Hindi
Kannada children’s film Naanu Gandhi finds way to Chinese festival
NEW DELHI: Naanu Gandhi (I am Gandhi), a children’s film in Kannada, has been selected for the 10th China International Children’s Film Festival, to be held in Qingdao, Shandong Province, from 9 to 14 September.
The movie has already won international recognition for the manner in which it has used a unique contemporary story to keep alive the relevance for all ages of the message of Mahatma Gandhi.
Naanu Gandhi tells the story of a young child who is often made fun of by his fellow villagers because his name is Gandhi. He was named thus because his grandfather Rangappa had fought for the freedom of the country, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.
Produced by Kokila N Gowda, wife of Nanjunde Gowda, the film is based on a story by Dr Besagarhalli Ramanna and screenplay by Gowda himself. The music is by Raju Upendra Kumar. It stars Master Likhit in the title role along with Ramesh Bhatt, Sundar Raj, Pramila Joshai, Sadashiva Brahmavar, Mandya Ramesh, Raaga Ranga Nagaraj, Venkatachal, N.G.E.F. Sri Kantaiah, Mosale Manjunath, Master K S Sharath Kumar, Master Nandan Kumar, Master Shashank, Baby Nisha, Baby Soumya, Baby Sneha, Bharathi and others.
Directed by NR Nanjunde Gowda, Naanu Gandhi has won several accolades including the best film award for propagating educational values at the Columbia International film festival in Carthagena, the first for any children’s film from India, and has been shown successfully in film festivals in Italy (Giffoni), Tunisia (Sousse), and Canada (Toronto).
The film, which had a successful run in Karnataka late last year, has been made by a man who has for long been espousing the cause of children’s cinema. His Chukki Chandrama (star and Moon) was the inaugural film at the International Children’s Film Festival held at Thiruvananthapuram in 1991 where it won the Best Screenplay award. A film that made the adults think about the values they were inculcating in their children, it featured teenage children, narrating in a mature way the thin line between love and sex that they tread on.
He followed it up with A Aa I II (ABCD) that depicted both at the children‘s and adults’ level the inherent contradictions between globalisation and native culture and their impact on young minds. The film was a runaway success.
A a non-governmental organisation aimed at espousing the cause of children’s cinema set up by Gowda, Children’s India hosts an annual film festival in Bangalore, perhaps one of the very few niche festivals being organised by single NGOs anywhere in the world.
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.
