Hindi
India’s Firaaq to open South Asian International Film Festival
MUMBAI: The South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF) 2008, presented by HBO, will open with Nandita Das’ Firaaq on 22 October in New York.
The film festival will close on 28 October with Pakistani film-maker Mehreen Jabbar’s Ramchand Pakistani. The film stars Bollywood actress Nandita Das, along with Pakistani actors Rashid Farooqui, Noman Ijaz, Maria Wasti, Navaid Jabbar and child actor Syed Fazal Hussain.
Director Madhur Bhandarkar’s upcoming flick Fashion will be premiered on 24 October at 10 pm.
The seven-day film festival will showcase features, short-films, and documentaries like The Pool, Morning Ritual, To Be…Me, Will Think For Food, Milind Soman Made Me Gay, Lalbatti, A Drop Of Life, The President Is Coming, Rewind, Narmeen, Clean Linen, The Only Thing, The Private Life Of Albert Pinto, Sukrit‘s Sundays, Akasa Kusum (Flowers In The Sky), Arranging Love, Seventh Seam, A Drop Of Life, Healthy. Happy. Holy., Kerala Brides, Mohandas, Shades Of Ray, Antardwand, The Whisperers, Mahek, A Home In The Sky, Lost & Found, 21-12-2012 and Mara Move On.
The SAIFF is a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting established and emerging artists from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
Hindi
Kuku enters theatrical cinema with Indian Institute of Zombies
Audio and micro-drama giant launches first Hindi feature film on 8 May.
MUMBAI: Kuku just added brains to its bite because when an audio and micro-drama powerhouse decides to make a zombie comedy, even the undead had better watch their step. Kuku, one of India’s largest digital entertainment companies and the force behind Kuku FM and Kuku TV, has announced its foray into theatrical cinema with its debut Hindi feature film, Indian Institute of Zombies (IIZ). Billed as India’s first campus zombie comedy, the film is set to release in cinemas on 8 May 2026.
Set inside an elite engineering campus, IIZ blends zombie horror, youth comedy and sharp social satire, promising a high-energy big-screen experience. The film stars an ensemble cast including Jessie Lever, Anupriya Goenka, Mohan Kapur, Ranjan Raj, Shivani Paliwal, Shantanu Anam, Rose Sardana, Sachin Kavetham and Tanishq Chaudhary. It has been developed in-house at Kuku, scripted by Hussain Dalal and Abbas Dalal (known for Brahmāstra and Farzi), and directed by Gaganjeet Singh and Alok Dwivedi of Low Gravity Productions.
Kuku, CEO Lal Chand Bisu said, “Kuku has always been obsessed with how India consumes stories. We built scale in personal consumption through Kuku FM and created a new micro-drama category with Kuku TV. Theatres represent the next frontier, and Indian Institute of Zombies marks the first of many, rooted in youth culture, genre innovation and mass Indian tastes.”
Kuku senior vice president Kunj Sanghvi added, “IIZ is a film for everyone who has ever been on a college campus. We observed the success of horror comedies at the box office, the lack of a breakout Indian zombie film, and the insatiable appetite for campus stories across age groups.”
The project also showcases Kuku’s AI-native approach to filmmaking. Artificial intelligence has been deeply integrated into concept structuring, story architecture, scheduling, budgeting and creative iteration not as a gimmick, but as an amplifier to enable faster development cycles and sharper decisions.
With this move, Kuku is evolving from a leader in audio and vertical storytelling into a multi-format entertainment powerhouse, leveraging its deep audience insights and technological edge to create culturally resonant theatrical experiences.
In a content universe where stories are getting shorter and screens smaller, Kuku is boldly going big proving that even in the age of two-minute episodes, there’s still plenty of room for zombies, campus chaos and full-blown cinematic laughter. Indian Institute of Zombies hits theatres on 8 May 2026.
