Pickle -- India focussed Berlinale-EFM Feb 2019 issue

india’s only film biz magazine for the world February 2019

www.pickle.co.in

INDIA AT BERLINALE/EFM ISSUE

TUESDAY 14 - THURSDAY 23 MAY 2019

REGISTER NOW

2

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

©Loïc Thébaud/Marché du Film

marchedufilm.com

IndIa nETWORKInG EVEnT COmE, LET’s dO BusInEss Date: Sunday, Feb 10th | Mirror Restaurant | Timing: 4-6 PM

For More Details: India Pavilion, Stand #C6, MGB Central Hall, BERLIN

*Must Carry EFM Market Badge

4

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Still waiting for their people to call your people?

Their people are here.

Join the biggest names and the brightest minds.

Industry registration opens May 3 Toronto International Film Festival September 5 – 15, 2019 tiff.net/industry

3

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

10

Dieter Kosslick: Last Hurrah

Interview with Dorothee Wenner, delegate and South Asia Programmer, Berlin International Film Festival

12

16 India@ Berlinale:

From Rap to Resistance

24

22

National Museum of Indian Cinema

Interview with Matthijs Wouter Knol, Director EFM

28 Filming in India 34

Berlinale Competition: Women to the Fore

44 It’s Golden Jubilee Time for IFFI

40 Analysis of Andhadhun, best Indian movie of 2018

48

Chat with Blockchain Specialist and futurist Alexander Shulgin

60 Edit Note

every

starts here

every

This is the annual global destination for Media, Entertainment professionals who are passionate about storytelling.

More than 1,700 Exhibitors and 100,000 visitors from ov attend NAB Show®. You’ll be surrounded by thought leadersh technical training, view product launches and form new part

starts here.

10 Expert-Led Conferences | 100+ Free Sessions on the Show F • Inspiring Keynotes This is the global destination for Media, Entertainment and Technology •annual Hands-On Demonstrations This is the annual global destination for Media, Entertainment and Technology professionals who are passionate about storytelling. professionals are passionate about storytelling.

• who Advanced Broadcast Training

More than 1,700 Exhibitors and 100,000 visitors from over 160 countries More than Exhibitors andon 100,000 visitors from over 160 countries • 1,700 Discussions Emerging Trends ® attend NAB Show . You’ll be surrounded by thought leadership, participate in attend NAB Show®. You’ll be surrounded by thought leadership, participate in technical training, view product launches and form new partnerships. technical training, view product launches and form new partnerships.

Bring back professional learning to your local market. Plan your trip

10 Expert-Led Conferences | 100+ Free Sessions on the Show Floor 10 Expert-Led Conferences | 100+ Free Sessions on the Show Floor • Inspiring Keynotes • • • • • • •

Inspiring Keynotes Hands-On Demonstrations Hands-On Demonstrations Advanced Broadcast Training Advanced Broadcast Training Discussions on Emerging Trends Discussions on Emerging Trends

^^

Interested in joi Indian Delegati Contact NAB Sh Interested in joining the Representative Interested in joining the Indian Delegation?

APRIL 6–11, 2019 I LAS VEGAS Ramchandani to Indian ContactDelegation?

NAB Show India Contact NAB Show India Representative Anushree benefits of this p Register Today: NABShow.com Representative APRIL 6–11, 2019 I LAS VEGAS Ramchandani toAnushree learn all about the APRIL 6–11, 2019 I LAS VEGAS Ramchandani learn all about aramchandani.n the benefits of thistopopular program.

Register Today: NABShow.com

Bring back professional learning to your local market. Plan your trip today.

Bring back professional learning to your local market. Plan your trip today.

Free Exhibits Pass with Code ID74 benefits of this popular program.

Register Today: NABShow.com aramchandani.nabshow@gmail.com Free Exhibits Pass with Code ID74 aramchandani.nabshow@gmail.com Free Exhibits Pass with Code ID74

10 15

INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FILM

FESTIVAL AND MARKET

ANNECY

JUNE 2019

www.annecy.org

annecyfestival

Powered by

Download the app your screenings

Organize Organize

Schedule

your yourmeetings meetings

Discover Discover

outstanding films

outstanding outstandingfilms films

Discover

Schedule Schedule

your meetings

Organize

your yourscreenings screenings

Download Downloadthe theapp app

Co-funded by the Powered by Co-funded by the Powered by European Union European Union

Co-funded by the European Union

In association with

Cannes International Series Festival

8-11 April 2019 Cannes France ent m p elo v e D ent t n o C

ion t u b i Distr

Join

EFM

Booth #130 Marriott Hotel 8-11 April 2019

and get your project greenlit

6-7 April 2019

miptv.com

6-7 April 2019

Driving the content economy

69th Berlin International Film Festival

Dieter Kosslick Last Hurrah Mr Berlinale Dieter Kosslick was in his early 50s when he took over the reins of the Berlin International Festival in 2001. Eighteen years on, the septuagenarian who has rightfully earned the sobriquet “Mr. Berlinale”, is set to step down, leaving behind a dynamic legacy. Under his leadership, the film festival grew exponentially, with the audience trebling since he became the fourth Berlinale director.

Kosslick added several sections to the festival, including Perspektive Deutsches Kino, devoted to discovering new German filmmaking talent. He also introduced the Berlinale Co-Production Market, which has thrived in recent years, as well the Culinary Cinema section.

Also significant has been Berlinale’s association with World Cinema Fund, which has served to salvage many classics from the ravages of time.

While striking a fine balance between arthouse cinema and films that the general audience can relate to – the tightrope walk is necessitated by Berlinale being a public festival – Kosslick has been mindful about engaging with the political changes that have swept the world since the turn of the millennium.

The Berlinale programming in the last 18 years has reflected concerns about war and occupation, displacement of people and the migrant crisis, and the alarming growth of rightwing radicalism across the world.

Therefore, even as the festival tended to lag behind Cannes and Venice on key parameters, it never lost its relevance – and lustre.

Dieter Kosslick

Festival Director Berlin International Film Festival

Dorothee Wenner

Delegate and South Asia Programmer to the Berlin International Film Festival

India might easily rank among the top-three most challenging countries on earth for festival programmers. It is incredibly demanding and difficult to get an overview, to do research. At times, my colleague Meenakshi Shedde and I wouldn’t mind some more support

india at berlinale

festival selection criteria

hard to describe The upcoming edition of Berlinale reflects the huge panorama of filmmaking in India. However, the selection criteria are hard to describe in theory, says Dorothee Wenner, delegate and South Asia Programmer to the Berlin International Film Festival Congrats on the Berlinale festival selections. It has been another successful year for India and we have got exciting discoveries from the country. How has been the journey to discover films and talent from India this year?

We had indeed an exciting year. Thanks to the great works by directors whose projects we anticipated with high expectations and many new names in the arena which made us curious. Overall, there are plenty of films to see.

However, some interesting films arrived too late to be considered. There’s a running joke among my colleagues about Indian filmmakers always winning the competition in masterfully ignoring deadlines!

How much of movie consumption you had in your regions for fest pick? You do this with passion and reserved energy year on year...

Well, after we closed our programme early January, many days went without watching a single film. It felt almost like being on a diet after feasting: healthy deprivation. Sometimes I wonder with concern, where in my brain all the films and images go to and what kind of

13

pickle entertainment biz guide

traces they leave in me? On the other hand, I completely enjoy this work and feel extremely privileged to get so much exposure to the world of cinema. It is an intense learning experience, year after year. I couldn’t imagine a better job, so absolutely no complaints.

What are the three or four things that you aim to achieve in Berlinale 2019?

It is going to be a special edition for all of us in the Berlinale team, as it is the last with Dieter Kosslick as festival director. Hence, I hope the overall festival will be both – a festive farewell for Dieter – and a warm welcoming of the times ahead. Then, like every year, there are a few fragile, small, controversial films which I particularly like. I know, rather: we knew when selecting those films in our programme that there are chances for these “to drown” in the huge festival haywire. Here, I count on the Berlinale audience with a really diverse taste in cinema, appreciating especially those unique films which stand no chances in a purely commercially driven environment. After all, festivals are not only places of celebration. We also need to understand our responsibility in turning them into an arena where we are fighting for the diversification of filmmaking.

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Gully Boy is a Bollywood film, but it is not formula piece.

Especially, the narration, the choreography and the music of this film are outof-the-box, fresh, daring and new

What’s your perspective on the diversity and your insights on films and talents from India this year? Can you talk about the Indian film slate at Berlinale 2019? We have some wonderful picks...

I’m quite happy looking at our overall selection for this year’s programme, as it reflects the huge panorama of filmmaking in India. Allow me to mention Zoya Akthar’s Gully Boy. It is a Bollywood film, but it is not formula piece. Especially, the narration, the choreography and the music of this film are out-of-the-box, fresh, daring and new. This is why we as a festival are very proud to host the film’s world premiere. At the same time, we are very much aware how courageous it is of the production house to embark on this new territory. I hope that the big gala screening we’re doing on February 9 will give an extra boost of attention to Gully Boy’s worldwide release on 14th of February.

It is easy for us to celebrate films once selections are announced. What are the unique challenges you face in India?

India might easily rank among the top-three most challenging countries on earth for festival programmers. It is incredibly demanding and difficult to get an overview, to do research. At times, my colleague Meenakshi Shedde and I wouldn’t mind some more support.

14

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Q A

What are some of the tangible goals that Indian filmmakers should set to accomplish in 2019?

I’d be happy to witness an extension of the distribution practices, which, at this moment, I find rather suffocating. India has huge audience potentials which are not catered for. If the industry would finally give way to see that targeting niche audiences can be commercially viable, much would be accomplished.

Can you give a perspective of what goes into selection of a film that emerging filmmakers should take a note of for any film festival/ and a festival like Berlinale?

It’s a difficult question. Criteria are hard to describe ‘in theory’. It is much easier to explain why we selected a film. Usually, when filmmakers ask me this very question I recommend to them to look at the latest programmes of a festival, it is the best way to get a sense of a festival’s profile. Of course we look with key interest at cinematographic craft if the film expands the boundaries of filmmaking. For example, by its innovation of storytelling we try to reflect in our programme filmmaking from all regions of the world. We have a special eye on the presence of female directors, balance docs and features, etc. And I would be lying if not admitting that personal taste blends all those other criteria.

What are some of the tangible goals that Indian filmmakers should set to accomplish in 2019?

I’d be happy to witness an extension of the distribution practices, which, at this moment, I find rather suffocating. India has huge audience potentials which are not catered for. If

Organize

your meetings

the industry would finally give way to see that targeting niche audiences can be commercially viable, much would be accomplished. Anyhow, from a European point just looking at numbers.

An ‘Indian niche audience’ is what we consider a ‘mass audience’ over here, so why not explore these?

In between picking films for Berlinale and balancing work-life, have you had time to focus on projects that you are working on?

Are there anything specific on the works in India-Germany collaboration in film space?

In fact, I’m currently doing research for a new project. My previous work as a filmmaker was the webseries ‘Kinshasa Collection’ between Berlin, Kinshasa and Guangzhou, on pirated fashion and how the three continents are connected through the fashion industry. I got increasingly fascinated by the options of how - by making films for the internet - different layers of storytelling can be interconnected. Even though, for me as a cinephile, it is hard not to produce for the big screen. But I’m enjoying to explore these new options in my next project further. On which subject: this is too early to tell, I’d dive into that after Berlinale only.

Discover

outstanding films

Schedule

your screenings

Your perfect match 15

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

INDIA AT BERLINALE 2019

From rap to

resistance The screening of Gully Boy, the story of a rapper from a Mumbai ghetto, will be the film’s world premiere ahead of its release on February 14, while Udita Bhargava’s Dust – set in the subcontinent’s heartland against the backdrop of violent political conflict – is the director’s graduation film made at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF

By Saibal Chatterjee

I

t isn’t often that the Berlinale makes space in its official programme for half a dozen entries, besides four restored works from India.

The 69th edition of the premier film festival hosts two Berlinale Specials showcasing two distinct Bollywood streams – Zoya Akhtar’s rap drama Gully Boy, starring Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt and Kalki Koechlin, and Ritesh Batra’s off-mainstream romance Photograph, featuring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sanya Malhotra and Jim Sarbh.

The screening of Gully Boy, the story of a rapper from a Mumbai ghetto, will be the film’s world premiere ahead of its release on February 14. Photograph, revolving around a Mumbai street photographer who, under pressure from his visiting grandmother, to get married requests a stranger to pretend to be his fiancée, arrives in Berlin after playing in the Sundance Film Festival’s Premieres section.

One of the three other Indian titles in the Berlin International Film Festival this year – Udita Bhargava’s Dust, set in the subcontinent’s heartland against the backdrop of violent political conflict – is

16

pickle entertainment biz guide

the director’s graduation film made at the Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF. The film, which features Vinay Pathak in a cast of German and Indian actors, is slated to be unveiled in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino, a section devoted to unearthing new talent in the host country.

Filmed in Madhya Pradesh, Dust is about a German diplomat who travels to central India to look for traces of his dead girlfriend, a photographer who was documenting life in a hideout of leftwing political rebels. He arrives in the city of the woman’s birth and runs into a cynical old doctor who turns out to be a leader of the uprising. Recollections of the past, the realities of the present and visions of the future intersect in a drama about Indians caught in a bitter conflict.

Two Indian films – Rima Das’s Bulbul Can Sing and Prantik Basu’s 27-minute Rang Mahal – will compete for awards at Berlinale 2019, the former in Generation 14plus, designed for children and young adults, and the latter in Berlinale Shorts.

Bulbul Can Sing, an independent Assamese film about a girl and her friends at

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

The screening of Gully Boy, the story of a rapper from a Mumbai ghetto, will be the film’s world premiere ahead of its release on February 14

17

pickle entertainment biz guide

GULLY BOY Zoya Akhtar

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

RANG MAHAL Prantik Basu

DUST Udita Bhargava

BULBUL CAN SING Rima Das

odds with a conservative, patriarchal rural society, premiered at the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival last year. The film went on to win the Golden Gateway Award at the Mumbai Film Festival.

Generation 14plus includes Bhutanese filmmaker Tashi Gyeltshen’s Red Phallus, which had its world premiere in Busan last year and also made it to the Dharamshala International Film Festival. The film tells the story of high-school girl caught between her sculptor-father and her married boyfriend in a rural setting where breaking free isn’t easy.

Kolkata-based Prantik Basu, who studied direction and screenplay writing at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, is no stranger to festival recognition.

His 2016 short film Sakhisona won the Tiger Award for short films in the 46th International Film Festival of Rotterdam.

Basu’s latest film, Rang Mahal, a Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) production, is among 24 titles that will compete for the Golden and Silver Bear in this year’s Berlinale Shorts. This unconventional documentary turns the spotlight on the Santhal tribal community, which does not have a written script of its own. Rang Mahal captures a little-known aspect of the tribe—the fact that Santhals use a colourful chalk-stone hill in Bengal’s Purulia to draw murals on the walls of their houses.

The Berlin Forum will screen a restored version of writer and filmmaker Ruchir

18

pickle entertainment biz guide

Joshi’s early 1990s documentary Egaro Mile (Eleven Miles), which puts the traditions and lives of several Baul singers under the spotlight. Besides, Forum Expanded includes Joshi’s 1993 film, Tales from Planet Kolkata, “a personal portrait from the point of view of cinema”, as well restorations of two films by Yugantar, India’s first feminist film collective, which was founded in 1980: one on female factory workers (Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali, 1982) and the other on domestic violence (Idhi Katha Matramena, 1983).

The Indian participation in Berlin is rounded off by Shadow Circus, an exhibition by the Dharamshala-based filmmaking duo of Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam.

The exhibition, presented in Forum Expanded as a joint project of Savvy Contemporary and Arsenal-Institute of Film and Video Art, will be inaugurated on the opening day of Berlinale 2019 – February 7. It will run until March 10.

The exhibition has its roots in a BBC-commissioned documentary that Sarin and Sonam made in 1998 after researching the Tibetan armed resistance against Chinese occupation and CIA’s involvement in it for many years.

The two filmmakers will be in conversation with Natasha Ginwala and Bonaventure SohBejengNdikung, curators of Shadow Circus, on February 14 on the theme “The Witness as an Agent of Resistance”.

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

SHADOW CIRCUS Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam

ELEVEN MILES Ruchir Joshi

PHOTOGRAPH Ritesh Batra

Apart from the wide range of themes that Berlinale 2019’s Indian picks represent, what is most striking is that four of the seven filmmakers in the programme (the Tibet exhibition is by a filmmaking couple) are women – which is in keeping with the spirit of a main 17-film Competition lineup that includes seven helmed by women (see ‘Women to the Fore’ Page number 34...).

Interestingly, two of the three projects from the subcontinent in the EFM Co-Production Market are helmed by women: Megha Ramaswamy’s first feature-length fiction and Dar Gai’s third directorial venture In-Law. The third south Asian film seeking co-production deals in Berlinale 2019 is Bangladeshi director Imtiaz Bijon Ahmed’s Paradise, a drama woven around the life of a 14-year-old madrasa student on St Martin’s Island off Cox’s Bazar.

In the wider sub-continental context, the tone for this noteworthy distaff domination was set by the year’s first three major film festivals – Palm Springs, Sundance and Rotterdam. Palm Springs International Film Festival (January 3 to 14) had Dar Gai’s Namdev Bhau-In Search of Silence and Rima Das’ Village Rockstars alongside Anurag Kashyap’s Manmarziyaan, Aijaz Khan’s Hamid and VasanBala’s Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota.

Sundance Film Festival (January 24-February 3) programmed Gurinder Chadha’s Blinded by the Light, British-Indian film-

19

pickle entertainment biz guide

maker Sandhya Suri’s short fiction The Field and Anamika Haksar’s Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane le Ja Riya Hoon (in the New Frontier section).

The International Film Festival of Rotterdam (January 24-February 4), the Bright Future Competition had Bangalore-born Yashaswini Raghunandan’s That Cloud Never Left along with Ridham Janve’s The Gold-Laden Sheep and the Sacred Mountain.

Rotterdam spread its net wider across the subcontinent to include Sri Lankan director Suba Sivakumaran’s debut film House of My Fathers, which premiered in Busan’s New Currents competition last year.

She is the first female director in years to emerge on the world stage from the island nation, where filmmaking has traditionally been a male-dominated enterprise.

Two women – Bangladeshi performance artist Reetu Sattar and Pakistan’s Madiha Aijaz – were in IFFR’s Ammodo Tiger Short Competition fray. Sattar was in contention with Harano Sur (Lost Tune), a filmed audio performance featuring the harmonium (an instrument dying out under the pressure of Islamic strictures), while Aijaz, who works with photographs, film and text, figured in the programme with These Silences Are all the Words, a 15-minute short based on conversations in Karachi’s Bedil Library that probes many themes pertaining to Pakistani history and culture.

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

INDIA at berlinale 2019

VISIT

INDIA PAVILION

STAND C6

MGB CENTRAL HALL Meet Film Facilitation Office at India Pavilion Ease of filming in India will be promoted at Berlin. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, has set up the FFO with a view to promote and facilitate shootings by foreign filmmakers in India. FFO acts as a facilitation point for filmmakers in assisting them to get requisite permissions while disseminating information on shooting locations as well as the talent, resources and facilities available for production and post production. It proactively works closely with various Central and State Government Agencies to create a film friendly environment in India. FFO accepts application for shooting of feature films, reality TV shows and commercial television series in India.

20

Mr Ali Raza Rizvi,

Additional Secretary & Financlal Adviser, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting

Mr Girish C Aron,

Director (films), Ministry of Information & Broadcasting

Mr. Chaitanya Prasad,

Festival Director International Film Festival of India (IFFI)

Indian cinema on a Global Journey at EFM The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, in association with Confederation of Indian Industry, is participating in the 69th Berlin International Film Festival and European Film Market, (February 7-15, 2019) to project Indian cinema, facilitate to syndicate and market Indian films and film services in India. The India Stand is located at the prime MGB Central Hall (No C6).

Mr Ali Raza Rizvi. Additional Secretary & Financlal Adviser, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Mr Girish C Aron, Director (films), Ministry of Information & Broadcasting and Mr Chaitanya Prasad, Festival Director International Film Festival of India (IFFI) are at Berlin as part of the Government of India delegation.

The India Stand at EFM will provide a platform for Indian filmmakers and producers (mainstream and independent) to market Indian films with international territories and engage in co-production. The objective is to boost the profile of Indian films, facilitate business to business meetings, production services and Indian locales to the world.

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

For latest Media and Entertainment news updates Berlinale Co-Production Market Three projects from the subcontinent in the Berlinale CoProduction Market are helmed by women: Megha Ramaswamy’s first feature-length fiction and Dar Gai’s third directorial venture In-Law. The third south Asian film seeking co-production deals in Berlinale 2019 is Bangladeshi director Imtiaz Bijon Ahmed’s Paradise, a drama woven around the life of a 14-year-old madrasa student on St Martin’s

www. pickle. co.in

Island off Cox’s Bazar.

2019 Berlinale Talents

Cinemas of India The objective behind the participation is to promote Indian films across linguistic cultural and regional diversity so as to forge an increasing number of international partnerships in the realms of distribution, production, filming in India, script development and technology, thereby accelerating the growth of film sector in India.

Berlinale Talents has announced the selection of 250 filmmakers - 141 women and 109 men - from 77 countries for their 17th edition. Eight of the chosen filmmakers are working and living in India: Ukraine-born director Dar Gai and producer Dheer Momaya who have worked together on films such as Teen aur Aadha and Namdev Bhau; the distributor and sales agent Shraddha Chauhan whose distributed successful films such as Newton, Masaan and Dhanak; Shalini Agarwal who apprenticed as sound mixing assistant on several international productions such as Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi and Eat Pray Love before she started off her sound design career with short and documentary films; the director Payal Kapadia, the cinematographer Subal K R; the editor Sanglap Bhowmik and the film critic Poulomi Das who writes for Arré. The film critic Devika Girish, yet another Indian Talent, who currently lives in the US, complements the Indian selection.

Meet Confederation of Indian Industry at Berlin The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) works to create and sustain an environment conducive to the development of India, partnering industry, Government, and civil society, through advisory and consultative processes. CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led and industry-managed organization, playing a proactive role in India’s development process.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has been coordinating the India participation at the various film festivals and markets positioning the Indian Entertainment industry on the global landscape. Apart from promoting select Indian states as ideal shooting locales globally, the CII facilitates B2B meetings between Indian and international stakeholders. CII M&E Dept. every year organises its flagship conference in M&E sector ‘The Big Picture Summit’.

21

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF INDIAN CINEMA

Cinema:

Past & Future at one Place

The National Museum of Indian Cinema is a ready-reckoner of the history of Indian cinema showcasing technological aspects of production and screening of films, as well as its social aspects of more than 100 years 22

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

N

ext time when you are in Mumbai, make sure to visit the National Museum of Indian cinema (NMIC) in Peddar Road.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated India’s first cinema museum in Mumbai. Talking about NMIC, Modi said that it showcases the multi-faceted aspects of the film industry, its rich tradition and the struggles the people have undergone in making movies. It will serve as an opportunity for the younger generation to understand several aspects of films and film-making.

Speaking about the two buildings in which the museum is housed, the PM said that while Gulshan Mahal speaks about our history, the ultra-modern New Museum Building is a testament to our vision for the future.

The National Museum of Indian Cinema is a ready-reckoner of the history of Indian cinema showcasing technological aspects of production and screening of films, as well as its social aspects of more than 100 years. Through its interactive galleries, it

traces the evolution of celluloid from the Lumiere Brothers, Raja Harishchandra onwards, and showcase Indian cinema in three stages - silent era, golden era and the modern era. It portrays the footsteps taken by Indian cinema, from the period of silent films to the studio period, and then recreate the times when stars and mega stars dominated the silver screen.

Visitors can also watch clips of old classics on a number of monitors or listen to rare film music from the past. There is also an interesting collection of posters of landmark movies from across India. A Section on cinemas from all parts of India are on display.

Many famous studios of yesteryears like Mehboob Studios, RK Studios and Prasad Studios have donated equipment to the museum. Some private collectors too have come forward to donate items. The Films Division has also displayed old Eymo and Mitchel cameras, recording equipment etc. from its collection. Also of interest are some even older instruments that created an illusion of movement, which were precursor to the movie camera.

The New Museum Building has four Exhibition Halls which encapsulate: • Gandhi & Cinema: It not only depicts the movies made on the life Mahatma Gandhi but also showcases the deep impact his life had on cinema.

• Children’s Film Studio: It gives visitors, particularly children, an opportunity to explore the science, technology and art behind filmmaking. It offers hands on experience on various facets associated with making cinema like camera, light, shooting, experience of acting, etc. – presented in an interactive format. The exhibits displayed include chroma studio, immersive experience zone, stop-motion animation studio, virtual makeover studio, etc.

• Technology, creativity & Indian cinema: It showcases the creative use of technology by Indian filmmakers over the years to produce cinematographic impact on the silver screen.

• Cinema across India: it showcases the charismatic kaleidoscopic presence of the vibrant cinematographic culture across India.

• Gulshan Mahal is an ASI Grade-II Heritage Structure which has been restored as part of the NMIC project. The displays present here showcase the journey of over a hundred years of Indian cinema. It is divided into 9 sections viz. The Origin of Cinema, Cinema comes to India, Indian Silent Film, Advent of Sound, The Studio Era, The impact of World War II, Creative Resonance, New Wave and Beyond and Regional Cinema.

23

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

The film industry has been and still is constantly evolving and changing.

European Film Market aims to adapt to the transformation the film and media landscape is going through, says Matthijs Wouter Knol, Director, EFM 24

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Matthijis Wouter Knol EFM Director

25

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

H

out the market’s initiatives and their programs talks, panels and many other events to discussing further improvements when it comes to gender equality, a fairer distribution of money and opportunities, making minorities more visible and championing a better and more inclusive industry in the years ahead of us.

ow has EFM shaped this year? The optimism in the industry and European Film Market is a great crystal gazer in the beginning of the year?

Taking the fully booked exhibition spaces in both EFM locations – Gropius Bau and Marriott Hotel – into consideration we are optimistic regarding the upcoming edition of this year’s film market. Already in the run-up to the market, EFM has proven again to be an important communication and distribution platform at the beginning of the film year. We are looking forward to welcoming the industry in Berlin.

H

We do not have the final numbers yet, but again, we are expecting more than 9,000 exhibitors, license traders, producers, buyers and investors at the nine days of the European Film Market, among them around 1,500 buyers from more than 60 countries. There will be around 550 exhibitors from almost 70 countries.

W

hat are the signals and trends that you could see in the industry? What are the new additions to EFM in 2019? After taking over as director, what are your observations and changes that you are looking at?

H

ow do you see developments on the digital front especially from the OTT platform (Amazon, Netflix)?

Are OTT players present as buyers. ?

The changes I’ve witnessed in the past five years have had an impact on the EFM. In the past decade until today, the film industry has been and still is constantly evolving and changing.EFM aims to adapt to the transformation the film and media landscape is going through at the moment and aims to provide its participants with essential tools to deal with these challenges. That’s why we further strengthened and developed our various successfully launched initiatives since 2014, such as “EFM Horizon” for instance. With “EFM Horizon”, including EFM Startups, the VR NOW Summit, the Industry Debates and many more, we are offering a platform to engage with these innovations and new developments in the world of media and entertainment whether they are thematic, structural or technological, while providing a particularly close look at the topics of immersive media, diversity, storytelling, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. Other EFM initatives and projects such as the Berlinale Africa Hub, Drama Series Days, DocSalon, EFM Producers Hub have proven to be of importance to our market visitors in these challenging times, therefore we carefully curated and extended them.

D

iversity & Inclusion is the brand under which various activities are planned for EFM? How much of diversity we could see in 2019?

Already since 2017, diversity and inclusion has played a large role at EFM, since the urgency of these topics reached the film industry as well. EFM devoted through-

26

ow about the presence of sales agents and activity at EFM? What about the buyer presence at EFM?

Representatives from streaming and OTT platforms have become regular visitors of the EFM within the last years. They will be present this year as well.

A

ll these years, EFM has been organising the finest co-production market? How much is the success rate of films getting into execution mode?

The Berlinale co-production market is closely affiliated with EFM, but curated and organized separately. The success rate is high and the set up of the co-production market has proven right: a large part of the selected projects are being financed and made. The success of its elaborate matchmaking approach is reflected in the sizeable amount of projects featured in previous editions that have made it to completion. In 2018 alone, 16 of these films were screened at international A-list festivals and in cinemas, and one film has already been announced for Berlinale 2019, to be shown in the Panorama section: ‘To thávma tis thálassas ton Sargassón’ (The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea) by SyllasTzoumerkas from Greece.

T

pickle entertainment biz guide

echnology, innovation, VR are annual features at EFM. What is new this year?

The above mentioned initiative “EFM Horizon” will again be presenting developments that promise to impact and

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

EFM Horizon

Opening Keynote

Located at ‘Berliner Freiheit’ building, EFM Horizon will look to the future of the film, media and entertainment world and its cross-pollination with the growing tech and startup industries

EFM Horizon will kick off with a visionary Opening Keynote by pioneer Alex McDowell, who will share his reflections on innovations set to disrupt the entertainment world.

EFM Startup Hub

EFM Producers Hub

EFM connects 10 leading tech entrepreneurs with the film and media industries. EFM Startups is expanding and for the first time companies from around the globe will participate

EFM Producers Hub at the second floor of the Gropius Bau provides a meeting and working area for producers to come together with financiers and buyers who can join the Producers Hub activities

shape the future of the film industry.

Over the course of five days, the keynotes, seminars, panels and talks will treat the branch’s challenges, new business models and strategies, while providing a particularly close look at the topics of immersive media, diversity, storytelling, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.

Besides the changes in the field of technology the EFM Horizon will also focus on structural changes that are crucial for the industry’s future as well, such as the need to adapt diversity and inclusion or thematic changes that effect storytelling or producing in other ways than just technological developments do.

W

hat are the three or four challenges that’s bothering the film industry right now?

One challenge is probably the film industry´s relationship to VOD and the involved question what makes a cinematic film: Only films that are shown on the big screen or maybe also films that are only produced for streaming platforms? Another chal-

27

pickle entertainment biz guide

lenge is how to embrace new technologies such as immersive media, artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc. Diversity is still a huge topic and probably will always be.

All of these subjects are being explored at the EFM’s Horizon programme.

I

ndia is very optimistic about its participation at the Pavilion. The Minister of Information & Broadcasting and senior people are planning to be at EFM? Do you see more scope for India to expand its activities in the market?

Since last year, the Indian participation at EFM has become more prominent, and with this year’s activities and the visit of senior officials from the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting we are expecting new steps to be taken in the years to come to have India present at the European Film Market on a scale and with a visibility that reflects the importance and diversity of the Indian film industry, in all its facets.

We are keen on developing and expanding the activities with India.

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore

Minister of State (I/C) for Information & Broadcasting Government of India

Setting up its web portal, www.ffo.gov.in, Film Facilitation Office, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has further helped international producers cut through the labyrinthine permissions process required to shoot in India 28

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

www.ffo.gov.in

EASE OF filming

IN INDIA

The FFO, which became operational in 2016, has since assisted some 86 productions, including international films partially shot in India, including Iqbal and the Indian Jewel, Hotel Mumbai, and The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Since its inception in November 2015, the Film Facilitation Office, set up by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, under the operational aegis of National Film Development Corporation (NFDC),has been working towards promoting and facilitating film shootings by foreign filmmakers in India, with its services now extended to Indian filmmakers as well.

FFO acts as a facilitation point for filmmakers in assisting them to get requisite permissions while disseminating information on shooting locations as well as the talent, resources and facilities available for production and post production.

It proactively works closely with various Central and State Government Agencies to create a film friendly environment in India. FFO accepts application for shooting of feature films, reality TV shows and commercial television series in India.

In an endeavor to further reach out to the filming fraternity across the globe, the Minister of State (I/C) for Information & Broadcasting, Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore launched the FFO web portal at the recently concluded International Film Festival of India (IFFI), Goa. The web portal www.ffo.gov.in, not only enables online submission of applications for international filmmakers, but also enlists India’s co-production treaties and guidelines of key Central government Ministries/departments, leading to greater ease of navigation, and thereby easing filming in the country.

The web portal has information regarding the Nodal officers of all Indian States and Union Territories, along with their filming policies and guidelines.FFO disseminates a comprehensive list of incentives currently available for filmmakers from across various States.

29

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Film Faciliation Office

https://ffo.gov.in/en

login to

www.ffo.gov.in “We are in the process of updating this information including the prerequisites of obtaining such incentives. This will be available on our portal and for States that do not offer incentives yet, the FFO will endeavour to list other financial benefits available for filming in such States/Union Territories,” says Vikramjit Roy, Head, Film Facilitation Office (FFO).

The FFO, which became operational in 2016, has since assisted some 86 productions, including international films partially shot in India, including Iqbal and the Indian Jewel, Hotel Mumbai, and The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir.

In recent times, FFO has received applications from the UK, France, Bangladesh, USA, Argentina, Italy, China, Cote d’Ivoire, Canada, Rus-

30

pickle entertainment biz guide

sia, South Africa, Turkey, Denmark, Spain, Germany Australia, Iran, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Japan and Indonesia.

To further help international producers cut through the labyrinthine permissions process required to shoot in India, the website will act as a single point for all filming related information in the country. “Once a filmmaker applies, there is going to be an automatic transmission of information to all the nodal agencies,” Roy adds.

While the web portal is an endeavour to reach out to the filming fraternity across the globe, the FFO has been proactively creating an enabling ecosystem for filming in India.

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

All under one roof The new website (www.ffo.gov.in) is comprehensive, with directions for applying to film in India, a list of locations, filming hubs, trade associations and state incentives. Once a filmmaker applies, there is an automatic transmission of information to all the nodal agencies. The FFO is currently in the process of integrating the website with Indian States and Union Territories, which will come as a relief to any international producer considering shooting in multiple States, and to Indian producers shooting in States other than their own.

- Vikramjit Roy, Head, Film Facilitation Office, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting

31

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

l Appointment of Nodal officers in States/UTs and various Central Government departments/Ministries The FFO has been creating an ecosystem of Nodal Officers across various State Governments and within key stakeholder Central Government Ministries/ Departments such as: n Airports Authority of India (AAI) n Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) n Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) n Border Security Force (BSF) n Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) n Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) n Indian Coast Guard n Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate change (MOEFCC) n Ministry of Railways (MoR) n Ministry of Tourism n Ministry of External Affairs, amongst others.

This ecologyhas enabled effective governmental collaborations at the policy level as well at the ground level, towards the creation of a film friendly environment.

l Most Film Friendly State Award The institution of the “Most Film Friendly State Award” by the Ministry of I&B is another endeavour towards the Film in India initiative. This unique Award, which was included in the 63rd National Film Awards in the year 2015, is the Ministry’s endeavor to promote India as a filming destination as well as to encourage the growth of the filming industry. The States of Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have been recipients of this Award in the last few years.

l Facilitation of the appointment of Nodal Officers across 29 Circles of the Archaeological Survey of India Post several follow-ups and one-onone meetings with ASI, FFO successfully facilitated the appointment of 29 Nodal officers across all ASI circles, so as to ease the permission process at various ASI sites across the country.

32

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

l Workshops on ‘Ease of Filming’ in India FFO has been organising workshops aimed towards sensitisation and mobilisation of the various State Governments with participation of key industry stakeholders and Nodal officers from the various States.

States of Haryana and Lakshadweep have also worked closely with FFO to frame the Filming and Incentives policy respectively.

l Facilitation of ease of issuance of Film Visas through coordination with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) l Promotion at International Events The FFO has been promoting Indian locations, its incentives and Co-production treaties etc. at various global platforms such as the Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Videocitta Film Festival amongst others.

l FFO at AFCI’s Cineposium 2018 The FFO is a member of Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) and particpated in their Locations & Global Finance Show in LA in 2016 with a view to promote India as a filming destination and strengthen its international outreach. In 2018, FFO also participated in Cineposium, LA and met with various global majors like Warner Brothers, HBO, CAA, Paramount Studios, Entertainment Partners, Final Draft, and Kodak in an endeavour to discuss the Film in India initiative of the Government of India.

l State Film Offices at Film Bazaar The FFO has been organising participation of various States at the Film Bazaar with their respective Film Offices with a view to showcase their locations to various filmmakers from India and abroad. The States not only share their updated policies and other film friendly initiatives undertaken by them, but also the challenges they face internally, with a view to work together with FFO and other stakeholders in finding solution to such challenges.

33

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Berlinale 2018 Main Competition

WOMEN to THE FORE The pre-eminence of women—both behind the camera, and also in front of it—reflects clearly in the Berlin main competition range. But if there is one criticism that could be levelled against the selection is that it hasn’t looked beyond the boundaries of Europe

By Saibal Chatterjee

N

aysayers have been stressing, not without reason, that Berlin has of late slipped a few notches compared to Cannes and Venice. Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick, who has been at the helm of the film festival since 2001, is due to step down after this year’s edition. He will make way for two heads, an artistic director and a managing director, as one the world’s leading festivals fights to sustain its pre-eminent position.

In one respect, however, Berlinale, under Kosslick’s stewardship, has done a hell lot better than its two principal European competitors: representation for women. Four of its previous 17 Golden Bears have been won by female directors, the last two of them in the past two years – Ildiko Enyedi for On Body and Soul in 2017 and Adina Pintilie for Touch Me Not in 2018. That apart, Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic

ELISA & MARCELA Isabel Coixet

won the festival’s top prize in 2006 for Grbavica and Peruvian Claudia Llosa took home the trophy in 2009 for The Milk of Sorrow.

Two other female directors have their names engraved in the Golden Bear hall of fame – Hungarian au- BY THE GRACE OF GOD teur Marta Meszaros, whose film Francois Ozon Adoption won the festival’s top prize in 1975, and Russia’s Larisa Shepitko It has been described as an ode to cin(who tragically died in a car crash two ema: it revolves around a film reel over years after the triumph) for The Ascent which a fugitive and a homeless girl in 1977. The Berlinale 2019 jury, which form a bond. is headed by French actress Juliette Fatih Akin, back in the Berlinale comBinoche,will have the opportunity petition for the first time since Headto add one more name to that list. As On, has The Golden Glove, a thriller many as seven of the 17 directors vying about a real-life serial killer who murfor the Golden Bear this year are wom- dered and dismembered four sex worken. Not quite 50:50 but, at 41 per cent, ers in Hamburg’s red-light district pretty close. If a female director does in the 1970s, in the fray, while Wang win in 2019 too, it would be a dramatic Quan’an, a Berlinale regular, is comthree in a row. peting with his latest, the Mongolian But that will obviously not be a cake- production Ondog. walk. Among the ten men in the main The women in the Berlin main compecompetition are three past winners tition range from the 70-year-old Ag– Zhang Yimou (Red Sorghum, 1988), nieszka Holland, one of Poland’s leadFatih Akin (Head-On, 2004) and Wang ing contemporary filmmakers, to the Quan’an (Tuya’s Marriage, 2007) – and German director Nora Fingscheidt, 36, they cannot be written off. Zhang’s new whose narrative feature debut, System film, One Second, marks a return for Crasher, has made the cut. If there is the Chinese veteran to his artistic roots one criticism that could be levelled following a string of big-budget pro- against the selection is that it hasn’t ductions, including last year’s Shadow. looked beyond the boundaries of Eu-

36

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

A TALE OF THREE SISTERS Emin Alper

GHOSHT TOWN ANTHOLOGY Denis Cote

rope. All but five of the competition films are purely European. Three Chinese titles and one each from Israel and Turkey break the monotony a bit. Just as notably, Berlinale 2019 has no American film in competition.

Agnieszka Holland’s competition film is the Polish-British-Ukrainian production Mr. Jones, a period drama revolving around the early 20th century Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, played in the film by James Norton. The young journalist shot to fame as the first journalist to fly with Adolf Hitler. He turned his attention next to Stalinist Russia and laid bare the truth of the Soviet famine of the early 1930s.

Another German director – Angela Schanelec, known for her austere, uncompromising filmmaking style– is in the Competition lineup with her ninth feature I was at Home, But…, about a professor whose 13-year-old son goes mission suddenly and reappears a

37

week later in equally mysterious circumstances. The event forces her to reevaluate her certitudes.

Macedonian director Teona Strugar Mitevska’s fourth feature God Exists, Her Name is Petrunya, travels to a small town where a woman participates in an exacting ritual hitherto reserved for men. Her rebellion causes a flutter and threatens to upset the town’s equilibrium, but she stands her ground. Mitevska’s last film, When the Day Had No Name, was part of the Berlinale Panorama section in 2017.

Berlinale, under Dieter Kosslick’s stewardship, has done a hell lot better than its two principal European competitors: representation for women.

Four of its previous 17 Golden Bears have been won by female directors, the last two of them in the past two years

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

SO LONG MY SON Wang Xiaoshuai

THE GOLDEN GLOVE Faith Akin

PIRANHAS Claudio Giovannesi

Marie Kreutzer, a former Berlin Panorama participant (The Fatherless, 2011), is also in the Berlin competition with her fourth feature, The Ground Beneath My Feet.

The Austrian drama centres on a super-busy business consultant who runs

Saibal Chatterjee is an independent New Delhi-based film critic and writer who has worked on the staff of several leading publications, served on the editorial board of Encyclopaedia Britannica’s volume on Hindi cinema and authored a biography of poetfilmmaker Gulzar.

38

her personal life with the same unwavering efficiency that she employs to maximize her profits. But when secrets from the past impinge on her present, the veneer of composure begins to crack.

The two other female directors in this year’s Golden Bear race are established names as much on the arthouse circuit as in a more commercial space – Denmark’s Lone Scherfig, who was involved with the Dogme 95 movement, and Spain’s prolific Isabel Coixet, one of Spain’s most independent-spirited filmmakers.

Scherfig, a Silver Bear winner for Italian for Beginners in 2000 and Oscarnominated for 2009’s An Education, competes with the star-studded English-language drama The Kindness of Strangers, set in a Russian restaurant in New York. The multi-national cast of the film, which opens the 69th Berlin International Film Festival, features Zoe Kazan, Andrea Riseborough, Tahar Rahim, Bill Nighy and Caleb Landry Jones.

Four years after competing in Berlin with Nobody Wants the Night, Coixet returns with the black-and-white Elisa & Marcela, Netflix’s third Spanish-language original film. Set in the late 19th century, it tells the story of the first

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS Lone Scherfig

MR JONES Agnieszka Holland

MARIGHELLA Wagner Moura

homosexual marriage ever registered in Spain.

The other films in the competition lineup are Francois Ozon’s By the Grace of God, a drama about a real-life sex abuse scandal involving a French Catholic priest; French-Canadian director Denis Cote’s Ghost Town Anthology, about a family hit by a terrible tragedy; Wang Xiaoshuai’s drama So Long, My Son, which follows two couples negotiating the economic upheavals China has witnessed since the 1980s; Nadav Lapid’s Israeli title Synonyms, a semi-autobiographical story of an Israeli man struggling for assimilation in Paris; veteran Norwegian filmmaker Hans Petter Moland’s Out Stealing Horses,starring the director’s frequent collaborator Stel-

Organize

your meetings

lan Skarsgard as a grieving widower who retreats to a remote forest house; and Claudio Giovannesi’s Piranhas, set in a Naples neighbourhood where six teenagers all played by amateur actors) seek power as they do the bidding of their mob bosses.

The Berlin competition also has Turkish auteur Emil Alper’s third feature A Tale of Three Sisters, about three siblings who return to their father’s home in an impoverished village after spending time as foster children with welloff families. With a shot at a better life now out of bounds, the trio seek solace in each other.

Berlinale 2019 is clearly not only about women behind the camera, but also about those in front of it.

Discover

outstanding films

Schedule

your screenings

Your perfect match 39

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

IFFI at Berlin

IT’S GOLDEN JUBILEE for

The International Film Festival of India (IFFI), the oldest event of its kind in Asia, 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 40

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

T

he preparations for golden jubilee edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) have started in full swing. The 50th IFFI edition (November 20-28, 2019) would trace the history of 49 editions of the festival.

Chaitanya Prasad, IFFI festival director, is at Berlinale to extend invitation to delegates at the ongoing Berlinale and European Film Market.

IFFI will showcase the film culture of each and every region across India and trace the history of IFFI from the 1st to the 49th. Films are made in about 25 different regional languages in India.

IFFI -- Asia’s oldest event of its kind, still holds on to its pre-eminent position as a showcase of cinematic excellence.

The International Film Festival of India (IFFI), the oldest event of its kind in Asia, has over the years witnessed numerous

November 20-28 41

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

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.

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

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 pan-Indian market that Hindi cinema has

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.

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, Over the past two and a half decades, which is now few months shy of its several other international film festi- 50th edition. The festival in Tokyo was vals have sprung up across India, no- launched in 1985, the one in Shanghai tably in Kolkata, Kerala and Mumbai, began in 1993 and the Busan Film Festival came into being in 1996.

IFFI also confers two Lifetime 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 and they all contribute meaningfully to puts together a remarkable slate of the collective task of taking quality cin- brand new world cinema titles. ema to a people weaned principally on IFFI also hosts many retrospectives, a staple diet of star-driven, song and tributes, master classes and special dance extravaganzas. But IFFI contin- sections, which enhance the variety ues to retain its preeminent position and depth of the event. The master owing to its size, scope and vintage. classes have emerged as a highlight of the festival, especially for film school Not just in the Indian context but also students who converge in Goa during in relation to the other major Asian film the ten-day event.

42

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

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.

It isn’t without significance that Satyajit Ray’s first film, Pather Panchali, was completed in 1955, and Bimal Roy’s classic Hindi film, Do Bigha Zameen, was released in 1953.

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 pan-Indian market that Hindi cinema has.

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

Producteurs de Films), which brought it on par with the world’s biggest festivals in Venice, Cannes, Berlin, Moscow and Karlovy Vary.

For three decades from the mid1970s, the festival was held every alternate year in the national capital of Delhi, with other Indian cities – Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Thiruvananthapuram – taking turns to host the event every other year.

It wasn’t until 1961 that the second edition of the festival, also noncompetitive and hosted by Delhi, was IFFI now has a permanent home in mounted, but the idea of an itinerant Goa. The coastal state has benefitted appreciably from the shift. Its cinema festival had been sown. has received a huge fillip in the decade In 1965, the year of its third edition, the and a half that Panaji has hosted IFFI. festival secured ‘A’ category grading Filmmakers in the coastal state have from the Paris-based FIAPF (Federa- been increasingly making their mark tion Internationale des Associations de on the national and international stage.

43

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

THOUGHT LEADER

Blockchain set to Transform M&E future Blockchain continues to be a watchword in the media and entertainment sector and beyond. The technology, which is set to disrupt the existing model of third-party distribution, will not only change the way we consume content but will also herald a new era of transparency and flexibility in the way the content is produced, says Alexander Shulgin, a visonary, investor, composer, entrepreneur, futurist, and a Blockchain specialist How do you think Blockchain is going to change the landscape for media and entertainment industry?

Blockchain is set to change everything. It will change how the people access content; it will change industrial businesses and, of course, our life style. Media & Entertainment is one of the most important aspects of our lifestyle, which is already a trillion dollars industry.

Blockchain will transform it dramatically. It will change the way the content is created and allow its decentralization. One will be able to create content while streaming or accessing it. Blockchain is not going to be about distribution of content, rather it will be about accessing it.

Before the digital era arrived, there used to be a Master Tape, which could be used to create limited copies of cassettes, DVDs, CDs, etc.

When the digital era came the Master Tape disappeared because you could make unlimited copies of the same quality and distribute it. However, now distribution of unlimited copies of a film has become more and more expensive because you need to distribute the content in terms of Gigabytes and Terabytes.

44

pickle entertainment biz guide

Blockchain resolves this issue smartly. For instance, if a new series of Games of Thrones is launched there will be only one copy of it which will be in the DotBC standard. This standard is comparable to standards like MPEG or MP3, but it allows unlimited access to smart content.

So instead of distributing this one copy of Games of Thrones to 100 million firms, Blockchain allows you to give them access to this content. It will significantly reduce the cost of distribution and help the creator monetize every view by the users.

For instance, if you have distributed the copy of the content there may be people who will watch it for just five minutes and don’t like it.

But in this case you have already spent heavily on distributed terabytes.

However, if you give access of the content to the people even if they don’t like it you will save lot of bytes. Also, the data used can immediately give you statistics. It is much like pay for what you watch.

Today, if I put my content on YouTube I am paid by advertisers only if I have more than,

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Alexander Shulgin Blockchain Specialist

With Blockchain, you can make money in many ways. If you have data then you can barter it with other things. Let’s say if I need fruit from India, you can give me fruit and I can give you my music.

Money is something just to be LIKEequal to exchange PICKLE IN FACEBOOK www.picklemag.in 45 pickle entertainment biz guide

say, 10,000 views. If only 300 people watch the content, they don’t pay you. But the Blockchain will allow you to get paid for even one view that too immediately.

Is it like you pay from your credit card?

Is this blockchain expensive?

It will cut a lot of cost. It needs lot of energy.

Of course you need data mining centres and that will cost you but because it will cut a lot of costs it will be a win-win for all.

When you make a payment through credit card, the card company asks American Express or Mastercard to make the transactions and sometimes one transaction may cost you three dollars. But since using Blockchain you can make a trillion transactions in one go that too at the cost of one transaction, it won’t matter how many transactions you do.

Will it help if five-six independent people come together, pool their content and distribute it in a big way?

Will Blockchain allow distribution of an Indian film in the Latin America, Brazil in their languages?

Blockchain will disrupt the search engines also. That’s why Google is now being transformed to Alphabet. Alphabet is Artificial Intelligence. We still have Google but it understands the future.

When producers give content, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon don’t provide the data.

Sometimes they share some data but they keep the data mainly with themselves. The data is new oil, new gold. If you have the data then you can monetize it by selling it to the interested parties.

Machine learning, which is a form of Blockchain, will automatically know where the user comes from and provide the content translated in the language known to them. Suppose I come from France and I know French, I will be the French translation of the content automatically. It has become easier now with the emergence of language translation services like Google, Microsoft and others.

Is it going to change the way movies or content are distributed?

Distributor will not distribute because the producer will have the access. There will be no distributor. The nature of Blockchain will disrupt third parties. It will make direct connections with the user. Today if I have to send an SMS, my SMS will go to a Moscow server then it will go to a Mumbai operator before getting delivered to the intended person. It travels thousands of miles, which means extra cost. It wastes time and increases traffic. In case of Blockchain, it will go directly to the recipient. If it goes directly then there can be no latency. You can stream the content online and mix editing online according to my behavior. The way of protection of content will be changed.

Will this help startups?

Old companies are often very slow in adapting new technologies. There is a big chance for new emerging markets for start-ups.

46

pickle entertainment biz guide

They can join together to promote the content, they don’t need to create a platform.

Can we live without Google, Amazon or YouTube?

Also, that’s why Netflix focuses on content.

The platform is a third party and a third party has no future.

What kind of media sectors can benefit and make money out of it?

You can make money in many ways. If you have data then you can barter it with other things. Blockchain will allow this to happen.

Let’s say if I need fruit from India, you can give me fruit and I can give you my music. Money is something just to be equal to exchange.

Will Blockchain kill piracy?

Yes of course, because now you will have one master tape which cannot be hacked. It is almost impossible to hack Blockchain.

How did you get into the world of Blockchain?

I am from music, media and entertainment industry. Blockchain started as a peer to peer project in 1999. The first peer to peer project was Kazaa. I know the founders of Kazaa and I tried to find more about this technology because I was very angry about piracy. But it was not piracy, it was a peer to peer sharing.

Later, the US government shut down Kazaa.

How has Blockchain shaped in Russia?

We have started it. A lot of it is used in payment transaction. But then we are waiting for 5G network. Remember in 1994 it was impossible to download MP3. In 1996 to download one MP3 file you needed one night. Now it is instant. In the same way, Blockchain needs more bandwidth. We are waiting for 5G and by the time 6G is introduced it will be bigger.

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

ER ISSU E MIT CURTAIN RAIS CII BIG PICT URE SUM t 2013

We hear voices.

Augus

INDIAN ENTERTAI NMENT

BIZ GUIDE OCTOB ER 2017

3BEEP

Uncommon creativity in the heart of New York City.

www.picklemag.in www.picklemag.com

INNOVATION IN MEDIA Towards $100 Billion

CONTENT BUYS FROM INDIA

Indian M&E Industry

3B

Viacom18 Media has completed an eventful decade in Indian M&E space.

How Group CEO Sudhanshu Vats is looking forward to surprise viewers and competitors with the ‘contentfirst’ approach

VIACOM18 MEDIA The Great Surge

PICTURE SUMMIT BIG www.3beep.net

September 13 - 14, 2013 New

TIM WERENKO tim@3beep.net

Delhi

nt conte CHAR LES t, Best DARB Y Best minds, Best talen charles@3beep.net 14-08-2013 21:17:57

T E R TA I N INDIAN EN

GUIDE MENT BIZ DECE MBE R 2014

DE 5th EdiIAN AINMENT BIZ GUI IND tion ENTERT 2016

INDIAN EN TERTAI

MAY

ATF 2014 SING APO RE

INDIA AT CANNES FILM

www.picklemag.com

MARKET 2016

Towards $100 billi

on Indian M&E

OCT OB ER 201 6 Sector

Embracing Disrupt on i to Stay Competitive

www.picklemag.com

25 th-26 th Octob er 2016 Hotel Le Me ridien, New Delhi Know ledg e Part

ner

NMENT BI Z GUIDE

www ww...pick picklemag.com

BEST INDIAN FILMS

Best Minds, Best Talent, Best Content Principal Partne

r

KEY PLENAR

Y SESSIONS Convergence of USD 100 bn Visiothe new multiplier for M&E ’s n The Big Picture Will there be Dialogue – Symphony at the Altar of Converg ence?

GuIdE Solving the Fundrta I nm E nt B I z E nt E ing I an FEBruar Y 2016 I nd The Case of a Bott Conundrum – le Half Filled?

Disrupt, Cha nge for Traditional and Connect – Takeawa EFM at ys Platforms from India Online Berlin Innovations

BLOCKBUSTERS MASTERSTROKES MAVERICK MOVIES BREAKOUTS LONE RANGERS

Gold Sponsors

Skill set Hun ting for Digital Disruption Associate Spons Indian Cinema or Delegate Kit – Corporate Contrib Volumes to Valu Making the Journey fromwww.picklemag.com utor ation Censorship to Creative Expr The Changin his essi g Phase of India on: With non. ome n a phen GST: r 12 amid hugeCinema Gam just an actor, but mbe not e is Cha h Dece nger on ikant day for M&E Rajin Contact: ntorat Sect veme e achie ns on his 63rd birth The Roa Vaishali Shri lifetim Ahe vastava/Nee ad for the Mus ready to hit the scree honoured for dhis Tel: +91 11 45771 tu Sikka ic Industry 053/ 45771016 demigod, who was Pickle bythe le in ght (D) / 45771000 profi Neetu Sikka Mob.: expectations, the al. ACau (Extn. 254/406) + 91 9910275190 ins cool and casu Practitioners inCross Fire – Policy vs | Email: neetu the Sporting the IFFI 2014, rema .sikka@cii.in Arena04-12-2014 15:34:54 Reg

PERSTAR ETERNAL SU Lingaa getting

MAY 11-20, 2016

ister now on ww

w.ciibigpicture.c

Pickle_Octo

ber_2016_Co

BE THERE

ver.indd 1

COLORS A Journey Of Ideas

NIUM of THIS NEW MILLEN Power ed By

Critically acclaimed films

om

tes at Cannes

made since 2001 for delega

Eight years on, COLORS continues to grow fro m strength to strength tak challenge thr ing on every own in its pa helped by the incredible th that differen idea tiates the bra nd from others. An insightful ch Ra j Na ya k, at with CEO, COLO RS, the flagship en tertainmen t channel of Viacom 18 Media Pv t Ltd

08-10-2016

11:23:47

DAY REGISTER TO .com film

www.marchedu

16 Indian Films to Watch Out For in 2016

16_Cover.indd

Pickle_February_20

13-02-2016

06/01/2016

1

09:35:15

11:48

P

dd 1

0x270mm_Pickle.in

MDF_2016_AP_16

+ Bronx (Paris)

www.bronx.fr

India’s Only Film BIZ Magazine for the World

+ attendees Join 11,500

ickle reaches out to audio visual companies in over 50 countries; Targets global buyers and distributors; Film Festivals and markets; Animation production companies; Global companies looking at offshoring from India; Co-production seekers and location service providers.

Pickle business guide tracks the entertainment business in India.

HERALDING A NEW INDIA 47

www.pickle.co.in

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

A HEADY POTION OF

Hailed as the best Indian movie of 2018, Andhadhun, an official adaption of the French short film The Piano Tuner, is an ingeniously entertaining plot that seamlessly alternates between romance and murder, comedy and crime, says Dr S Raghunath, Professor of Strategy, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Bangalore, in an analyses of Sriram Raghavan-directed film starring Ayushman Khurana and Tabu Dr S RaghunatH

Chairperson, Centre For Corporate Governance and Citizenship Professor of Strategy IIM Bangalore

48

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

ENTERTAINMENT

T

he gun shot on the cabbage field travels in the general direction of the intruder rabbit in the opening scene of the movie and is shown as inadvertently hitting a car towards the end of the film. Similarly, the man who is ostensibly blind comes to an apartment to play the piano in a birthday celebration of a spouse “by choice” and becomes the hounded victim of witnessing the scene of murder “by chance”.

Combining the concept and function of parallelism to not only form structural linkages between separate units of the movie but also to suggest meaningful relationships that bear on the film’s interpretation, writer-director Sriram Raghavan presents an ingeniously entertaining plot that seamlessly alternates between romance and murder, comedy and crime. The director and his team of scriptwriters use the ingredients of am-

49

pickle entertainment biz guide

bition and opportunism, fear and greed, creativity and intimidation to create a heady potion of entertainment. The tag line being – “What is Life? It depends on the liver”.

Cut to the initial scene of the protagonist playing on the piano with the tell tale cat appearing as it does in any murder thriller movie that gives an opening twist that anything might happen. The piano notes establish the atmosphere of the place where the action of the movie is set. The few melancholic, haunting notes rise to a crescendo. The piano notes building up or reflecting dramatic tension. Anticipation deliberately plays on the nerves of the audience as some unknown climax is anticipated, but the moment of release is unsure.

The initial part of the melody corresponds with the camera framing and slowly moving on to capture the proLIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Andhadhun director Sriram Raghavan is a master of noir and crime movies. and is one of India’s most exciting filmmakers

tagonist’s intense gaze. The visual pace increases as the camera alternates shots between piano keys, the protagonist and the cat. In the climax of the introductory scene, the camera returns to the protagonist as he stops abruptly while playing the piano. He feels the dialpad on the watch with his fingers to figure out the time. We now realize the melodic piano hook identifies and embodies the protagonist’s character. A high level of tempo, ostinati and drone create tension and the short musical theme for the protagonist’s identity.

Director Sriram Raghavan, music director Amit Trivedi, background score composer Daniel B George and the editor Pooja LadhaSurti apply the precision of editing, in which the musical change aligns tightly with each visual change in emotional and situational content throughout the Andhadhun soundtrack.

The ‘dhun’ (melody) in the Andha (the blind) is captivating as the sound recording and design contribution of Madhu Apsara and Ajay Kumar and the background music of Daniel B George attend quite closely and innovatively to the movie’s sonic design in which the

50

pickle entertainment biz guide

music itself captures not only the mood but also the visual image. The close synergy between sonic and visual pervades all through the movie.

The songs of Andha Dhun also serve as the unifier of both cinematic and narrative content. The musical and cinematic result of the collaboration of the director Sriram Raghavan with music director Amit Trivedi and lyricist Jaideep Sahni demonstrate the development of a narrative / musical aesthetic based on the space occupied by the song syntagms in the script. The songs in the sountrack illustrate the mood of the respective scenes. Rhythmic playfulness is encapsulated in the pace and beat reinforcing the nature of the protagonist’s character and the narrative moment in songs such as ‘naina da kyakasoor’, ‘aap se milkar…’, ‘Laila….laila’ and ‘wo ladki’.

Unlike most murder stories that withhold from the audience a piece of vital evidence until the end of the movie, Andhadhun reveals everything. There is no mystery. The chilling and thrilling moments are when the murderer and the accomplice want to decimate those who have the potential to provide vital LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

evidence on the crime committed. The theme of evil against good, the innocent providing circumstantial evidence against the criminally motivated, provides the narrative drive.

exploit anyone and are mutually considerate and supportive of each other. Our desire to see them all get what they truly and fairly deserve keeps us engaged with the narrative.

Sriram Raghavan’s characters may exist among the gliteratti and the hoi polloi of society but they are smart and verbal, and get quickly to the point. There are a lot of scenes in the movie where characters come into the scene wanting to do one thing and leave doing something else. They are persuaded to change their mind by the seductive lure to find a short cut to a better life . As in many murder theme movies, the will to succeed translates into some kind of perversion to achieve one’s dream.

By the time the movie ends, all the questions posed by the film’s opening and a few raised along the way are answered.

We have complete closure. Everything that was disrupted reaches a new equilibrium. The disrupted lives of Pramod Sinha, Mrs D’Sa the auto driver and Simi end in death and Sophie is back with Vishal.

We meet a gallery of characters, all played in a laconic key. The lottery ticket seller lady, the auto driver, Dr Swami, Simi, police inspector Manohar all make plans which involve other people, but which are primarily intended to benefit themselves. The dark humor comes from problems stemming from the use of other people without the consideration of them as people with their own goals.

Vishal the protagonist and Sophie do not

51

pickle entertainment biz guide

Dr S Raghunath also conducts The Strategic Management Course in Mdedia & Entertainment at IIM Bangalore for media professionbals

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

I

ncredible as it may sound, Arab cinema has taken off to dizzying heights in the past five years or so. And one of the singularly most important reason for this is the cinema’s ability to stay focussed. In about 90 to 110 minutes, an Arab movie grips us with its story, which, I dare say, can be bold and provocative, raising sensitive issues and getting into them head on – which Indian films have not been allowed to do, either by the administration or political groups.

It is this approach of Arab cinema that has helped it to enter some of the most

52

pickle entertainment biz guide

important festivals the world over. While India has not had a title in either Cannes or Venice Competition for many years, Arab works have scored here. Last year, two movies from the Middle East – Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum and first-timer Abu Bakr Shawky’s Yomeddine – ran for one of the most prestigious awards in the world of cinema, the Palm d’Or at the Canes Film Festival. And as Arab cinema programmer Intishal Al Timimi, who heads Egypt’s two-edition-old El Gouna Film Festival, points out,”2018 turned out to be a great year for the region’s cinema, and in recent years 70% of the winning LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

a CLOSE LOOK AT ARAB CINEMA

a bold and unflinching look at a society in strife With ability to tackle sensitive issues head on through a bold and provocative approach, Arab cinema has come of age, helping movies from the region enter some of the most important festivals the world over - By Gautaman Bhaskaran

works by Arab directors at international movie festivals are first or second features, which bodes well for the future of Arab cinema.”

Indeed so. Capernaum won the Jury Prize at Cannes 2018, and is now one of the five competing for the Foreign Language Oscar. Probably, it will walk away with the trophy. For, the other important contender, Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, in this section is also listed under the Best Picture category in the general list, and it has an excellent chance of winning. This leaves Capernaum as a clincher, the other three

53

pickle entertainment biz guide

including Poland’s Cold War, are not in the same league as Labaki’s creation.

The other 2018 Cannes Competition entry, Yomeddine, is a brutal, unflinching look at the life of a leper, an actual leper, who soon after the death of his wife gets on to his donkey cart and goes in search of his long estranged family in Egypt’s Luxor.

The trip from Cairo, where he had been living, to Luxor is extremely eventful with some sad and some happy incidents. What is most significant, the helmer does not make his work a celebration of disfigurement, and underlines the cruelty of a sociLIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Conflict has been a favourite theme of Middle-Eastern writers and directors

crime are the cops themselves, the guardians of the community. The film is fearless in the way it attacks and exposes not only the men in uniform, but also hospital staff and doctors – all of whom turn monstrously unsympathetic to the woman’s horrific plight.

ety towards lepers. We saw this long, long ago in the 1960s Ben-Hur, where people afflicted with this disease were shut away in a cave!

Societal unfeeling attitude is also brought out most starkly in the Tunisian drama, Beauty and the Dogs, by Kaouther Ben Hania (who earlier gave us Imams Go To School and Zaineb Hates The Snow).

Hania’s latest adventure is based on a reallife incident in 2012, and looks at a young woman, who is raped when she gets out of a party at night. Her nightmare continues when she walks into a police station to file a complaint, but she meets a wall. For, the perpetrators of the

54

(Compare this with India, where we refused to let Indo-Canadian moviemaker, Richie Mehta, to shoot Delhi Crime Story

Gautaman Bhaskaran is an author of a biography on Adoor Gopalakrishnan, and a leading cinema writer who has covered Cannes, Venice, Tokyo, Cairo and other movie festivals for years – tracing their journeys through fascinating films. He may be e-mailed at gautamanb@ hotmail.com, and he tweets at @gautamanb

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

Capernaum won the Jury Prize at Cannes 2018, and is now one of the five competing for the Foreign Language Oscar. Probably, it will walk away with the trophy. For, the other important contender, Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, in this section is also listed under the Best Picture category in the general list, and it has an excellent chance of winning on the 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape in Delhi.

I do not know how Mehta managed to put the movie together, but it is now premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.)

Community’s indifference – even rank neglect towards – those men and women who are down is also magnified in Tunisian writer-director Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud’s latest outing, Fatwa, which won the Best Movie award at the Carthage Film Festival and also the Saad Eldin Wahba Prize for Best Arab Movie at the Cairo International Film Festival.

Fatwaexplores extremism in Tunisia, and how it hits the families of those involved.

The work is a deeply disturbing look at the radicalization of Tunisian youth and sheds light on a system that offers little in the way of reformation — even for former extremists who have had a change of heart, but are thrown into jail with little hope for the future.

Conflict has been a favourite theme of Middle-Eastern writers and directors,

Organize

your meetings

and they have talked it most animatedly in their cinema, and how it destroys hope (like we see in Fatwa) and peace – as in Syrian moviemaker Soudade Kaadan’s feature debut, The Day I Lost My Shadow, screened at El Gouna last year. It narrates the horrors of the internecine strife in her country, filtered through a simple story of a mother’s desire to give her son a hot meal. Partly folklore and partly magic realism, based on the idea that those who lose their shadows lose their souls, the director weaves a distressing account of disruption and disappointment.

Guiding us through some of the most tension-ridden situations imaginable, as the mother walks through forests, dodges sniper fire and hides from trigger-happy rebels fighting government forces, Kadan conveys most profoundly how such bloody wars can rob people of their souls, if not their lives. Venice artistic chief Alberto Barbera called the movie “an impressive depiction of one of the most tragic realities of the past decades.”

Discover

outstanding films

Schedule

your screenings

Your perfect match 55

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

MASTERS OF WORLD CINEMA

Twenty 2019 Films We Cannot Wait to Watch

56

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

2019 will witness an array of masterpieces by the brightest minds of world cinema.

Curated by Saibal Chatterjee

57

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

PARASITE

WHEN HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT

The director returns to Korean-language filmmaking for the first time since 2009’s Mother with this family drama about four individuals living under the same roof but possessing divergent traits. Promises to be more low-key in treatment than Snowpiercer, The Host and Okja, but with Bong Joon-ho one can never be sure.

The Oscar-winning German director’s adaptation of British writer Judith Kerr’s 1971 semi-autobiographical novel is about a young Jewish girl who flees Nazi Germany with her family in 1933 through Switzerland and Paris before settling in Britain later in the decade. Slated for a Christmas release, the film could surface in festivals in the second half of 2019.

Bong Joon-ho

AN EASY GIRL (Unfille facile) Rebecca Zlotowski

The French director’s fourth feature revolves around Naima, who has just turned 16, and her 22-year-old visiting cousin, whose lives change during a long summer on the sun-drenched French Riviera.

Zlotowski’sprevious three films (Belle epine, Grand Central, Planetarium) have all played in the world’s top festivals. We expect her to be back in circulation this year.

PERSONALIEN Albert Serra

The Catalonian auteur is poised to be a star of the festival circuit with his upcoming film, Personalien, which is an account of an episode in the life German cinema legend Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It deals with Fassbinder preparing a play in Berlin about 18th century debauchery while dealing with dramatic personal issues.

IT MUST BE HEAVEN Elia Suleiman

A freewheeling saga from the Palestinian filmmaker addressing questions nationality, the notion of home and cultural identity.

Elia Suleiman, who is both the narrator and the protagonist, leaves Palestine is search of an alternative homeland but no matter where he goes – Paris, New York, Doha, he cannot escape police heavy-handedness, border controls and racism.

ANNA

Luc Besson Despite the financial troubles facing Luc Besson’s company EuropaCorp and the sexual misconduct allegations against the French producer-director, his English-language female-driven action thriller, Anna, starring Helen Mirren, Sasha Lush, Luke Evans and Cillian Murphy, is bound to sustain worldwide anticipation through the year. But its festival will hinge on the film’s distribution strategy.

58

pickle entertainment biz guide

Caroline Link

BENEDETTA

Paul Verhoeven Adapted from Judith C. Brown’s 1986 book, Immodest Acts, the seasoned Dutch director’s next film is about a 17th century novice nun who joins a convent in Italy and begins a love affair with another woman.

Verhoeven made a glorious comeback to feature filmmaking in 2016 with the French-language Elle, which fetched star Isabelle Huppert unstinted accolades.

THE TRUTH

Hirokazu Kore-eda The prolific Kore-eda has been a force on the festival circuit since moving from documentaries to narrative features in the mid1990s. He is set to follow-up on his Palme d’Or-winning Shoplifters with The Truth, starring Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche alongside Ethan Hawke and LudivineSagnier. The film marks the Japanese director’s French-language debut.

PAIN AND GLORY Pedro Almodovar

A self-reflexive film from the Spanish maverick, Pain and Glory is about a filmmaker and the choices he has made in his life and career in the past and how they have impacted his present. The five-time Palme d’Or contender reteams Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz in a film that is set for release in late March. Therefore, there is no clarity on a festival run.

AHMED

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne The Belgian auteurs, twice Cannes top prize winners, are back in the mix this year with Ahmed, a film about a young man who is radicalized enough to plan the killing of his teacher in the name of his religious beliefs. The film, the director duo’s 11th narrative feature, promises to present a characteristically austere and terse treatment of an explosive subject.

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

SORRY WE MISSED YOU

PURE AS SNOW

Winner for the Palme d’Or for 2016’s I, Daniel Blake, the veteran filmmaker has nearly wrapped up his new film, written once again by regular collaborator Paul Laverty. It is about a family struggling to regain lost ground in the wake of the 2008 economic downturn with the father investing in a van and becoming a self-employed delivery man.

A modern reworking of Brother Grimms’ Snow White story, French director Anne Fontaine’s 16th feature, Pure as Snow, stars Isabelle Huppert as the evil stepmother to a girl who works in her late father’s hotel.

When the older woman’s young lover falls for the girl, the stepmother plots to eliminate the daughter. The latter seeks refuge in a farm where she tastes freedom for the first time through her encounters with seven ‘princes’.

Ken Loach

MEMORIA

Apichatpong Weerasethakul The acclaimed Thai director returns to the thick of the action four years after his last feature Cemetery of Splendour and teams up with Tilda Swinton. The actress plays a Scottish woman travelling through Colombia and suffering from exploding head syndrome, a psychological condition in which a person hears loud noises when sleeping or waking up.

THE STORY OF MY WIFE Ildiko Enyedi

Berlinale Golden Bear winner in 2017 for On Body and Soul, Hungarian director Ildiki Enyedi is working on her new film based on a Milan Fust novel. It tells the story of a naval captain’s unhappy relationship with a Frenchwoman (played by Lea Seydoux) he married on a whim when a friend dared him to wed the first woman who walked into a café they were sitting in.

BERGMAN ISLAND

Anne Fontaine

THE DREAMS OF A FEW Michel Franco

A dystopian drama set in the near future, Michel Franco’s upcoming film is his most ambitious to date. It focuses on disparities between the rich and the poor in Mexico.

Franco has had a wonderful run with his first four features, Daniel and Ana, After Lucia, Chronic and April’s Daughter. Anticipation for The Dreams of a Few is therefore high.

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH Kiyoshi Kurosawa

The prolific Japanese director of such lauded films as Journey to the Shore, Daguerrotype and Before We Vanish, travels to Uzbekistan for his latest film. In To the Ends of the Earth, a young travel show host finds her beliefs tested when she lands in the central Asian nation with her small crew to film the latest segment.

Mia Hansen-Love

EMA

The French actress-turned-director’s English-language Bergman Island, a long-gestating project, is in the works and promises to be a homage to Faro Island where Ingmar Bergman lived and worked. It tells the story of an American couple who retreat to the island to write their next screenplays but as their work progresses the line between reality and fiction is blurred.

The Chilean director reunites with his Neruda star Gael Garcia Bernal in his latest film, a dance-filled adoption drama set in his home country. It is about a choreographer and his schoolteacher-wife who decide to use dance to express themselves through the difficult process of adopting a child.

LITTLE JOE

Jessica Hausner The Austrian director’s fifth feature, Little Joe, is an English-language sci-fi drama rests on an unusual premise: a singleminded breeder creates a genetically engineered plant whose seeds have a curious effect on those that come into contact with it. A series of developments forces her to question her own identity and threatens her grasp on reality.

59

pickle entertainment biz guide

Pablo Larrain

THE PERFUMED HILL Abderrahmane Sissako

Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako’s The Perfumed Hill is his follow-up to the Oscar-nominated Timbuktu. The film tells a love story set between Africa and China and is said to have been inspired by a scene in Sissako’s 2002 slice-of-life drama, Waiting for Happiness, which premiered in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un certain regard.

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.in

from the editor’s desk

W

e are delighted to present the latest issue of Pickle on the occasion of Berlinale and European Film Market 2019. This is the 12th edition of Pickle at the Berlinale and EFM. After a big gap India has a super presence in the festival sections and this year has been by far the best for India at Berlin.

This would not have been possible without the support and passion of Dieter Kosslick, the Berlin Festival Director, who is set to step down this year after 18 years of supreme festival leadership.

Berlinale’s delegate and South Asia programmer Dorothee Wenner and Meenakshi Shedde, have always been on their discovery spree looking for fresh minds from the cinemas of India.

Over 75 Indian companies are at Berlinale and European Film Market. The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has set up an India Pavilion at MGB Central Hall in association with Confederation of Indian Industry.

These are exciting times to be in the Indian film business.India is now the world’s top mobile broadband market, consuming more data than anywhere in the world. The film industry’s structure is rapidly changing driving new ways

to produce, distribute and monetize content across its landscape.

It is also a delight to read through India@Berlinale.

The 69th edition of Berlinale hosts two Galas (Zoya Akhtar’s rap drama Gully Boy and Ritesh Batra’s off-mainstream romance Photograph), Udita Bhargava’s Dust (Perspektive Deutsches Kino, a section devoted to unearthing new talent), Rima Das’s Bulbul Can Sing (Generation 14plus) and Prantik Basu’s Rang Mahal (Berlinale Shorts).

Berlin Forum will screen a restored version of writer and filmmaker Ruchir Joshi’s documentary Egaro Mile (Eleven Miles). Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam’s Shadow Circus forms part of Forum Expanded exhibition section.

Three projects from the subcontinent in the Berlianle Co-Production Market include Paradise, Reshma Shera and In-Law. Eight filmmakers from India are part of the Berline Talents. India has never had this kind of representation at Berlinale.

Majority of the Indian projects selected in Berlin are helmed by women filmmakers.

Meet Pickle at Berlin or do drop in a line to get connected in the Indian M&E business.

n vidyasagar

pickle media nvidyasagar@picklemag.in, www.pickle.co.in

Pickle Volume XII 5th 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

Senior Editor : Vivek Ratnakar Editorial Coordinators : M Sai Email: natvid@gmail.com Design Editor: Jose J Reegan Photo Editor: K K Laskar

For advertising: natvid@gmail.com

C

60

Pickle Business Guide 2019 Copyright 2019 by Pickle Media Pvt Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

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

pickle entertainment biz guide

LIKE PICKLE IN FACEBOOK

www.picklemag.com www.picklemag.in