Hindi
Bangladesh film Guerrilla wins top award at KFF
MUMBAI: The Bangladeshi film Guerrilla, which recreates the heroic deeds of the valiant freedom fighters of the 1971 liberation war, won the best Asian film award in the ‘Asian Select‘ section at the 17th Kolkata Film Festival (KFF).
In all, 12 films competed in the Asian Select section for the coveted award. This was for the first time that a separate competitive section was added to KFF that was so far the oldest non-competitive film festival in the country.
Besides, London-based filmmaker Hammad Khan‘s Slackistan, Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylon‘s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Hungarian director Bela Tarr‘s The Turin Horse and Certified Copy made by Italian director Abbas Kiarostami too proved to be a hit with the audience.
But the biggest attraction of the festival was Ketan Mehta‘s film Rang Rasiya and the Bangladeshi film Meherjaan. While Rang Rasiya is based on the life of 19th century painter Raja Ravi Varma, Meherjaan, that stars Victor Banerjee and Jaya Bachchan along with a number of actors from Bangladesh and Pakistan, is about a Bangladeshi woman‘s love affair with a Pakistani soldier during the 1971 Liberation War.
The festival also saw the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee declare her government‘s plans to felicitate renowned directors and actors of Hollywood and Bollywood from 2012. “From next year we will felicitate and award the famous directors, actors and even good technicians of Hollywood, Bollywood and Tollywood,” she said while addressing the closing ceremony of the 17th KFF.
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.
