Hindi
Essel Vision’s ‘Jazbaa’ starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to go on floors on 20 Jan
MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited’s (ZEEL) creative and production studio Essel Vision Productions is gearing up for its much anticipated film – Jazbaa. The movie, which is touted as Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s comeback film, is slated to go on floors on 20 January.
Essel Vision Productions will be producing the movie in association with Sanjay Gupta’s White Feather Films and Sachiin Joshi’s Viiking Entertainment. The movie also stars Shabana Azmi, Irrfan Khan, Anupam Kher, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Atul Kulkarni, Siddharth Kapoor, Baby Sara Arjun and Priya Banerjee. It will be directed by Gupta.
Speaking on its foray, Essel Vision CEO Nittin Keni said, “Jazbaa is an amazing story intertwined with superlative action, drama and mystery. It is the kind of entertaining and meaningful cinema that we want our audience to associate us with. Supported with keen creative & business acumen we are confident that we deliver compelling, profitable entertaining content to global audiences.”
Jazbaa is a crime thriller and filled with unpredictable twists in the plot hence it was imperative for the actors to be completely in sync with their characters. With the film all set to go on the floors on 20 January, the makers organised a script reading session, which gave an opportunity for the cast and crew to come together to understand and prepare their roles thoroughly.
The script reading session was helmed by Gupta along with scriptwriters Kamlesh Pandey and Robin Bhatt. It opened interesting conversations among the actors about the concept in India for a Bollywood film. This was later followed by a detailed dialogue with the creative team including sound designer Resul Pookutty and cinematographer Sameer Arya.
Commenting on the narration, Gupta said, “The script reading session of Jazbaa with the entire cast and crew went off very well. Internationally, it’s the norm and I think it helps the cast bond with each other before the shooting starts. It’s a better arrangement than having the actors meet each other only when they reach the sets when the shoot begins. Writers sometimes tend to miss out certain elements when they are so close to the script. The inputs I received from the actors were fresh as they have interesting perspectives when they hear the story at one go like this and will only help us make a better film. It was also an ice breaker for the talent on the film since most of my cast are working with each other for the first time.”
Keeping the lead actress’ parenting duties in mind, Gupta, who is also father to a young child, plans to shoot the film only on weekdays.
Shabana and Aishwarya hit if off instantly as they waited for Irrfan to join them. It was not surprising to see Aishwarya go up to and welcome the young child actor, Sara, on board the film by hugging her. Even as Sara smiled and told her that was her huge fan, the actress responded by saying, “Don’t be my fan, you’re my daughter!”
Hindi
Jio Studios unveils AI-powered Krishna teaser at NAB Show 2026
Global first look of Krishna uses Galleri5 AI pipeline on Azure, Historyverse slate as Jio’s Dhurandhar crosses Rs 3,000cr worldwide.
MUMBAI: Krishna has just dropped a divine teaser and this time the gods are powered by silicon, not just scripture. Jio Studios and Collective Studios’ Historyverse stole the spotlight at the NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas with the world’s first teaser for their upcoming theatrical feature Krishna, directed by Manu Anand. The big reveal happened during Microsoft’s keynote “Powering Intelligent Media, From AI Experimentation to Real-World Impact,” where the film’s AI-native production pipeline took centre stage alongside Collective Artists Network’s in-house platform, Galleri5.
At the heart of this mythological spectacle lies a fresh cinematic workflow built by Galleri5 on Microsoft Azure’s advanced AI and cloud infrastructure. Forget bolting AI onto traditional VFX or animation, this is an end-to-end, production-grade system woven into every layer: world-building, character creation, shot design and final output. Yet the storytelling remains firmly director-led, emphasising emotional depth, stillness, music and performance rather than pure spectacle. The result? Large-format theatrical cinema rooted in Indian history and culture, but conceived in ways that were simply not possible before.
Collective Artists Network runs Galleri5 natively on Azure, leveraging Microsoft Foundry and cutting-edge AI tools to handle film, episodic and advertising workflows in a secure enterprise environment. Microsoft highlighted Collective as a “Frontier” organisation successfully moving AI from pilot projects to real production-scale deployment in cinema. The technology is also on display at Microsoft’s NAB booth in the West Hall (Booth W1731).
Jio Studios (Media & Content Business, Reliance Industries), president Jyoti Deshpande said the project advances the studio’s mission to take Indian stories global with scale, ambition and authenticity, “With Krishna, we are embracing cutting-edge AI-led filmmaking while democratising these tools to make them more accessible, intuitive and cost-effective for storytellers everywhere.”
Collective Artists Network founder & group CEO Vijay Subramaniam added, “We’re using technology developed in India to carry our culture and history to audiences worldwide at a scale never seen before.”
Microsoft, vice president for telco media & entertainment, gaming Silvia Candiani noted that the media industry has reached an inflection point, “AI is no longer about experimentation but delivering real impact at production scale… By building AI-native creative systems on Microsoft Azure, Collective exemplifies how storytellers can unlock new formats, move faster and realise a true return on intelligence while keeping human creativity at the centre.”
Krishna forms part of Historyverse, Collective Studios’ ambitious slate of history and culture-driven IPs. The slate draws from iconic figures and traditions that shaped the Indian subcontinent, including stories inspired by Kali, Karna and Durga. It builds on the already-released Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh series, showing how ancient narratives can be reimagined for modern screens.
Jio Studios, India’s leading content studio and the media and content arm of Reliance Industries, continues its blockbuster run. The studio’s Dhurandhar franchise led by Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge has become the first Indian film series to cross Rs 3,000 crore worldwide. It also delivered three consecutive years of India’s highest-grossing Hindi films: Stree 2 (2024), Dhurandhar (2025) and Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026). In just eight years, Jio Studios has assembled a library of over 160 films and series, with more than 60 titles winning over 500 awards. Other notable successes include Laapataa Ladies (India’s official Oscar entry 2025), Stree, Article 370, Shaitaan and Mrs.
The NAB unveiling marks another step in Jio Studios and Collective’s push to blend Indian storytelling talent with frontier technology proving that the future of cinema may well be both ancient in spirit and thoroughly modern in execution. For audiences who love epic tales with a fresh twist, Krishna promises to deliver divine drama, this time with a little help from the cloud.
