Hindi
Rakesh Maria rolls piracy ball into producers’ court
MUMBAI: Joint police commissioner Rakesh Maria is leaving no stone unturned to unearth the root cause of piracy. Going a step further, the commissioner gave a stern hearing to a film producers‘ delegation that had called upon him to get the latest on the What‘s Your Rashee? piracy racket.
Talking to Indiantelevision.com, Maria said, “In my meeting with the film people, I told them in clear terms that some big players from the industry were definitely involved in piracy and have asked them to try and trace them.”
During the interaction with the fraternity, the commissioner broadly laid out the modus operandi which the pirates have been following and asked the industry people to block leakages from laboratories and studios.
Said Association of Motion Picture Producers and Television Programme (AMPTPP) senior vice president Vikas Mohan, “The meeting with the commissioner was vey fruitful. This has opened our eyes to the dangers that lie amongst us.
“We have taken the matter very seriously and have convened a meeting of producers, distributors and lab owners on 29 September when we will discuss the matter and arrive at a new game plan. The momentum against piracy would not die down till we are able to eradicate piracy.”
Association of Motion Picture Producers and Television Programme (AMPTPP) president Ratan Jain is of the view that entities like Adlabs and UFO Moviez cannot get away from this murky situation just by saying that their employees acted in their individual capacities. “Will I not have to take responsibility for a folly made by an employee of mine!,” he asked. Jain cautions that laboratories and studios have to tighten their belts and be answerable.
On the other hand, Adlabs, UFO Moviez, Big Cinemas and Shemaroo, whose employees have been apprehended in the piracy case, have started tightening up and are taking no chances of further embarrassment.
While officials at Adlabs are working out on ways to arrive at a solution to the matter by next week, people at UFO Moviez have also tightened their security and screening process.
Said UFO Moviez CEO Rajesh Mishra, “We have almost finalised our line of action in this matter and once we are done it, we will come out with a ‘white paper‘ that will be enough to show how concerned we are.”
“To my knowledge the pirates have made Adlabs, Shemaroo and UFO Moviez a scapegoat while their operations were being carried on another level,” Mishra added.
Said Shemaroo Entertainment vice president, Hiren Gada, “On our part, we have already tightened our security measures. We will not allow our name to be tarnished just like that.”
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.
