketball almost every sport has both National and International tournaments and matches. In future, these will happen in controlled environments with far fewer spectators.

Of course live broadcast and streaming will continue to attract eyeballs, sponsors and advertisers. In course of time stadia and arena with adequate health safeguards may be built to allow audience participation. I am worried about the way our traditional melas and religious fairs will shape up. It is impossible to have social distanc-

LET’S LOOK AT CINEMA. I THINK VISITING CINEMAS WILL NOW BE AN EVENT RATHER THAN A CASUAL OUTING. INDIA HAS TOO FEW SCREENS, ONLY 9000 FOR SUCH A LARGE COUNTRY, SO THEY WON’T SHUT DOWN. HOWEVER, NEW SOCIAL DISTANCING NORMS, FOR EXAMPLE, LEAVING EVERY ALTERNATE SEAT BLANK, WEARING MASKS MAY BE MANDATORY, THERMAL CHECKS, SANITISATION AND DEEP CLEANING BETWEEN SHOWS WILL HELP IN INSTILLING CONFIDENCE AMONG CINEMA GOERS

ing on such occasions at all. Some via media will emerge in due course. Folk artistes must be found in another form of monetisation to survive.

Some other segments like radio, OOH including billboards and digital displays, will carry on but advertising pressures will be an issue. Book fair, literary and film festivals are the other areas of concern. No matter how we wish the fear unleashed by Coronavirus is not going away soon if ever. I believe people will reprioritise their lives. Economic havoc is going to render millions jobless. Most of them do not have the wherewithal or the ability to reskill themselves. Even if they do find alternate employment or occupation they will in all likely earn less than earlier. We have already seen the first pink slips and salary cuts being announced across the media Industry. People will go out less, spend less, make alternative choices which means existing paradigms will change. Will all of them go back to buying newspapers anymore or simply switch to watching and reading news on TVs and smartphones? Will they subscribe to fewer channels.

Will they cut down on going out? No one has the answers, but quite likely.

AD & MORE In India advertising drives Media. I feel the ad spend will rise but its existing distribution will alter drastically. The reallocation will be much swifter than it would have been. Conventional metrics won’t work. For the next few years, the Economy will be under stress. Marketers will have to innovate to sell. The professional elite in Media & Industry too will have to take haircuts. Budgets will be redrawn. In films, stars will have to forgo part of their high salaries. Their entourages will have to be pruned.

Lavish sets and wasteful extravagance in production of all content will have to lean towards frugal efficiency. The number of award shows, conferences, junkets even holidays will be truncated. Redundancies will leave the Industry badly mauled.

I am not predicting doomsday, only reset of existing norms. Yes, in 10 years from now global GDP will be at an all-time high and India will be a 10 trillion economy. The problem will be a lot of us will be on the side-lines nursing lost opportunities. This is the time to unlearn, relearn and reskill. Ideologies, history, dreams will change. We are about to see humanity reset.

(Credit: This article by Amit Khanna was originally published in exchange4media.com)

COVID CHANGES THE PATH

RE-EMERGENCE

OF CINEMA AND AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT THE SHOW GOES ON, SAYS DR S RAGHUNATH, PROFESSOR OF STRATEGY, INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT (IIM) BANGALORE TRACKING THE CHANGING DIGITAL FACE OF MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT IN THE AFTERMATH OF COVID-19

DR S RAGHUNATH

Professor of Strategy, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore

I

n the Covid-19 era, it appears that in the immediate and the short term, production and consumption of cinema will undergo change driven by considerations such as social distancing and reduction of local travel for leisure activities including entertainment.

On the production side as the lockdown has impacted film shooting schedules, a whole lot of creative work is continuing to take place in various geographies. Therefore the content pipeline is stacking up well, while shooting schedules are being delayed. While the silver lining is in the learning curve amongst industry professionals who are increasingly interacting with each other and engaging on digital platforms with experienced experts to discuss and update their knowledge.

As social distancing is a necessary

38 7 30

requirement on production sets, use of technology can improve processes in studios. Virtual post-production processes may find their way to replace the traditional ones such as dialogue replacement where actual dialogues are recorded in a studio but are dubbed over live footage.

Actors might also choose to perform live within a digital environment.

Pre-visualization software is now available for directors to plan and visualize better to make creative choices and plan logistics taking the current realities into account. Tools and techniques are now available to virtually construct shots, sequences, or an entire movie, without physically visiting a location. The traditional format of developmentpre-production-production-postproduction sequential processing is going through radical change in productions that contain VFX

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

In a virtual production, it is possible for all the creative processes, including live action, video and CGI imagery - to begin simultaneously and in real-time within virtual environments – as the recent remake of The Lion King demonstrated

relationship between producers of movies and consumers of movies.

As the audience have the privilege of choosing the mode of consumption, cinema has to evolve to deliver impact on multiple screens in multiple formats. Movies must be available on mobile phones, on touch screen tablets and consider the widespread These are also days of potential use of a device opportunity for in delivering PRE-VISUALIZATION SOFTWARE IS ready content c i n e m a t i c NOW AVAILABLE FOR DIRECTORS shot on a low experience to the TO PLAN AND VISUALIZE BETTER budget with audience.

TO MAKE CREATIVE CHOICES AND clever camera PLAN LOGISTICS TAKING THE There is also work which can CURRENT REALITIES INTO ACCOUNT. gradual change deliver closeTOOLS AND TECHNIQUES ARE emerging in up scene shots NOW AVAILABLE TO VIRTUALLY s u p p o r t i n g from a distance CONSTRUCT SHOTS, SEQUENCES, i n d e p e n d e n t to stream their OR AN ENTIRE MOVIE, WITHOUT artistes who are content on PHYSICALLY VISITING A LOCATION. changing the OTT platforms.

THE TRADITIONAL FORMAT OF art of storyMovie makers DEVELOPMENT-PRE-PRODUCTIONtelling through on a tight PRODUCTION-POST-PRODUCTION movies, media, budget are SEQUENTIAL PROCESSING IS GOING live performance, trying to THROUGH RADICAL CHANGE IN music with establish mass PRODUCTIONS THAT CONTAIN VFX the help of market connect OR CGI technology.

With through the remote working becoming the norm OTT platforms. Therefore digital and with educational institutions release of films is beginning to going online, people are looking happen and will increase in the for entertainment within selfforeseeable future for modest budget quarantined areas. Therefore in the movies especially with the increase foreseeable future, the subscriber in consumption of entertainment on base and viewership levels will OTT platforms. continue to rise on Amazon Prime, We are witnessing an era where Netflix and pay TV channels. movie goers have turned into movie There are other emerging forms of viewers consuming content in the entertainment which include online digital space. This change in the drama, Alternate Reality Gaming, habits of the audience changes the etc. The action is on! or CGI. In a virtual production, it is possible for all the creative processes, including live action, video and CGI imagery - to begin simultaneously and in real-time within virtual environments – as the recent re-make of The Lion King demonstrated.

7 39 31

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

THOUGHT LEADER

IS MAN NO MORE AT HOME ON EARTH?

IS CINEMA NO MORE AT HOME IN THEATRES?

By Pierre Assouline WE WERE BEING CHASED FROM ALL PLACES, STREETS, CAFÉS, MARKETS, THEATRES, AND FROM OUR CHERISHED CANNES FILM FESTIVAL, WHILE CATS, BIRDS, COWS WERE AND STILL ARE AT HOME IN THE STREETS AND FREE TO WALK ON THE CARPETS OF THE WORLD, BE THEY RED OR NOT

PIERRE ASSOULINE

The Uplifting Cinema Project

I

s Mother Earth chastising Man for the harm Man has inflicted upon Her in his short-sighted ungrateful exploitation of Her generous resources?

We were not allowed to go out. From my window, I saw animals, many birds and insects: they had the right to be outside in the open air.

It filled me with a strange feeling, as if Mother Earth was repudiating us: “Get inside, you’ve done too much wrong, I don’t want to see you anymore!”

We were being chased from all places, streets, cafés, markets, theatres, and from our cherished Cannes Film Festival, while cats, birds, cows were and still are at home in the streets and free to walk on the carpets of the world, be they red or not.

Is Man no more at home on Earth?

7 40 32

In India’s wonderful Vedic tradition, we learn that at a time the whole world became perturbed due to nefarious activities, the predominating deity of the Earth, known as Bhumi, went to see Lord Brahma to tell of her calamities. Bhumi assumed the shape of a cow and presented herself before Lord Brahma with tears in her eyes. She was bereaved and was weeping, relating the calamitous position of the Earth.

The bull is the emblem of Dharma, the moral principle, and the cow is the representative of the Earth.

Nowadays, the cow is being slaughtered and the bull is only standing on one leg as the threefourths of humanity have evacuated the Sacred from their lives.

We are at a time when both thinkers and scientists are questioning our

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Can an over-sanitised world be the shelter for the art and poetry that Cinema embodies?

modern materialistic model, at a time when the film industry has to freeze and a Thierry FrĂŠmaux, the Big-Screen bard, go digital. Is it not also time for Indian Studios and Independents to clear a corridor to uplifting films?

Films that could possibly draw their narrative from India’s invaluable and underexplored homegrown richness, the MahƗbhƗrata Franchise, the BhƗgavata-purƗ৆a Franchise, the RƗmƗyana Franchise, all available, all IP free and all courtesy of VyƗsadeva and VƗlmƯki.

Inspiration for stories with spiritual content is everywhere, but nowhere more than from within the cradle of spirituality - India, with her rich oral and written tradition. It is time for Indian-crafted films to show the world the beauty of India’s culture, rather than follow Western films down the same old beaten track of portraying an “Indian genre� associated only with misery and social conflict as their main topics.

Unfortunately, those of the new generation filmmakers who are more apt in the handling of a Universal Cinema Language, have been Westernized to think that shabby hardship is the only theme that will take them to international festivals.

Historically, great tragedies such as

7 41 33

the current pandemic have often brought about significant changes. This crisis offers us the opportunity for a change of consciousness towards what images and narratives we are feeding audiences with.

Audiences must have their say in the kind of films they want the industry to offer.

We just have seen how, in a few days, a strong public will is capable of completely changing our way of life. Despite the shortterm economic “imperatives�, despite our habits and at the cost of our comfort.

Making the collective choice to demand less gratuitous mind-polluting images, less vacuity, more beauty, subtlety and inspiration dressing up our screens would be a much less arduous change than the one we are currently undergoing.

Will we all be, filmmakers and film consumers, up to the challenges?

Bhagavad-Gita tells us the soul can never be cut nor burnt. Have we experienced the soul cannot be locked down either, free to express craving for uplifting content?

Pierre Assouline, a producer in France and India with Selections and Awards including Competition in Venice, Competition and Jury Award in Locarno, Competition in 7RURQWR 2IÂżFLDO 6HOHFWLRQ LQ &DQQHV 1DWLRQDO $ZDUG LQ India, Pierre Assouline currently works at establishing “The Uplifting Cinema Projectâ€?, a production slate of XQLYHUVDO DQG XSOLIWLQJ ÂżOPV FRQYH\LQJ ,QGLDÂśV EHDXW\ WR the world.

He can be reached at pierre@theupliftingcinemaproject.com

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

IFFI-51 UNDER PRODUCTION

IFFI: The stage is

getting ready

IFFI 2020 (November 20th - 28th) is being planned as exciting as that of the golden jubilee edition, despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is expected to be as wide-ranging and bigger as its last year edition

T

he preparations for 51st edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) have begun in full swing. IFFI’s Golden Jubilee edition will be remembered for a long time for a string of thingsfrom honouring film industry legends Rajinikanth and Amitabh Bachchan to high profile International Jury for Competition Films.

IFFI 2020 is being planned as exciting as that of the golden jubilee edition, despite the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. It is expected to be as wide-ranging and bigger as its last year edition. IFFI 2020 will celebrate 100 years of India’s legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray. The 9-day cinematic feast will embrace the works of a wide variety of filmmakers across the world with masterclasses, knowledge series and Film Bazaar.

IFFI is thrilled that South Korean film Parasite which had its India Premiere at IFFI Goa 2019 won Oscars for Best Picture. The film is running successfully in theatres now. IFFI is on the lookout for International Jury members for IFFI 2020 and some big names are expected to be part of it.

At the virtual Cannes Film Market, IFFI is meeting up with film executives, sales agents, festival heads to collaborate and looking at curating another edition of fabulous films from across the globe. IFFI will also have knowledge sessions, master classes and open forum besides festival films.

Asia’s oldest event of its kind, IFFI still holds on to its pre-eminent

7 34

position as a showcase of cinematic excellence. It has over the years witnessed numerous alterations in character, nomenclature, location, dates and duration. Through it all, it has remained steadfast in its emphasis on showcasing the diversity of Indian cinema as well as in its commitment to the celebration of excellence across moviemaking genres.

Over the past two and a half decades, several other international film festivals have sprung up across India, notably in Kolkata, Kerala and Mumbai, and they all contribute meaningfully to the collective task of taking quality cinema to people weaned principally on a staple diet of star-driven, song and dance extravaganzas. But IFFI continues to retain its preeminent position owing to its size, scope and vintage.

Not just in the Indian context but also in relation to the other major Asian film festivals, IFFI matters.

And this is despite all the inevitable ups and downs that it has seen over the years.

All the other major Asian festivals – Tokyo, Busan and Shanghai – are of far more recent origin and therefore lack the history that is associated with IFFI. IFFI hands out prize money to the tune of US$ 200,000. The winner of the Golden Peacock for the best film takes home $80,000. That apart, the best director and the Special Jury Prize winner bag $30,000 each, while the two acting prizes come with a cash component of $20,000 each.

IFFI

also

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

confers

two

Lifetime

www.pickle.co.in

Achievement Awards – one to an international film personality, the other to an Indian great. The moves to push IFFI up a few notches have unfolded since the coastal state of Goa became its permanent venue in 2004. IFFI now has a far more settled feel than ever before, with each improvement in terms of infrastructure and programming initiatives adding value to both the event and the location.

On the programming side, IFFI not only unveils the best films from around the multilingual country with the aim of providing a glimpse of the sheer range and dynamism of Indian cinema, it also puts together a remarkable slate of brand new world cinema titles.

IFFI also hosts many retrospectives, tributes, master classes and special sections, which enhance the variety and depth of the event. The master classes have emerged as a highlight of the festival, especially for film school students who converge in Goa during the ten-day event.

India’s first international film festival was organized within five years of the nation attaining Independence.

It was a non-competitive event held in 1952 in Bombay (Now Mumbai).

A special feature of the inaugural function was the screening of the first film screened in India in 1896 by

the Lumiere brothers. Frank Capra was part of the American delegation that attended the festival.

After a fortnight-long run in Bombay, the festival travelled to Calcutta (now Kolkata), Madras (now Chennai) and Delhi. The first international film festival of India is rightfully credited with triggering a burst of creativity in Indian cinema by exposing young Indian filmmakers to the best from around the world, especially to Italian neo-realism.

Six decades on, IFFI continues to provide a useful platform to young Indian filmmakers who work outside the mainstream distribution and exhibition system and in languages that do not have access to the panIndian market that Hindi cinema has.

The Indian Panorama, a section that is made up of both features and non-features, opens global avenues for films made by veterans and newcomers alike.

IFFI now has a permanent home in Goa. The coastal state has benefitted appreciably from the shift. Its cinema has received a huge fillip in the decade and a half that Panaji has hosted IFFI. Filmmakers in the coastal state have been increasingly making their mark on the national and international stage.

Bong Joon-ho ‘a South Korean film Parasite, which had its Indian Premiere at IFFI Goa 2019, won multiple Oscars this year. The first non-English speaking film to win Best Picture 7 35

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

FLASHBACK

IFFI-50 Golden years of cinema 200-odd films from 76 countries, honouring of legends, slew of landmark films of historical worth from across the world were some of the highlights of IFFI-50

T

he 50th edition of Asia’s oldest international film festival was a major success. So, what did the International Film Festival of India (IFFI, November 20 to 28, 2019) had in its kitty that separated it from the previous 49 editions? A great deal. And not just in numbers, but also in terms of range and depth.

Packed into the nine-day festival were 200- odd films from 76 countries, which offered cineastes a wide sampling of last year’s most lauded works, besides a slew of landmark films of historical worth from across the world.

The best of contemporary world cinema apart, IFFI 2019 brought to film fans in Goa an impressive array of films from the past, including a package of nine previous winners of the Golden Peacock, the festival’s top trophy that now comes with a cash prize of over $55,000.

The Golden Peacock retrospective included the 1963 winner, Changes in the Village, directed by Lester James Peries, who is regarded as the father of Sri Lankan cinema. Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan (2014) was also in the segment along with James Ivory’s The Bostonians (1984), Miklos Jancso’s Hungarian Rhapsody (1979), Samira Makhmalbaf’s At Five in the Afternoon (2003) and Sergey Dvortsevoy’s Tulpan (2008).

The sole Indian film in the selection of Golden Peacock winners was the Bengali film MonerManush (2010), directed by Goutam Ghose.

Another commemorative segment aimed at underlining the special status of the 50th edition of IFFI was a retrospective of Oscar- winning films. Entries in this section ranged from Casablanca, Gone With the Wind and Ben-Hur to The Godfather, Forrest Gump and The Silence of the Lambs. All About Eve, The Best Years of Our Lives, Lawrence of Arabia and The Sound of Music completed the line-up of Oscar winners.

All eyes were also on the ‘filmmaker in focus’ Takashi Miike, a Ken Loach miniretrospective, wo restored Indian classics

7 36

(Ritwik Ghatak’s Titas Ekti Nadir Naam and Uday Shankar’s Kalpana) plus Master Frames and Festival Kaleidoscope, sections devoted to films hailed in Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Toronto.

Six films were screened as part of the Takashi Miike retrospective. The package included the relatively mellow The Bird People of China. The other Miikefilms in IFFI are Audition (1999), with which the maverick Japanese director known for his no-holds-barred depiction of violence and sexual excess began to acquire international fame; Ichi the Killer, a manga adaptation that is still banned in several countries; the yakuza thriller Dead or Alive; the samurai film 13 Assassins; and First Love, which played in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight this year.

The 50th IFFI competition had assembled 15 films that gave the five-member jury headed by John Bailey, veteran Hollywood cinematographer and former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, plenty to choose from. As for the composition of the jury, IFFI had rarely got it better than it has done this time.

The competition line-up included two Indian titles: Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Jallikattu and Anant Mahadevan’s Mai Ghat Crime No. 103/2005.

Among the other films in the IFFI 2019 competition were Pema Tseden’s ruralTibet set Chinese production Balloon, Ali Aydin’s Turkish entry Chronology, Swiss filmmaker Blaise Harrison’s first fiction feature Particles, Brazilian actor Wagner Moura’s historical epic Marighella, Indonesian director YosepAnggiNoen’s The Science of Fictions and the Slovenian film Stories from the Chestnut Woods, directed by Gregor Bozic.

World Panorama also had the Canadian film Coda, directed by Claude Lalonde.

Master Frames brought together 19 films by directors such as Pedro Almodovar (Pain and Glory), Olivier Assayas (Wasp Network), Hirokazu Kore-eda (The Truth, Roy Andersson (About Endlessness), Costa Gavras (Adults in the Room),

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Roman Polanski (An Officer and a Boy, Goran Paskaljevic (Despite the Fog), Werner Herzog (Family Romance LLC), Atom Egoyan (Guest of Honour).

A bunch of equally fancied names were part of IFFI’s Festival Kaleidoscope, which showcased films that earned critical accolades in the course of the year. Led by Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winner Parasite, this section includes several other titles that premiered in Cannes: Mati Diop’s Atlantique, Jessica Hausner’s Little Joe and Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Adding yet another dimension to the IFFI experience last year was a one of its kind hi-tech digital, interactive and multimedia exhibition put up by the Bureau of Outreach and Communication and National Film Archives of India (NFAI) at Darya Sangam, near Kala academy.

Named IFFI@50 the exhibition traced the journey of IFFI over the last five decades as it showcases Indian cinema to the world while also providing a platform in India for showcasing world cinema.

The exhibition leveraged novel hi-tech features like Zoetrope (moving picture creative installation), 360 bullet shot, 360 degree immersive experience area, augmented reality experience, vertical digital display panels, virtual reality tools, hologram technology, etc to create a self-learning historical experience for the viewers.

Amitabh Bachchan inaugurated the Dadasaheb Phalke Award retrospective organised at Kala Academy during IFFI. Speaking at the launch, the veteran actor said, “I feel deeply humbled and would thank the Government of India for this prestigious hnoour. I’ve always felt that I’m not deserving of such recognition but I humbly accept this with a lot of grace and affection”.

Calling cinema a universal medium, Bachchan added that films are beyond the borders of language. The actor expressed hope that we continue to make films that will bring people together.

The Indian Panorama section of the 50th edition of IFFI opened with the screening of National Award winning Gujarati film Hellaro; directed by Abhishek Shah in the feature film category at INOX in Panjim, Goa. A Kashmiri film Nooreh, directed by Ashish Pandey, opened the non-feature film category at Indian Panorama.

The other selections in the feature film category included five Marathi films — Tujhya Aaila, Anandi Gopal, Bhonga, Mai Ghat and Photo-Prem. This category also included three films each in Malayalam and Bengali, two in Tamil and one Kannada film.

The feature film category also had a subsection on mainstream cinema, under which popular films like Gully Boy, Uri: The Surgical Strike, Super 30 and Badhaai

7 37

Ho were screened. Telugu film F2 was also screened under this category.

A session on Oscar Retrospective was held on Day 1 at IFFI Goa. Moderated

by Journalist and film critic Naman Ramachandran, the session had the Festival Director, ADG, Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF), Chaitanya Prasad along with the editor of American Film Editor who also worked on the restored version of Casablanca, Carol Littleton.

This year, Russia was the focus country at IFFI. Speaking on the joint production of films and cultural exchange through films, Russian Ambassador to India Nikolay Kudashev said that such efforts will bring the spirit of India and Russia together. Head of Russian delegation at IFFI and Editor in Chief of Kinoreporter Maria Lameshev said that there was a great interest for Russian films among Indian people.

She added that according to the coproduction agreement, 40 percent of budget of the film would be given back by the Ministry of Culture.

She extended her support in facilitating meetings for possible co-productions in future. Eight Russian films--Abigail, Acid, Andrei Tarkovsky: A Cinema Prayer, Beanpole, Great poetry , Once in trubchevsk , Why don’t you just die!, and The Hero--were screened in the Country Focus section of IFFI this year.

A joint collaboration between IFFI, Saksham Bharat and UNESCO, the 50th IFFI edition screened three films for those with special needs with an aim to promote the creation of inclusive spaces for the differentlyabled through audio description. The section opened with ‘Munna Bhai MBBS’ directed by Rajkumar Hirani.

Attending the festival for the first time, actress Taapsee Pannu said that she was surprised to know such films were made. “I’ve not seen films that use audio to explain the scenes; so I wanted to surely see how it’s done,” she said. The other films screened were Lage Raho Munnabhai, M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story and the Konkani film Questao De Confusao with additional narration for the visually impaired.

The 2019 edition of the Open Forum organised by the Federation of the Film Societies of India opened with the pertinent topic: Focus on IFFI @50: Flash Back and Moving Forward.

The session was inaugurated by Chaitanya Prasad, Festival Director, ADG, Directorate of Film Festival (DFF), Kiran Shantaram, President, Federation of Film Societies of India, AK Bir, Filmmaker and Chairman of Technical Committee, IFFI 2019, Alexey Govorukhin, Executive Producer, Kinoreporter Magazine, Russia and Marianne Borgo, actress from France.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

A RAY THAT

STILL LIGHTS THE WAY

by Saibal Chatterjee

IN HIS CENTENARY YEAR, SATYAJIT RAY REMAINS AS RELEVANT AS HE WAS WHEN THE WORLD DISCOVERED HIS BRILLIANCE IN CANNES ALL OF 65 YEARS AGO

N

early three decades after his passing, Satyajit Ray’s relevance hasn’t dimmed a bit. In fact, as more and more contemporary Indian filmmakers seek to make renewed global inroads, Ray is the perfect role model.

After all, he combined in his remarkable body of work the twin virtues of cultural veracity and universal accessibility. He, therefore, belonged as much to India as he did to the world. Efforts to replicate his scale of international success and recognition continue in the land of his origin, but true, sustained triumph eludes his successors.

In his centenary year, Ray remains a constant presence in our midst, reminding us of the intrinsic capacity of the medium to capture the essence of life in its cultural specificities and yet communicate with people all around the world. His epochal first film, Pather Panchali (Song of the Little Road), won a major prize in Cannes in 1956 and put Indian cinema on the global map.

46 7 38

Indian and world cinema have moved on since Pather Panchali redefined the parameters of the medium, but the master’s all-pervasive influence continues to impact our films and filmmakers to this day.

Born on May 2, 1921, the multitalented Ray - filmmaker, writer, music composer, graphic artist, illustrator, and designer – was a master storyteller and a consummate craftsman. What set him apart, however, was his masterly ability to achieve a seamless mix of content and technique, an attribute that a lot of Indian filmmakers of the new millennium would do well to keep in mind. Flamboyance sans depth and substance is a completely useless quality to aspire for.

Ray once told an interviewer, “I feel that an ordinary person - the man in the street, if you like - is a more challenging subject for exploration than people in the heroic mould. It is the half shades, the hardly audible notes that I want to capture and explore... In any case, I find muted emotions more interesting and

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

7 39

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

challenging.� His cinema spoke to all of us because, no matter where in the world we lived, it was about all of us.

His humanism was all-pervasive.

Veteran film critic Chidananda Dasgupta, wrote in his book, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray: “Seldom has a film director’s work chronicled the process of social change in a country over as long a span of time as Satyajit Ray’s. The subjects of his films range over the shifting social scene in India for over one hundred and fifty years (at the time of the book’s publication). Devi (The Goddess, 1960) is placed in the 1830s. Shatranj Ke Khilari (The Chess Players, 1977) in the 1850s. Charulata (1964) is laid in 1879, Jalsaghar (The Music Room, 1958) at the turn of the century, the Apu trilogy in the early years of the 20th century. Sadgati (The Deliverance, 1981) was written by Premchand in the 1930s about an unspecified, as it were timeless, period. Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder, 1973) deals with the British-made wartime famine of 1943; besides, he of course made a host of contemporary films.�

Ray’s contemporary films – Abhijan (The Expedition, 1962), Mahanagar (The BigCity, 1963), Aranyer Din Ratri 'D\V DQG 1LJKWV LQ WKH )RUHVW

Seemabaddha (Company Limited, 1971), and Jana Aranya (The Middleman, 1975), among others – present a vivid portrait of a society and a culture in flux. No filmmaker has ever caught the nuances of this process of change and its impact on human beings quite with the same felicity.

The effortlessness was obviously misleading. Nothing that Ray did was ever chance-directed.

Few filmmakers in the annals of cinema have had as much control over the medium as Ray. He wrote the screenplay, handpicked the cast, directed the film, scored the music, operated the camera, did the production design, contributed actively to the editing of his films,

7 48 40

and even designed his own credit titles and publicity material. Cinema is a collective art form. A film is the result of teamwork. In Ray’s case, however, the medium came closer than ever to being a means of pure personal expression.

Providing a glimpse into his approach to cinema, Ray wrote in an article published in March 1952: “In the thirty years of its existence the Bengali film as a whole has not progressed one step towards maturity. Looking over the past three or four years one comes across a handful of commendable efforts‌ a bare dozen altogether, none entirely successful and satisfactory but each containing passages of acting, direction, writing or photography which, if sustained, would make for respectable cinema. As for the others (the overwhelming majority), they bear the same relation to art as do the lithographs in Wellington Square to the art of painting‌ These films neither stimulate the sensibilities, nor please the senses.â€?

The freshness evident in Pather Panchali probably stems from the fact that all the major technicians who worked on the film, including Ray himself, came to the project with little or no experience. Ray was no more than a film lover at that point, his cameraman Subrata Mitra had never shot a film before, art director Bansi Chandragupta had cut his teeth on The River, and for editor Dulal Dutta, Pather Panchali was only the third film. Pather Panchali rescued Indian cinema from the confines of studio sets and set it free into the wide, unexplored expanse of real locations.

Satyajit Ray and Pather Panchali altered the face of Indian cinema forever.

Sixty-five years on, Ray’s debut film – and the rest of his work – remain a benchmark and a beacon that inspire those blessed with the courage to break free from stale habits.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

RAYAT CANNES Beginning with the ninth edition of the Cannes Film Festival (1956), where his debut film PatherPanchali won the Prix du Document Humain, the Indian maestro travelled to the Croisette on several occasions in subsequent years. He had three more titles in the Cannes Competition – Parash Pathar(1958), Devi (1962) and GhareBaire (1984) – besides Ganashatru (1989) in the Special Screenings section. In 2013, one his greatest films, Charulata, was screened in Cannes Classics.

Pather Panchali is as much a part of Indian cinema folklore as it is of the Cannes Film Festival’s own history. In 1956, it won the Best Human Document Award, narrowly losing the Palme d’Or race to the French documentary Le Monde du Silence (The Silent World), directed by Louis Malle and famed oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. It was a year of heavy-hitters in the Cannes Competition, with the likes of Ingmar Bergman (Smiles of a Summer Night, which also won a Special Award), Akira Kurosawa (I Live in Fear) and Alfred Hitchcock (The Man Who Knew Too Much)going head to head. It was also the year when HenriGeorges Clouzot, known for his seminal French thrillers, landed a Special Jury Award for his Picasso documentary, Le Mystere Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso).The jury was headed by French actordirector-producer Maurice Lehmann.

7 49 41

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

SITAR SARKAR

STRINGS OF GENIUS Sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar’s Indian film music output was sparing but all of it was pure magic.

This is his centenary year and Saibal Chatterjee goes down the memory lane

SATHYAJIT AND RAVISHANKAR Satyajit Ray andPANDIT Pandit Ravi Shankar

S

RAVISHANKAR AND and GULZAR Pandit Ravi Shankar Gulzar

itar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar was a year older than Satyajit Ray. At the very outset of his career, the filmmaker who was to become one of world cinema’s biggest luminaries by the end of the decade requested the classical instrumentalist to compose music for him. The sitar icon did the honours for the Apu trilogy. He also composed music for Ray’s first film outside the trilogy – Parash Pathar (The Philosopher’s Stone, 1958).

sparingly compose music for the cinematic works of other filmmakers.

That was not all. Ray also planned a film on the virtuoso. The idea was to record the sitarist at work as he composed music. The director made a detailed storyboard for the proposed project. But for reasons unknown, the project was shelved. Less than a decade ago, the visual storyboard for the Ravi Shankar documentary, a true collectors’ item for cineastes, was published in the form of a book.

One of the admirers of Ravi Shankar’s work for Neecha Nagar was the French composer Maurice Jarre, who did not begin composing for films until the second half of the 1950s but made a tremendous reputation by scoring for David Lean films – Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Ryan’s Daughter and A Passage to India.

Ray never used Pandit Ravi Shankar again for a film after the end of the 1950s, but the sitarist continued to

50 7 42

In fact, almost a decade before Pather Panchali, the musician had composed the score for Chetan Anand’s 1946 film, Neecha Nagar (The Low City). The film, loosely adapted from Maxim Gorky’s Lower Depths, shared the Grand Prix with ten other titles at the first Cannes Film Festival. The musical score of the film was also very well-received.

Less than a year later, Pandit Ravi Shankar composed the music for Khwaja Ahmed Abbas’s Dharti Ke Lal, a tale set in the time of the

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

PANDIT RAVISHANKAR AND ALI AKBAR KHAN

Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan

Pandit RaviNEECHA Shankar NAGAR scored for Chetan Anand’s 1946 film Neecha Nagar

For Chetan Anand’s 1952 film Aandhiyan, sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akbar Khan did the music direction.

The title I n c i d e n t a l ly, piece and the One of the admirers of Ravi both Chetan background Anand and Shankar’s work for Neecha Nagar score had Ali K.A. Abbas Akbar Khan was the French composer Maurice as well as on the sarod, Bhattacharya Jarre, who did not begin composing Ravi Shankar were active on the sitar for films until the second half of members of the and Pannalal Indian People’s the 1950s but made a tremendous Ghosh on the T h e a t r e reputation by scoring for David Lean flute. It was a Association, combination films – Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of which Ravi made in heaven, Shankar, too, of Arabia, Ryan’s Daughter and A one that was, was a part until Passage to India unfortunately, he branched never repeated. out into the wider world of global music.

Bengali filmmaker Tapan Sinha worked with Ravi Shankar on Unlike Neecha Nagar, Dharti Ke Lal, had songs, as many as ten of them.

Kabuliwala. Ravi Shankar scored Initially, Ravi Shankar was reluctant haunting melodies for Hrishikesh to come up with musical numbers Mukherjee’s Anuradha (1960) and for a realistic film about famine.

Godaan, adapted from a Munshi But Abbas managed to convince the Premchand story in 1963. sitarist. The lyrics were penned by The songs of Anuradha had the the poet Ali Sardar Jafri and film voices of Lata Mangeshkar and lyricist Prem Dhawan, among others.

Mahendra Kapoor.

Ravi Shankar Mahendra Kapoor.Three Two Ravi Among the numbers that the sitarist compositions – Jaane kaise sapnon produced for Dharti Ke Lal was mein kho gayi ankhiyan, Kaise din the folksy Jai dharti maiyya jai ho beete kaise beete ratiyan and Haai re (Blessed are you, Mother Earth), woh din kyun na aaye – had Lata in which celebrated the peasants’ exquisite form. relationship with the land that Bengal famine of 1942. It was adapted from the novel Nabanna written by Bijon Bhattacharya.

they tilled. But several of the other compositions captured the dire straits that the farmers found themselves in when starvation set in – Bhookha hai Bangal (Bengal is hungry), Beete ho sukh ke din (The days of joy are gone) and Aaj sukha kheton mein (The farms are dry).

7 51 43

Nearly two decades later, Pandit Ravi Shankar returned to Hindi cinema with the musical score of Gulzar’s Meera, starring Hema Malini. The musician stirred a bit of controversy by ignoring Lata Mangeshkar and opting for the younger Vani Jairam to render the songs of the film.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

TARGETING GEN-NEXT

PANDIT RAVI SHANKAR 7 44 52

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

PANDIT RAVI SHANKAR

THE GOD FATHER OF WORLD MUSIC

To mark the centenary year of sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar and to take his life story to the modern generation, Boxclever Media has been making a documentary. Luke White, Director of Boxclever, appeals for partners to help complete the documentary supported by a British Broadcaster

A

t Boxclever Media we’re forever searching for the fascinating untold stories of remarkable people all over the world. In the case of Pandit Ravi Shankar, however, we have a man who was already globally renowned for his unparalleled musical talent. He was a true legend of his craft and his life achievements have already been well documented -although not, as we feel, in a format that is accessible to the next generation.

Most of the content that is available online is lengthy archive-based material that feels disconnected from modern-day culture.

Through ‘Ravi Shankar: The Godfather of World Music’, it’s our ambition to make sure that Ravi’s story remains relevant, by demonstrating how his music influenced western musicians and his spiritual beliefs, which relate to the power of vibration and the mathematical design of all things within the universe. ‘The highest aim of our music is to reveal the essence of the universe it reflects...Thus, through music, one can reach God’.

This is a project that first took root in 2012, through a chance encounter with British conductor David Murphy, who at the time of meeting was in the midst of co-developing what would prove to be Shankar’s final endeavora groundbreaking opera dedicated to his wife Sukanya that fused both East and Western musical styles.

With this documentary we envisage a one-hour presenter-led film that retraces Shankar’s steps from his early childhood, growing up in the ancient city of Banares on the banks of the river Ganges, where his deep love of music and performance began. We follow his journey as he traveled to Europe with his brother Uday’s dance troupe and began to learn the art of showmanship at just eleven.

As the troupe grew more successful over the years, Shankar began to enjoy the luxuries that it provided to him. And so we discover

7 53 45

how as a teenager, his focus on music and dance began to waver and he would spend ever more time chasing girls instead! It was fortunate then that Allauddin Khan, one of India’s most eminent musicians of the time should join the troupe. ‘Baba’ as he was known, did not shy away from criticising Shankar, ‘referring to him as a ‘butterfly’ for his fancy clothing and inability to maintain his focus on music.

After the troupe was disbanded, Shankar would later commit himself wholly to the sitar under Baba’s tuition. Now with a shaved head, simple clothes, and a bed of sticks to sleep on, he endured a grueling regime that began at 4 am, and it was not unheard of that might practice for up to sixteen hours in a day. It was this period of relentless devotion to music that enabled Shankar to develop into a legend, whose every improvisation on the sitar became effortless and whose performances have had a profound effect on many millions of people around the world.

‘Perhaps my playing does not cause rain to fall from the skies, but it has made tears fall from the eyes of my listeners’. The documentary is a celebration of Shankar’s life, but also an honest reflection of his character and personal struggles. We will set out to hear from those he met and inspired along the way, including Philip Glass and relatives of John Coltrane and George Harrison. It concludes with a glimpse of Shankar’s final endeavor, the opera ‘Sukayna’ which was sadly incomplete at the time of his death but was premiered at the Royal Opera House in London and is set to continue touring beyond 2020.

As it stands, the film is in pre-production.

Boxclever Media has held discussions with UK broadcasters to raise £80K, half of which has already been committed and the remainder must be sought by additional parties. If you would like to support the project please contact: luke.white@boxclever.media

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in www.pickle.co.in

7 46

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

7 47

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

MIPCOM® and MIPJunior® are registered trademarks of Reed MIDEM - All rights reserved. © shutterstock_1096929233

INTEL INSIDE, MAGIC OUTSIDE

DRIVING FUTURE OF

IMMERSIVE ENTERTAINMENT Since 2016, Ravi Velhal, who leads Digital Media Standards, Technologies and Immersive Cinema programs globally at Intel, started bringing plethora of VR technologies and major Hollywood immersive co-productions worldwide

RAVI VELHAL

Global Content Technology and Policy Strategist Intel Corporation

S

ince past 25 years, Intel has been at the forefront of emerging technologies used by the entertainment industry to deliver rich content and provide consumers with exciting immersive digital experiences today. Pioneered by Intel’s legendary CEO Andy Grove in the early 1990s, Intel has been driving and establishing content / technology policy and standards between the Hollywood, consumer electronics and technology providers.

58 7 48

Major studios, post production and visual effects companies leverage Intel technologies from creation to distribution and consumption-such as Intel® Xeon® Scalable and Intel® Core™ processors, Intel® Optane™ memory technology, 5G networking solutions, and development toolkits like SDVis for open source raytracing -- to unleash the best viewing experiences for consumers.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

CANNES XR CONNECTION Ravi will throw light on cutting-edge technologies for immersive and interactive content production at CannesXR 2020 and his colleague Sarah Vick, Building Shared Sense of Humanity using Volumetric Studio highlighting state-of-the-art Intel Studios, touted as world’s largest Volumetric Studio, where iconic and pioneering immersive experience such as ‘Grease- You are the one that I want’ was filmed with more than 5 trillion pixels.

Advancing story powered by tech, Intel collaborated with Sony Pictures last year to produce virtual reality experiences based on ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’, which allows participants to enjoy a web-slinging thrill ride from Spider-Man’s perspective, experience delivered first at Mobile World Congress 2019 leveraging ultra-low-latency over 5G for multiplayer VRE. Created by the The Museum of Tomorrow, Rio de Janeiro presents RePangeia – a Technoshamanistic experience in Virtual Reality developed in collaboration with Imagined by Intel. Inspired by Tecnoshamanism, the experience seeks to engage with the perspectives of traditional indigenous Tupinambá and Tikuna tribal communities of lower Amazonian Brazilian rainforest to rethink the future to explore possibilities to create a connection between traditional ancestral knowledge using the virtual reality and volumetric technology with depth data of tribe’s ritualistic dance performance.

Immersive technology offers The RePangeia ritual extends from the real world into the virtual. Before entering the Virtual World, participants take off their shoes and put on indigenous ankle rattles. In the experience, they follow the movements of the Holographic volumetrically captured Indigenous Guide in a spiritual dance. Participants can see their own hands represented as glowing

7 59 49

energy fields in the experience.

Through touch, they build up their own energy and can share energy between themselves and the guide to experience mindfulness in the Natural World around them.

Directed by Marcela Sabino, experiences such as Repangea highlights potential of immersive technologies that are available to the content creators around the world to take their story forward.

Since 2016, Ravi Velhal, who leads Digital Media Standards, Technologies and Immersive Cinema programs globally at Intel, started bringing plethora of VR immersive technologies and knowhow worldwide, including Brazil and Colombia in South America and began collaborating with Brazilian content creators, studios, which led him to direct first ever Virtual Reality production of Rio Carnival Virtual Reality Experience in 2018 which was released at Marche Du Films at 71st Cannes Film Festival in 2018 ago along with Save Every BreatheDunkirk VRE and Prelude to LeMusk VRE Cinema by A R Rahman, two time Oscar and Grammy Winner on a Positron VR motion chair emitting scent, paved the way for dedicated CannesXR exhibition category for immersive Cinema at Cannes.

Last year (2019), Ravi and Intel team brought Grease Volumetric Song Experience (Intel, Paramount Pictures), FirstMan VRE (Universal

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Pictures, RYOT, CreateVR and Intel) and Scent of a Song from LeMusk Cinema VRE, with AR Rahman’s appearance at the CannesXR joint Keynote, all co-produced by Intel.

During this unprecedented time, Marché du Film as a part of 73rd Cannes Film Festival is bringing CannesXR online and virtual, highlighting the XR industry and to foster link between creators and industry partners in the XR sector online. Cannes XR Virtual (June 24-26,2020) is a three day online and

7 60 50

virtual event dedicated to Immersive Entertainment, in order to adapt to current situation, to reshape a groundbreaking event online and in Virtual Reality, a program fully dedicated to immersive technologies and works, in connection with the art of storytelling and the film industry.

At CannesXR, Ravi will be speaking about cutting-edge technologies for immersive and interactive content production (see box for more details).

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Rahman & Ravi Hands around the world project, unique way to bring immersive technology and music together for climate change awareness According to Oscar-Grammy winner A R Rahman, “Hands Around the World” it is a unique project that brings together music and technology to create awareness about climate change. There is a lot spoken about climate change, but I feel this is the time for all of us to come together and take action. Ravi Velhal from Intel, who is one of the technical advisors for my Le Musk project, pitched my name to Neil and Ken, saying AR will be the right person for this project. So, they did their research, watched my show Harmony on Amazon Prime and after that, asked me to compose a song for Hands Around The World.’ A R Rahman recorded “Hands Around the World” song in LA and launched its teaser recently during COVID crisis on Earth’s day 7 61 51

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Cannes XR

Cannes takes virtual route From 24 to 26 June, Cannes XR Virtual is the destination where professionals from the traditional filmmaking industry, XR artistes, independent producers, leading tech companies, location-based and online distributors will come together to imagine and shape the future of movies

A

fter unveiling the Marché du Film Online, a standalone online market (22 to 26 June), the Marché du Film – Festival de Cannes has announced the reshape of Cannes XR in a digital only event dedicated to immersive technologies and works, Cannes XR Virtual.

Sharing common priorities in the given situation and sanitary crisis due to COVID-19, the Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes and its partners remain committed to offering visibility to the XR community and to fostering the connections between XR artists and potential investors, said a statement.

From 24 to 26 June, Cannes XR Virtual is the destination where professionals from the traditional filmmaking industry, XR artistes, independent producers, leading tech companies, location-based and online distributors will come together to imagine and shape the future of movies.

Jérôme Paillard, Executive Director of the Marché du Film said: “It is a very special edition. After having prepared for a promising edition in Cannes, where for the first time we would have expanded the VR to the Palm Beach, we had to reinvent Cannes XR and find a way to put it online. I’m very impressed to see how fast, with our spectacular team and our wonderful partners, it has been possible to build a totally new concept where we will be able to show worldwide, and with optimal quality, the VR experiences that we were expecting to show in Cannes”.

In this reimagined edition, Cannes XR Virtual will be presented in different formats on several platforms: Cannes XR Virtual will be open to VR users at the Museum of Other Realities (MOR), a virtual art gallery specialized in featuring immersive

7 52

work from VR artists around the world. The entire virtual programme will remain available until July 3rd via the MOR application on Steam, Viveport, or Oculus.

Cannes XR Virtual 2D live video stream shot by a virtual cameraman from the MOR, including conferences, pitching sessions and project presentations, will be accessible on the Marché du Film Online. Cannes XR Virtual 2D live video stream will also be available on the Tribeca Film Festival and Kaleidoscope websites.

VeeR 360 Cinema, the selection of 360 cinematic experiences at Cannes XR Virtual, will be showcased on the VeeR VR Video Platform A network of partner Location Based Entertainment (LBE) in several major cities in the United States, China and France will offer access to Cannes XR Virtual to journalists and guests who do not have a VR headset.

“The MOR is a perfect place to host an ambitious and stylistically challenging event like Cannes XR” says Robin Stethem, Cofounder of the Museum of Other Realities.

“Creating a virtual venue that can host numerous showcases, VR arcades, 360 cinemas and networking spaces where some of the finest global digital players can meet and interact is what we love to do. The MOR is a place to connect, share, and experience virtual reality art with others, and so we hope everyone who is interested in XR creation will join us for the virtual edition of Cannes XR.” Cannes XR Virtual will also team up with major key players in the immersive industry to put together a solid and diverse program featuring the latest creative works and technologies within the VR ecosystem.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

ESSENTIAL EVENT For its 2020 edition, the Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes’ XR program dedicated to virtual and augmented reality becomes CANNES XR VIRTUAL from June 24 to 26. This 3-day event will be entirely dedicated to players from the creative industries who use virtual and augmented reality technologies.

This unique edition will take place within the framework of the Marché du Film Online, an online market to be held from June 22 to 26. For this occasion, the Marché du Film - Festival de Cannes teams up with major key players from the immersive industry. While the MOR (Museum of Other Realities) will provide its entire virtual art gallery for the whole Cannes XR Virtual program, Tribeca Film Festival will present a selection of interactive works including six world, international, European or online premieres. VeeR VR et Positron will present a selection of XR and 360° pieces with two prizes for the winner. Kaléidoscope teams up with Cannes XR to promote works in development.

Cannes XR Virtual’s objective is to allow artists and producers in the XR industry to continue to develop their projects, and present their works despite the sanitary crisis. In total more than 55 XR pieces will be presented between projects in development and world previews.

“During this very peculiar time, the Marché du Film is more than determined to highlight the XR industry and to foster links between artists and potential investors to support creation in all its richness and diversity. We are very proud to partner with these leading partners in the XR sector.” Jérôme Paillard, Executive director of the Marché du Film

7 53

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

The Tribeca Film Festival, presented

by AT&T, continues its long-time partnership with the Marché du Film and Cannes XR as it brings its acclaimed immersive programming online. A custom virtual showcase of XR projects curated by Tribeca will make its exclusive debut for a three-day exhibition. The line-up is curated from Tribeca Immersive’s 2020 programming, and includes select World Premieres which were intended to debut earlier this year, prior to the postponement of the 19th annual Tribeca Film Festival.

“We’re thrilled to be able to present selections from the 2020 Tribeca Virtual Arcade at Cannes XR. We are turning towards innovation as a solution in these uncertain times.

While we continue to explore the future of physical exhibition, this is an exciting moment to share our immersive curation with an expanded global audience, and Cannes is the perfect partner to help us to accomplish this,” says Loren Hammonds, Senior Programmer, Film & Immersive.

Curated in association with Kaleidoscope, the Cannes XR Development Showcase is an pportunity for virtual and augmented reality titles in-development to be pitched, showcased and benefit from pre-arranged 1:1 meetings with our Decision Makers composed by emblematic industry leaders, coproducers, distributors and curators of the XR entertainment space.

Todd Shaiman - Head of Immersive Arts at Google, Colum Slevin - Head of Media, ARVR Experiences at Facebook, Ishita Kapur - Director, Mixed Reality Content and Partnerships at Microsoft, Jingshu Chen - Co-Founder at VeeR VR, Jake Sally - Head of Development at RYOT / Verizon, and Sarah Vick - Executive Producer at Intel Studios have already confirmed their participation as a Decision Maker at Cannes XR Virtual. The selected elements of the online programme will be live streamed to Kaleidoscope’s website alongside the official Cannes XR channels.

“This is the second year in a row that we collaborate with Cannes XR, and we are very proud that in 2020 our role within this prestigious event has grown” says René J. Pinnell, CEO and co-founder of Kaleidoscope. “When the COVID-19 crisis struck the market we knew we needed to react and help creators to stand on their feet again.

We also offered to step in with our production expertise to make XR online gatherings attractive and socially relevant. I believe that events like Cannes XR are crucial hotspots

7 54

on the global map of independent immersive creation, and play a major role in building a system of support for digital artists.”

VeeR, a leading VR entertainment platform available worldwide, will curate an innovative program, VeeR 360 Cinema. VeeR invites artistes worldwide to submit work to its inaugural VeeR 360 Cinema at Cannes XR Virtual - the Call for Projects is now open via Kaleidoscope.

The selected 360 VR films will be showcased during Cannes XR Virtual at the Museum of Other Realities and via VeeR VR Video Platform for 5 days.

The winner will be presented with the VeeR Future Award and will be awarded with a cash bonus and a Premium Distribution Package worth value of 10,000 USD which includes global marketing campaign, online & LBE distribution and Chinese localization. The voluntarily participated LBE showcase will be held at VeeR ZeroSpace for 2 weeks in China, which is aimed to bring VR projects and teams to investors and media.

“It’s our great pleasure to collaborate with Cannes XR this year. During the time when COVID-19 has casted huge shadows on the immersive industry, VeeR managed to help a group of 360 filmmakers monetize their works. We are happy to share VeeR’s production strategy and distribution model to the 360 community”, says Jingshu Chen, Co-founder of VeeR, “Together with Cannes XR, we aim to find more ways to support immersive content creators, to push the limit of 360 content. With the development of 5G network in China, VR is growing faster than ever and there’s great demand for premium VR content in Chinese market. More investors start to show interests in cinematic VR content. Therefore, apart from the Online Showcase, we have also planned a LBE Showcase in China.

In doing this, we hope to connect selected projects with potential investors and collaborators.”

Cannes XR Virtual will be accessible to industry professionals registered with the Marché du Film Online.

Accreditations for the Marché du Film Online will open May 12 at an early bird rate of €95 until May 29 and €195 normal rate after that. Cannes XR Virtual will be open to users with a VR headset at the Museum of Other Realities (MOR). Cannes XR Virtual 2D live video stream will also be available on the Tribeca Film Festival and Kaleidoscope websites.

The VeeR 360 Cinema program will be available as well on the VeeR VR Video Platform.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

7 55

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

COLLAPSED BY COVID 7 56 66

MOST AWAITED FILMS OF INDIA Some are ready to hit the big screens.

A few of them need shooting days, while some other flicks are in postproduction stage. Here are top 2020 Indian movies delayed and waiting with optimism to release in a theatre near you. A quick look at the most awaited films from India HINDI

’83

: Not just Bollywood fans but cricket freaks too were eagerly waiting for this movie that is based on the life of veteran cricketing star Kapil Dev, who led the Indian team during their World Cup win in 1983. The Kabir Khan directorial venture stars Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone, and was scheduled to be released in April 2020. The makers have claimed that there is no hurry and the movie will not be released on any OTT platform.

Lal Singh Chaddha:

The fact that it is an Aamir Khan movie, makes it a highly anticipated movie of 2020 that was set to hit the screens during Christmas. The film is a remake of 1994 American blockbuster Forest Gump and is co-produced by Aamir Khan Productions and Viacom 18 Motion Pictures. Also starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, the film will see Aamir in a role of a surd (sardar). will now be released next year and will incorporate facets of the COVID-19 pandemic.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Takht: This is yet another big budget multi-starrer

that people are looking forward to. The Karan Johar magnum opus is a historical drama and features a galaxy of stars like Ranveer Singh, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Alia Bhatt, Bhumi Pednekar, Vicky Kaushal, Jhanvi Kapoor and Anil Kapoor. The film which was set to release in 2020 will now hit the screens during Christmas 2021.

Sadak 2: The sequel to the blockbuster 90s movie

Sadak, being produced by Vishesh Films Fox Star Studios, was set to hit the screens in July this year. However, according to reports, the makers are contemplating skipping the theatrical route and premiering the film on Disney+ Hotstar.

The film will see Mahesh Bhatt returning to direction after 21 years. Besides Alia Bhatt, the movie will also see Pooja Bhatt and Sanjay Dutt setting the screen on fire again.

Sardar Udham Singh

: Vicky Kaushal is prepping up to impress yet again with this film, based on the life of revolutionary freedom fighter with the same name.

Directed by Shoojit Sircar and produced by Ronnie Lahiri and Sheel Kumar, the film revolves around Singh, who fought for his country, against the British. The movie will show him take revenge for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Vicky’s first look from the film has already left his fans asking for more. The film is expected to hit the screens in January 2021.

Laxmmi Bomb

: Akshay Kumar’s much touted film, Laxmmi Bomb, may be another one to join the league of movies opting for OTT platforms. The film was set to clash with Salman Khan’s Eid release at the box office this year. Directed by Raghava Lawrence, and produced by Akshay Kumar, Bad-X and Tusshar Kapoor; the film is the remake of the Tamil movie Muni 2: Kanchana. The comedy horror film, deals with a ghost seeking vengeance for being wronged and haunts everyone who is staying in the house.

Gangu Bai

: The film, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and produced by Bhansali and Jayantilal Gada; stars Alia Bhatt in a key role. The film is based on a chapter of Hussain Zaidi’s book Mafia Queens of Mumbai about Gangubai Kothewali, the madam of a brothel in Kamathipura. Gangubai was pushed into prostitution at a very young age. she did a lot of work for sex-works and for the well-being for orphans. The film was slated to release in September this year. However, the release date now is not known.

7 67 57

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Brahmastra: The much awaited film, starring

Ranbir Kaporr and Alia Bhatt, is directed by Ayan Mukerji and produced by Karan Johar. The action fantasy film was slated to release in December this year. Th update on the film’s release after COVID-19 is still to be heard.

Radhe: Your Most Wanted Bhai: The remake of South Korean film Veteran, was set to hit the screens in May 2020. However, it is now speculated that the film will go for either Diwali, Christmas or New Year, depending upon the situation. Starring Salman Khan and Disha Patani, Jackie Shroff and Randeep Hooda, the directed by Prabhu Deva and produced by Salman Khan, Sohail Khan and Atul Agnihotri.

Sooryavanshi

: Directed by Rohit Shetty and coproduced by Rohit Shetty, Karan Johar, Aruna Bhatia, Hiroo Johar and Apoorva Mehta; the film stars Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif. The film had a earlier release in March 2020, however, the film has been indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film is about a DCP who is the chief of the Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad and stops a terrorist batch planning to attack Mumbai.

Shakuntla Devi

: Starring Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra, Amit Sadh and Jisshu Sengupta, Bollywood movie Shakuntala Devi will release on Amazon Prime Video.The film is based on the life of famous mathematician Shakuntala Devi, who was nicknamed the “human computer”. The film is directed and written by Anu Menon and produced by Sony Pictures Networks India and Vikram Malhotra under his banner Abundantia Entertainment.

Gunjan Saxena: After Dhadak, Jhanvi Kapoor will be seen next in Gunjan Saxena that tells the brave story of a flying officer, of the same name, who made history during the Kargil war and became one of the first women in combat. She flew a Cheetah aircraft into the combat zone and rescued several soldiers. Directed by newbie Sharan Sharma, the film is being produced by Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions. The filmwill be released exclusively as a Netflix Film in 190 countries. The date of release is awaited.

7 58 68

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

TAMIL

Annaatthe

: Annaatthe, tipped to be an action drama film, is written and directed by Siva. produced

by Kalanithi Maran under the banner Sun Pictures.

The film has an ensemble cast comprising Rajinikanth, Meena, Khushbu Sundar, Nayanthara, Keerthy Suresh, Prakash Raj, Soori, Sathish and Vela Ramamoorthy. The music for the film will be composed by D Imman while cinematography and editing are performed by Vetri and Ruben, respectively. Production of the film began with the working title ‘Thalaivar 168’.

Master

: ‘Master’, said to be an action-thriller, is written and directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj, and produced

by Xavier Britto, under the banner XB Film Creators. The film stars actor Vijay and Vijay Sethupathi in lead role with an ensemble cast, featuring Malavika Mohanan, Arjun Das, Andrea Jeremiah, Shanthanu Bhagyaraj, and Ramya Subramanian amongst others, play supporting roles. The music for the film is composed by Anirudh Ravichander, whilst cinematography and editing are handled by Sathyan Sooryan and Philomin Raj, respectively.

Soorarai Pottru

: Soorarai Pottru is a drama film directed by Sudha Kongara and produced by Suriya and Guneet Monga, under their respective banners 2D Entertainment and Sikhya Entertainment. The film, it is said, is based on events during the life of Air Deccan founder G R Gopinath. In 2018, Sudha Kongara stated that she will be collaborating with Suriya for her next film. G V Prakash Kumar was selected to work on the film’s music, collaborating with director Sudha and actor Suriya for the first time.

Ayalaan

: Ayalaan is a science fiction fantasy film, directed by R Ravikumar of Indru Netru Naalai fame and produced by R D Raja and Kotapadi J Rajesh under their production banners 24AM Studios and KJR Studios. It stars Sivakarthikeyan, Rakul Preet Singh, Sharad Kelkar and Isha Koppikar in the lead roles. The music composed by Oscar-Grammy winner A R Rahman, and cinematography handled by Nirav Shah, and editing by Ruben. The movie is tipped to be a fun filled adventure of an alien and a man.

7 59 69

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

TELUGU

COLLAPSED BY COVID

MOST AWAITED FILMS OF INDIA

RRR

7 60 70

: RRR is a period action film written and directed by S S Rajamouli.

It stars N T Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan, Alia Bhatt and Ajay Devgn. It is a fictional story revolving around India’s freedom fighters, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem who fought against the British Raj and Nizam of Hyderabad respectively. in October 2017, Rajamouli announced that his next film after Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, would be produced by DVV Danayya under DVV Entertainments banner.

Krack

: Krack is a police story written and directed by Gopichand Malineni. It stars Ravi Teja, Shruti Haasan, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar and Samuthirakani. The film has been produced by B Madhu under Saraswathi Films Division banner. G K Vishnu handled the cinematography, while S Thaman composed the music and Ram-Lakshman choreographed the action sequences. Shruti Haasan, whose last appearance in a Telugu-language film was in 2017 with Katamarayudu, makes her comeback in the Telugu film industry with this film.

Monarch

: Nandamuri Balakrishna’s 106th film has been reportedly titled Monarch. The action entertainer, which is being directed

by Boyapati Srinu, is expected to have Balakrishna in a dual role. The film features Shriya Saran and Anjali as the female leads. Produced by Miryala Ravinder Reddy, the film marks Balakrishna’s third collaboration with Boyapati after Simha and Legend.

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

MALAYALAM Marakkar: Arabikadalinte Simham: Marakkar:

Arabikadalinte Simham is a historical epic war film co-written and directed by Priyadarshan. Set in the 16th century, the film is based on the battle exploits of Mohammed Ali, Kunjali Marakkar IV (Mohanlal)—the naval chieftain of the Samoothiri. Kunjali Marakkars organised the first ever naval defense of the Indian coast by defending Portuguese invasion at the Malabar Coast for almost a century. The screenplay was co-written by Ani Sasi. The film was produced by Aashirvad Cinemas with Moonshot Entertainments and Confident Group as coproducers.

ONE

: One is a political thriller film directed by Santhosh Vishwanath and written by Bobby & Sanjay. The film stars Mammootty, Murali Gopy, Joju George, Nimisha sajayan and Shanker Ramakrishnan. The film was originally scheduled to release on 22 May 2020, but was postponed due to the coronavirus induced lockdown. The film features Mammootty as Kadakkal Chandran, Chief Minister of Kerala. Shooting began in October 2019. The first look poster of the movie was unveiled on 10 November 2019.

KANNADA KGF: Chapter 2: KGF: Chapter 2 is a period

action film directed by Prashanth Neel. A sequel to the 2018 film KGF: Chapter 1, the film stars Yash in the lead reprising his role from the first film and Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt as the antagonist. Principal photography began in March 2019. The film will be dubbed in Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu languages. Filming for KGF: Chapter 2 started in March 2019, with a small part of the film having already been shot during KGF: Chapter 1.

YUVARATHNAA

: Yuvarathnaa is an action film written and directed by Santhosh Ananddram, produced by Vijay Kiragandur, and starring Puneeth Rajkumar, Sayyeshaa, Sonu Gowda, Dhananjay and Prakash Raj. The film is being produced by Vijay Kiragandur. This is the third collaboration with Puneeth Rajkumar after Ninnindale and Raajakumara. The principal photography began on 14 February 2019. Bodybuilder Mamatha Sanathkumar will debuting through this film.

71 7 61

India’s Only Film BIZ magazine for the world

www.pickle.co.in

Online | 28-31 July, 2020

Where Global and Chinese Content Meet: Online. Together

7 62

www.pickle.co.in India’s Only Film MIPŽChina BIZ magazine for the world is registered trademarks of Reed MIDEM - All rights reserved