Hindi
CFSI wants weekly slot on DD, more grants from I&B
MUMBAI: Doordarshan should reserve a weekly slot for children‘s movies and the Indian government pour more money into such genre of movies, a senior executive of the Children‘s Film Society of India (CFSI) said.
The CFSI, affiliated to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, expects the government to increase its allocation to Rs 100 million in FY‘13, up from Rs 70 million this fiscal.
“For years the CFSI was getting a grant of Rs 40 million, which was raised to Rs 70 million this year. Next year, hopefully, the grant is expected to be raised to Rs 100 million,” said CFSI CEO Sushovan Banerjee.
Doordarshan doesn‘t give ample coverage to children‘s films. “Compared to other countries, our pubcaster doesn‘t have a children‘s film slot. We have talked to the I& B Ministry, which has agreed in principle that children‘s film should get a weekly slot. The implementation is now left to Doordarshan,” said Banerjee.
CFSI has also started talking to film marketers to market their films on a revenue-share basis. Though the CFSI makes educative and entertaining films for children, it is not able to market and screen their films properly.
“The films made by CFSI are very strong in content, but it is the marketing that we lag in. Hence we are now talking to film marketers to market our films on a revenue-share basis. We are also talking to several distributors to distribute our films,” averred Banerjee.
Co-productions is another area CFSI is keen to exploit more aggressively. “We are seriously thinking of going in for co-productions,” said Banerjee.
CFSI has tied up with various film institutes. “In our festivals, we are also opening up a slot called ‘Little Directors‘ through which we will encourage children to pick up their cameras and shoot films. Our endeavour is to build a future set of filmmakers,” said chairperson Nandita Das.
Hindi
Jio Studios unveils AI-powered Krishna teaser at NAB Show 2026
Global first look of Krishna uses Galleri5 AI pipeline on Azure, Historyverse slate as Jio’s Dhurandhar crosses Rs 3,000cr worldwide.
MUMBAI: Krishna has just dropped a divine teaser and this time the gods are powered by silicon, not just scripture. Jio Studios and Collective Studios’ Historyverse stole the spotlight at the NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas with the world’s first teaser for their upcoming theatrical feature Krishna, directed by Manu Anand. The big reveal happened during Microsoft’s keynote “Powering Intelligent Media, From AI Experimentation to Real-World Impact,” where the film’s AI-native production pipeline took centre stage alongside Collective Artists Network’s in-house platform, Galleri5.
At the heart of this mythological spectacle lies a fresh cinematic workflow built by Galleri5 on Microsoft Azure’s advanced AI and cloud infrastructure. Forget bolting AI onto traditional VFX or animation, this is an end-to-end, production-grade system woven into every layer: world-building, character creation, shot design and final output. Yet the storytelling remains firmly director-led, emphasising emotional depth, stillness, music and performance rather than pure spectacle. The result? Large-format theatrical cinema rooted in Indian history and culture, but conceived in ways that were simply not possible before.
Collective Artists Network runs Galleri5 natively on Azure, leveraging Microsoft Foundry and cutting-edge AI tools to handle film, episodic and advertising workflows in a secure enterprise environment. Microsoft highlighted Collective as a “Frontier” organisation successfully moving AI from pilot projects to real production-scale deployment in cinema. The technology is also on display at Microsoft’s NAB booth in the West Hall (Booth W1731).
Jio Studios (Media & Content Business, Reliance Industries), president Jyoti Deshpande said the project advances the studio’s mission to take Indian stories global with scale, ambition and authenticity, “With Krishna, we are embracing cutting-edge AI-led filmmaking while democratising these tools to make them more accessible, intuitive and cost-effective for storytellers everywhere.”
Collective Artists Network founder & group CEO Vijay Subramaniam added, “We’re using technology developed in India to carry our culture and history to audiences worldwide at a scale never seen before.”
Microsoft, vice president for telco media & entertainment, gaming Silvia Candiani noted that the media industry has reached an inflection point, “AI is no longer about experimentation but delivering real impact at production scale… By building AI-native creative systems on Microsoft Azure, Collective exemplifies how storytellers can unlock new formats, move faster and realise a true return on intelligence while keeping human creativity at the centre.”
Krishna forms part of Historyverse, Collective Studios’ ambitious slate of history and culture-driven IPs. The slate draws from iconic figures and traditions that shaped the Indian subcontinent, including stories inspired by Kali, Karna and Durga. It builds on the already-released Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh series, showing how ancient narratives can be reimagined for modern screens.
Jio Studios, India’s leading content studio and the media and content arm of Reliance Industries, continues its blockbuster run. The studio’s Dhurandhar franchise led by Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge has become the first Indian film series to cross Rs 3,000 crore worldwide. It also delivered three consecutive years of India’s highest-grossing Hindi films: Stree 2 (2024), Dhurandhar (2025) and Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026). In just eight years, Jio Studios has assembled a library of over 160 films and series, with more than 60 titles winning over 500 awards. Other notable successes include Laapataa Ladies (India’s official Oscar entry 2025), Stree, Article 370, Shaitaan and Mrs.
The NAB unveiling marks another step in Jio Studios and Collective’s push to blend Indian storytelling talent with frontier technology proving that the future of cinema may well be both ancient in spirit and thoroughly modern in execution. For audiences who love epic tales with a fresh twist, Krishna promises to deliver divine drama, this time with a little help from the cloud.
