Hindi
MPAA president congratulates Chinese efforts to fight piracy
MUMBAI: Highlighting the importance of greater market access and industry cooperation in the fight against rampant movie piracy in China, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) President and COO Bob Pisano, while congratulating the Chinese government in its efforts to fight piracy, has called for a pro-legitimate stance by the Chinese authorities.
Said Pisano, “The MPAA congratulates the Chinese government for raising an anti-piracy awareness among the public. However, piracy is still severely hindering the entertainment industry‘s development in China, especially the home video business that is being devastated by a lack of legitimate retail outlets, inadequately slow censorship and rampant piracy.
We urge the government to adopt and promote a pro-legitimate policy that will enable the industry to effectively compete with pirated products which are widely available in the country.”
Pisano was speaking after he witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was designed to increase cooperation between the China Film Copyright Association (CFCA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
Foreign entertainment products are under strict government import control when entering China and outdated regulations and administrative barriers restrict foreign companies from investing in the wholesale and retail audio-video business sector.
In its effort to fight piracy and help develop legitimate online businesses, the MPA has actively engaged the Chinese government and industry in its effort to seek sustainable business models that would adopt effective copyright protection technologies and mechanisms.
The situation has been further worsened in recent years by widespread Internet piracy where copyright infringers use legal loopholes to escape punishment.
Said MPA President and Managing Director, Asia-Pacific Mike Ellis, “We have developed a strong cooperative relationship with CFCA and with the CFCA‘s newly
expanded mandate for industry development we are looking forward to increased
cooperation in areas of mutual interest. Fighting piracy and creating a more favourable, pro-legitimate market environment is in the interests of all our members and good for China‘s economy.”
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.
