Hindi
Indian Film Company commits $32 mn in upcoming projects
MUMBAI: Raghav Bahl-driven Indian Film Company (IFC) is ready to pump in ?20.63 million ($32.12 million) towards its upcoming film projects.
The Aim-listed company will predominantly fund these projects through cash generated by the group from exploitation of film rights. The Group is also evaluating the option of raising debt to fund some of its future investments in film projects.
The company has lined up nine movies to release in FY 2010. It has acquired rights to two films while it will be co-producing the rest.
Meanwhile, riding high on the success of movies like Ghajini and Singh Is Kinng, the company‘s net profit has surged 98.5 per cent to ?3.89 million for the year ended 31 March 2009, as compared to Rs ?1.96 million a year ago.
Revenue stood at ?40.90 million, as against ?11.45 million in FY‘08.
During the year under review, IFC has released eight films (Bhoothnath, Panduranga, Singh Is Kinng, Kidnap, Golmaal Returns, Dil Kabaddi, Ghajini and Little Zizou).
Released in the fag end of the calendar year 2008, Ghajini broke all existing records at the Indian box office to gross ?26.83 million (Rs 1.95 billion) with 1,500 screens. Singh Is Kinng, which was released in August 2008, grossed ?15.14 million (Rs 1.10 billion).
The group also ventured into world cinema with three co-productions; Little Zizou, It‘s a Wonderful Afterlife and Road Movie. International sales agents have been secured already to sell these three films outside of India.
IFC has also acquired the remake rights of the Hollywood film Italian Job from Paramount Studios, and script writing and casting are underway.
A big benchmark for the company was the selling of music rights with defined period contracts, including the music rights to Singh Is Kinng, which were sold for Rs 107 million (?1.47 million).
“Despite the overall gloomy economic environment, the group has been able to deliver good financial results and with a strong slate of films, is poised to expand with a healthy growth rate in the year ending 31 March 2010,” says IFC chairman Shyam Benegal.
IFC held cash balances of ?0.94 million (?3.28 million including the term deposit) and had exploitation rights and investments in films and films under production with an aggregate carrying value of ?52.06 million till 31 March 2009.
At present, with a portfolio comprising 35 films and a library of 54 rights bought exclusively for television syndication, the group is continuing to build on its strategy to develop and expand its library of rights for television syndication in the year under review. The television syndication model entails the sale of limited telecast rights for a limited period to multiple players. This model was extended to the overseas territories of the UK, North America, Asia and Europe.
IFC plans to increase its own production slate. “The group is increasing its focus on mounting its own productions, which are in various stages of scripting, casting, shooting and post-production. The Group will be releasing some of its own productions over the next two years,” Benegal adds.
While talking about competition, Bahl says, “We continue to live in difficult times where the competition is high, talent is scarce and creativity is selective. The group continuously endeavours to select projects that have capacity to entertain and content that attracts audiences and is commercially viable.”
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.
