Hindi
Ankhon Dekhi to open Dharmshala Film Festival later this month
NEW DELHI: Rajat Kapoor’s critically acclaimed film Ankhon Dekhi will open the third Dharamshala International Film Festival on 30 October.
The four-day festival will showcase feature films, documentaries, short films and animation films. Besides, DIFF will also host Masterclasses, panel discussions and Harun Farocki Retrospective.
Feature films to be screened at the festival include Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court, Hansal Mehta’s Citylights, Geetu Mohandas’ Liar’s Dice, Avinash Arun’s Killa, Khyentse Norbu’s Vara: A Blessing, Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi’s Zinda Bhaag, Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar, Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die, Byamba Sakhya’sRemote Control, Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze’s Papusza and Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive.
Gitanjali Rao will conduct a masterclass titled Paintings in Motion where she will take the audience from the origin of the idea, to the characters – who they are, where they come from – the style and design, the animatics with sound and music and finally the film in animation through her film which featured in the Critics Week at Cannes. She will go through the different explorations of mood, colors, sounds and music that shaped the film, and how to spin these together to create an emotional experience.
The animation section will screen films by Shilpa Ranade, Gitanjali Rao and Nina Sabnani, among others.
Q’s Nabarun, a documentary about famous Bengali writer Nabarun Bhattacharya who passed away in July, will have its world premiere at the festival.
Hindi
Jio Studios, Sanjay Dutt team up to revive Khal Nayak
Rights acquired for new version, format under wraps as remake plans take shape.
MUMBAI: The villain is back and this time, he’s rewriting his own script. Jio Studios has partnered with Three Dimension Motion Pictures and Aspect Entertainment to revive the 1993 cult classic Khal Nayak, marking a fresh chapter for one of Bollywood’s most iconic anti-hero stories. The original film, directed by Subhash Ghai under Mukta Arts, was a commercial and cultural milestone, with Sanjay Dutt’s portrayal of Ballu becoming one of Hindi cinema’s most memorable performances.
Dutt, along with Aksha Kamboj, has now acquired the rights from the original creators, bringing on board Jio Studios and its President Jyoti Deshpande to steer the project creatively.
While the exact format whether remake, sequel, prequel, or a completely new narrative remains undisclosed, the collaboration aims to reinterpret the story for contemporary audiences while retaining the essence that made the original a defining film of the 1990s.
The move taps into a broader industry trend of reviving legacy intellectual property, particularly characters with strong recall value. “Khal Nayak” was notable for pushing mainstream Hindi cinema into morally grey territory at a time when heroes were largely one-dimensional, making Ballu’s character a standout.
The project also marks the film production debut of Aspect Entertainment, signalling a push towards more technology-led storytelling frameworks. Meanwhile, Jio Studios continues to expand its slate, having built a library of over 200 films and series, with more than 60 titles collectively winning 500-plus awards.
For Dutt, the revival is as much personal as it is strategic, a return to a role that reshaped his career. For the industry, it is another sign that nostalgia, when paired with scale, remains a powerful box-office proposition.
Because in Bollywood, some villains never fade, they just wait for the perfect comeback.
