Hollywood
Tongue-in-cheek film on ‘Indian Aussies’ highlight of St Kilda Festival this year
NEW DELHI: Producer-director-writer Anupam Sharma’s short documentary ‘Indian Aussies’ – a mosaic that incorporates the faces and voices of Indian Aussies across Australia and generations’- will be screened at the St Kilda Film Festival.
The 31st edition of the Festival is being held from 22 to 31 May in St Kilda in Australia.
The documentary commissioned by the Australian National Maritime Museum is a tongue in cheek look at Indian Australians across the spectrum. It was commissioned for the May 2013 exhibition East of India – The Forgotten Trade with Australia.
The documentary deals with everything from identity to racism, maintaining their roots to assimilation, and of course Cricket. The film is like a Bollywood film, with a twist and music at the end, according to South Asia Times.
The short documentary film explores the width and breath of culture, education, and identity amongst Indian Aussies.
The ‘Indian Aussies’ has been selected for the Festival as one of the top 100 Aussie short films.
The St. Kilda Festival has screened films that went on to be Oscar winners and nominees, and Palme D’or winners at Cannes.
Australia’s Top 100 prize pool totals over $40,000 in cash and in-kind craft awards, including a $10,000 prize for Best Short Film. Other prizes include Best Director, Best Achievement in Screenplay, Best Documentary, Best Animation, Best Achievement in Cinematography, Best Achievement in Indigenous Film Making, Best Comedy and Best Achievement in Sound Post.
Hollywood
US theatre group opposes Paramount, Warner Bros. merger, calls it ‘harmful’
Exhibitors warn mega deal could shrink film output and weaken cinema ecosystem
LAS VEGAS: Cinema United has come out strongly against the proposed merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery, warning it could concentrate too much power in the hands of a single player and disrupt the global film ecosystem.
Speaking at CinemaCon in Las Vegas, the group’s chief executive Michael O’Leary did not mince words as he addressed thousands of theatre owners. The deal, reportedly valued at $110 billion, was agreed in March after Netflix exited the bidding process.
“We believe this transaction will be harmful to exhibition, consumers and the entire entertainment ecosystem,” O’Leary said, cautioning that greater consolidation would allow fewer distributors to dictate terms around release windows, scheduling and access to film libraries. Theatre owners argue that such scale could reduce competition and ultimately mean fewer films making it to cinemas.
Pushing back, a spokesperson for Paramount Skydance said the merged entity plans to release 30 films annually in theatres, while continuing to operate both studios separately. The company added that the deal would expand opportunities for creators and strengthen competition by backing more projects globally.
However, exhibitors remain unconvinced. Drawing parallels with The Walt Disney Company’s 2019 acquisition of Fox, O’Leary noted a drop in wide theatrical releases post-merger, reinforcing concerns that consolidation often leads to fewer films.
“Unfortunately, history shows us that consolidation results in fewer films being produced for movie theaters,” O’Leary said.
Beyond output, Cinema United also flagged concerns around theatrical windows, warning that a combined Paramount-Warner entity could exert greater control over how long films remain exclusively in cinemas before shifting to other platforms.
With the debate set to intensify, the clash highlights a familiar tension in Hollywood: scale versus diversity. For theatre owners, the stakes are clear, as they push to ensure that bigger does not mean fewer stories on the big screen.
