Hindi
Deepa Mehta’s Heaven On Earth to premiere in Toronto Film Fest
MUMBAI: Deepa Mehta‘s Heaven On Earth will be premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.
Produced by BR Films, the film has Preity Zinta in the lead role. She plays the role of repressed women. Deepa Mehta‘s Sam And Me will also be showcased at the fest as part of a presentation called Dialogues: Talking with Pictures.
The Akshay Kumar-starrer Singh is Kinng will also be screened at the Toronto Film Festival beginning 4 September. The film festival which will run till 13 September will also showcase a total of 312 films.
Preity Zinta, Akshay Kumar, Nandita Das, Anees Bazmee from Bollywood and former cop Kiran Bedi are some of the popular Indians who have been invited to the fest.
The other films which will be screened are Toa Fraser‘s Dean Spanley, Jodie Markell‘s The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, Rod Lurie‘s Nothing But the Truth, Gavin O‘Connor‘s Pride and Glory and Joel Coen‘s Burn After Reading.
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.
