Hindi
Buddhism docu by Benoy K Behl wins at Madrid International Filmfest
NEW DELHI: Indian Roots of Tibetan Buddhism by filmmaker and conservator Benoy K. Behl has won the Best Documentary Producer Award at the Madrid International Film Festival.
The film, produced by the External Publicity Division of the External Affairs Ministry, was in competition against around a 100 films from 50 countries.
An eminent art historian and filmmaker who began his career as a photographer, Behl has made 130 documentary films in the past but this is the first film that he has ever entered in an international film festival. The film has already won awards at the Bioscope Global Film Festival in Delhi where he won the Best Documentary Award and another in Noida where the film won the award of Best Script Writer.
Behl’s films are regularly screened in universities and museums around the world. They have also been screened on Doordarshan’s National and DD Bharati channels.
Another film made by Behl Yoga: An Ancient Vision of Life was screened in 50 countries on 21 June, World Yoga Day. His photographic exhibitions on Yoga were also held by Embassies and High Commissions of India in 20 countries around the world.
The Indian Roots of Tibetan Buddhism traces its history from the vast universities of Eastern India, which had hundreds of teachers and students who came from across India and from the many countries of Asia and Buddhist philosophy. The greatest of these was at Nalanda. The scholars of Nalanda made outstanding contributions to numerous fields of study. The many acharyas or great masters at Nalanda, authored hundreds of treatise in various fields; on philosophy, metaphysics, psychology, logic, medicine, astrology, arts, literature and other subjects.
The Dalai Lama said, “I really respect and appreciate, admire Christianity, Islam, different Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Judaism and so on. All these traditions have really brought immense benefit and hope to millions of people, in the last few thousand years, and still today and in the future also.”
There was no written script in Tibet till the 7th century. The acceptance of the Buddhist faith entailed the understanding of subtle philosophic concepts and profound commentaries. This transfer of knowledge would not have been possible without translating and writing it down. A very sophisticated language and a script capable of preserving this knowledge had to be formulated.
The Dalai Lama adds, “Tibetan script is very much a copy and very much similar to Sanskrit because it is based on one of the ancient Indian scripts.”
Once Buddhism reached Tibet, translations started. There was no vocabulary in Tibetan to translate Buddhist knowledge and traditions. New words were created. Therefore, eventually Sanskrit vocabulary or Sanskrit terminology and Tibetan terminology go exactly the same.
The films are shot extensively in Tibet, Kalmykia in European Russia, Ladakh, Spiti, Arunachal Pradesh, Nalanda, Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Karnataka Behl is the director and the narrator of these films.
Behl and assistant director Sujata Chatterji are just back in Delhi from US, Morocco and Spain. In California, they were shooting for their second epic documentary on Yoga. In Morocco, they were photographing cultural heritage monuments, as part of their vast project of documenting the spread of culture in the world during ancient and medical times.
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.
