Hindi
Ten filmmakers to vie for IFFLA Film Fund
NEW DELHI: The Eighth Annual Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA) has invited narratives, documentaries, shorts, music videos, experimental, children‘s and animated films of any length and format for the 2010 festival to be held in April.
The organisers of IFFLA have shortlisted ten finalists to vie for the first annual IFFLA Film Fund Development Grant. Finalists will receive Final Draft and Sony Creative software while IFFLA will submit a dossier of their projects for consideration to a group of selected entertainment agencies, production and distribution companies in the United States.
The finalists are: Against Itself by Kranti Kanade; Aravan by Raghu Jeganathan;
Engineers of Rock by Sushrut Jain and John Thompson; Love in the time of Genocide by Thenmozhi Soundararajan; Scandalous! written by Claire Ince; Sebastian wants to remember by Vasant Nath; The story of Ram by Ritesh Batra; Sweet Dreams by Avani Batra; an untitled desert war film by Richie Mehta and Untouchable Glory by M Ramchandani.
The winner will be announced in January and will receive a $10,000 grant. Jury and Audience Choice prizes will also be awarded for best feature, documentary and short film.
The festival will take place from 20 to 25 April at ArcLight Hollywood, a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of Los Angeles.
Hindi
Jio Studios, Sanjay Dutt team up to revive Khal Nayak
Rights acquired for new version, format under wraps as remake plans take shape.
MUMBAI: The villain is back and this time, he’s rewriting his own script. Jio Studios has partnered with Three Dimension Motion Pictures and Aspect Entertainment to revive the 1993 cult classic Khal Nayak, marking a fresh chapter for one of Bollywood’s most iconic anti-hero stories. The original film, directed by Subhash Ghai under Mukta Arts, was a commercial and cultural milestone, with Sanjay Dutt’s portrayal of Ballu becoming one of Hindi cinema’s most memorable performances.
Dutt, along with Aksha Kamboj, has now acquired the rights from the original creators, bringing on board Jio Studios and its President Jyoti Deshpande to steer the project creatively.
While the exact format whether remake, sequel, prequel, or a completely new narrative remains undisclosed, the collaboration aims to reinterpret the story for contemporary audiences while retaining the essence that made the original a defining film of the 1990s.
The move taps into a broader industry trend of reviving legacy intellectual property, particularly characters with strong recall value. “Khal Nayak” was notable for pushing mainstream Hindi cinema into morally grey territory at a time when heroes were largely one-dimensional, making Ballu’s character a standout.
The project also marks the film production debut of Aspect Entertainment, signalling a push towards more technology-led storytelling frameworks. Meanwhile, Jio Studios continues to expand its slate, having built a library of over 200 films and series, with more than 60 titles collectively winning 500-plus awards.
For Dutt, the revival is as much personal as it is strategic, a return to a role that reshaped his career. For the industry, it is another sign that nostalgia, when paired with scale, remains a powerful box-office proposition.
Because in Bollywood, some villains never fade, they just wait for the perfect comeback.
