Hindi
Chennai Intl Film Fest from 14 December
MUMBAI: The 9th Chennai International Film Festival will go underway with Shekhar Kapur flagging off the nine-day event on 14 December. The festival will screen as many as 140 films from more than 45 countries.
National award winning film Aadukalam directed by Vetri Maran will screen in the competition under Tamil films while Adaminte Makan Abu by Salim Ahamed will screen in Indian Panorama.
The country focus will be on Turkey, Hungary and Poland. The festival is expected to host retrospectives of Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsao-Hsien from Taiwan and Aki Karasmaki from Finland.
The other highlights of the festival are Las Acacias from Argentina, Sleeping Beauty from Australia, Michael from Austria, A Separation from Iran, Elena and Faust from Russia.
The festival, organised by the Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation (ICAF) will end on 21 December.
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.
