Hindi
Saeed Jaffrey gets lifetime achievement award at Pravasi Film Festival
NEW DELHI: Veteran actor Saeed Jaffrey was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in absentia at the first-ever Pravasi Film Festival in the country that concluded in Delhi today.
The feature ‘Life Goes on’ by Sangeeta Dutta from the United Kingdom bagged the award for the best feature film award at The short fiction ‘Shor’ by D K Krishna and Raj Nidimoru received the best short fiction award while ‘Flying Sikh’ by Navdeep Kandola got the best short non-fiction award. Both filmmakers come from the United States.
According to the feature film jury, ‘Life Goes on’ – which had been the opening film of the Festival – received the award for an emphatic rendition of characters and situations and heartfelt performances. Sangeeta Dutta was the only recipient who was present to receive her award.
A large number of eminent personalities were present at the function, which concluded with the screening of the film ‘Chehere’ by Rohit Kaushik starring Manisha Koirala and Divya Dutta among others.
Those present included Uttarakhand Chief Minister Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal, Union Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur, Mauritian High Commissioner Mookeshwar Choonee, Mauritian Culture Minister Dr Vasant K Bunwaree, and Mauritian National Assembly Deputy Speaker Etienne Sinatambou.
Choonee expressed happiness that his country was a partner country for this Festival and hoped this would lead to some fruitful results. He said Mauritius had always been a favourite shooting site for Indian filmmakers.
Jury member and senior filmmaker Rahul Rawail called upon the film industry in India to support the Pravasi Film Festival initiative and referred to the affinity in themes. He added that women appeared to be doing very well as far as NRI filmmaker went, with Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta, Gurinder Chadha, and now Sangeeta Dutta.
Festival Director Anil Joshi said this first venture was only at a take-off stage and added that it could help create a market for films by NRI filmmakers. He recalled that the Mauritian President Sir Anerood Jugnauth accompanied by his wife Sarojini Jugnauth had unveiled the awards to be given away at the Festival in a ceremony on 1st December.
Pravasi Today group Chief Editor Padmesh Gupta and Festival Co-Director Pankaj Dubey were also present.
The competitive Festival had been organized by the Pravasi Today Group in association with the Mauritius government at India Habitat Center from 3rd to 6th January. Around 35 films from different countries were screened at the Festival and a large number of the filmmakers have come to India to attend the event.
The feature film jury was headed by veteran filmmaker Basu Chatterjee and the non-feature jury by renowned critic Latika Padgaonkar. Other members of the feature film jury were filmmakers Rahul Rawail and Sanjay Singh, Festival advisor and senior critic Aruna Vasudev and critic Namrata Joshi. The other short film jury members were film historian Lalit Mohan Joshi, and senior critic Utpal Borpujari.
The Festival was inaugurated on 3rd January by renowned filmmaker Deepa Mehta who expressed the views of the NRI filmmakers when she said “we are like children who have left their mother and gone away. And we keep coming back because the mother is so good and pulls us back.”
Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Subodh Kant Sahay, Central Board of Film Certification and veteran film actress Sharmila Tagore, actresses Soha Ali Khan, Pooja Kumar and Purva Bedi, Ashok Malhotra who is Secretary General of the Group of People of India Origin (GOPIO), American Yoga expert Dhananjay Kumar, Dr Nikhil Kaushik who is a doctor and also a filmmaker from the United Kingdom, British filmmaker Sangeeta Dutta, and Avantika Hari, filmmaker Patricia Mohammed from the Trinidad and Tobago were present on the occasion.
The festival also saw the presence of other film personalities from the Diaspora like Mira Nair and Manoj Bajpai, Nasreen Munni Kabir, Karan Razdan, Dr Nikhil Kaushik, and Dr Shiv Pande.
Apart from over 30 feature and non-features from the Diaspora and India, there were several panel discussions on subjects like ‘Mauritius – an attractive destination for filmmakers’, ‘India on my mind’; ‘Commerce of NRI Films’, ‘Filmmaking – a question of identity’, and ‘NRI films – the road ahead’.
Hindi
Dhurandhar 2 hit by YouTube leak amid record box office run
Cam-rip surfaces online but blockbuster streak continues at record pace
MUMBAI: It has been a dramatic week for Dhurandhar: The Revenge. Even as the espionage thriller smashes box office records, a piracy scare briefly threatened to steal its thunder after a full-length version surfaced on YouTube.
The leak emerged on March 30 via a channel titled “A2z movie”, which uploaded what appeared to be a cam-recorded print of the film. Clocking in at nearly three hours and 49 minutes, the footage was reportedly blurry but complete enough to spark spoilers and fan outrage online.
Soon after, users on X began flagging the issue, explicitly naming the “A2z movie” channel in their posts while tagging the film’s makers and urging swift legal action. Fans of director Aditya Dhar and lead star Ranveer Singh were particularly vocal, helping the issue gain rapid traction.
Within hours, the video was taken down, likely through a mix of platform detection systems and intervention by producers Jio Studios and B62 Studios.
Despite the leak, the film’s theatrical run remains virtually unshaken. As of March 31, the sequel has raked in an estimated Rs 872.17 crore net in India, with worldwide collections soaring to Rs 1,392.23 crore. Its Hindi opening day alone brought in Rs 102.55 crore, setting a new benchmark.
In a notable milestone, the film has matched Pushpa 2 as the fastest Indian release to cross the Rs 1,000 crore mark globally, achieving the feat in just seven days.
Interestingly, the version leaked online is believed to be an earlier cut. Midway through its theatrical run, the makers issued revised prints after eagle-eyed viewers spotted a fleeting editing error involving a cameraman’s reflection. The corrected version now plays across cinemas, adding an unusual twist to the film’s release journey.
Directed by Aditya Dhar, the high-stakes sequel stars Ranveer Singh alongside Sanjay Dutt, R. Madhavan, Arjun Rampal and Sara Arjun. The film has drawn praise for its scale and action sequences, though some critics have pointed to its intense violence and layered political themes.
For now, piracy may have made noise, but it has not slowed the juggernaut. If anything, the episode underlines the film’s cultural grip, proving that even a leak cannot derail a box office storm already in full force.
