MAM
First-ever digital edition of Japanese Film Festival 2020 opens today in India
New Delhi: Japan Foundation New Delhi announced the launch of the Fourth edition of Japanese Film Festival (JFF) 2020 in India, today. The one-of-a-kind 10-day digital Film Festival will be held from 4th to 13th December’20. The expansive movie list this year entails 30 of Japan’s most acclaimed films of varied formats and subjects across categories including animation, feature drama, romance, thriller, classic and documentary. Day one of the festival kick-started with the screening of classic and contemporary films, ‘Key Of Life’, ‘The Flavour of Green Tea over Rice’ and ‘Project Dream- How to Build Mazinger Z’s Hanger’.
The Fourth edition of the Japanese Film Festival is accessible to everyone across the country due to the virtual access and patrons can enjoy the best of Japanese cinema from the safety of their homes. From the carefully curated list of films, three movies will be screened each day and will be available for 24 hours on the festival watch page, https://watch.jff.jpf.go.jp/page/india/. Patrons can enjoy unlimited access to multiple movies from the film line-up without any subscription cost. The films selected will be screened in Japanese with English subtitles for the viewer’s convenience.
Commenting on the opening of JFF 2020, Mr. Kaoru Miyamoto, the Director-General of the Japan Foundation New Delhi said, “We are very excited to open the Film Festival in India. The last few months have been reassuring to see the excitement across our platforms. India is an important and growing market for the Japanese arthouses as there is notable inclination and interest for Japanese culture amongst Indians. We have closely mapped audience demand and accordingly created a list 30 popular Japanese films suited to cater to a wider audience base addressing to varied age groups. The response so far has been overwhelming also from cities like Hyderabad, Jaipur etc. in addition to the metros.”
He further added, “We are delighted and grateful for the special place that the festival has carved for itself in the Indian landscape. The last three editions have received a staggering response and, we are hopeful that the festival will be successful and bigger with the first-ever digital edition.”
The Japanese Film Festival 2020 is showcasing a diverse line-up of popular Japanese films like Sumikkogurashi: Good to be in the corner, Production I.G Animation: Tokyo Marble Chocolate, Production I.G Short Animation: (Drawer Hobs), One Night, 0.5mm, Ecotherapy Getaway Holiday, Our 30-Minute Sessions, Little Nights, Little Love, Stolen Identity, Tremble All You Want, The Great Passage, RAILWAYS, Café Funiculi Funicula and more.
Adding fervor to the 10-day Film Festival, the Japan Foundation New Delhi is holding ‘Young Critic Contest’. The contest seeks participation of young elementary and middle school students to write critical responses to the selected animation films from the Festival’s movie line-up. Six winners will be declared by December 24, 2020 and will be awarded a Certificate of Excellence along with exclusive Japanese Film Festival goodies.
For more information on the movie line-up, registration process, festival schedule and dates, you can log onto the Festival watch page, https://watch.jff.jpf.go.jp/. You can also check out the official social handles for regular updates.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/japanesefilmfestivalindia/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JapaneseFilmFestivalIndia/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JFF_India
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Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
