Hindi
6th Jagran Film Festival pays homage to director Ravi Chopra with ‘Baghban’
MUMBAI: The 6th Jagran Film Festival unfolded its day three with triple dose of movies, master classes and merriment. The atmosphere at Delhi’s Siri Fort Auditorium was infectious and lively with cine buffs being spoilt for choices with a wide variety of regional, Indian and international cinema.
The 2015 edition of Jagran Film Festival is travelling from Delhi to Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Varanasi, Agra, Meerut, Dehradun, Hisar, Ludhiana, Patna, Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Raipur, Indore, and Bhopal before culminating in Mumbai. In close collaboration with festival partners like Whistling Woods International (WWI), Film Federation of India (FFI) and Motion Picture Dist. Association (MPDA), the 2015 edition aims to set up 16 cinema appreciation workshops, 400 screenings in 17 cities.
Assamese film Aarohi under Indian Showcase opened day three’s line up, closely followed by the cult Hindi comedy drama Anand under the Happiness category and Baghban on another screen as homage to late director Ravi Chopra. Under the World Panorama category, the festival screened director Vera Glagoleva’s Russian film The Two Women and Ann Hui’s Mandarin film The Golden Era.
Film lovers had a hard time choosing between films such as a 1977 retro Hindi film Dulhan Wahi Joh Piya Mann Bhaye directed by Lekh Tandon, 1942 American classic Casablanca and the recent 2014 American hit Birdman under Country Focus. Several critically acclaimed Bengali cinema such as the 2015 films Asha Jaoar Majhe (Labour of Love) and Chotoder Chobi too were screened. A special screening of Zed Plus, a film by Chandra Prakash Dwivedi was presented by Adil Hussain along with Shooojit Sircar’s Piku.
Other films that spread cinematic delights on Day three include Harshavardhan Kulkarni’s raunchy film Hunterrr under Indian Showcase.
Master classes remained a buzzword throughout the day with a 70 minute screenwriting workshop with Anjum Rajabali that was loaded with insights on storytelling principles. From theme, premise, character, and plot, to structure, scene construction, and dialogue, and the use of music and song in Indian script, the workshop covered the entire journey of the script.
The class was followed by a candid chit chat and question-answer round with Rajabali followed by a panel discussion on Evaluating Cinema, which was moderated by Mayank Shekhar. Attendees included Kaveri Bamzai, Shubhra Gupta, Ajay Brahamtmaj and Mihir Pandya.
The much anticipated line up for this year’s Jagran Shorts category included English film Gen X 01, Bhojpuri film Gunjaa, Hindi films Hiroshima, Spanish film Ruperstre, Marathi film Vithya among others.
Evening saw the screening of handpicked films like Leftover and Your Heart At Random (French) along with two Korean films Hosanna and Minsu Kimin Wonderland. The 6th edition of the Jagran Film Festival, Delhi 2015 is scheduled from 1 to 5 July, 2015 at Siri Fort Auditorium, Delhi.
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.
