Movies
Gujarati blockbuster Jhamkudi haunts Hindi screens on ShemarooMe
MUMBAI: Witching hour just struck again, this time in Hindi. After smashing box office records in Gujarati cinema, supernatural horror-comedy Jhamkudi is now ready to spook and tickle audiences across India with its Hindi world digital premiere on ShemarooMe from 18 September 2025.
The film, which stars National award-winner Manasi Parekh and viral comic sensation Viraj Ghelani, has already carved a cult following. Set in the cursed village of Raniwada, it weaves together folklore, frights and funny bones, with a vengeful witch unleashing chaos during Navratri. But unlike your average haunted tale, Jhamkudi balances scares with laugh-out-loud moments, and even a rap-style title track sung by Parekh herself.
Shot inside the 500-year-old Gondal Palace, where whispers of real ghost stories floated through the crew, the film oozes atmosphere and authenticity. directed by Umang Vyas, it boasts a stellar ensemble including Ojas Rawal, Sanjay Goradia, Jayesh More and Bhavini Jani.
Reflecting on the film’s Hindi debut, Parekh said, “We wanted to explore horror-comedy in Gujarati cinema, and the audience response has been overwhelming. Bringing Jhamkudi to a wider audience in Hindi feels like the natural next step: it’s fun, spooky and full of madness.”
Ghelani, who dubbed his own Hindi lines, added, “This film marked my debut and will always be close to my heart. Reliving the character in Hindi was such a joy, and I hope viewers everywhere connect with the humour and thrills.”
With its mix of scares, satire and superstition, Jhamkudi is now spreading Gujarati cinema’s magic beyond borders. For ShemarooMe, it’s another step in making regional blockbusters mainstream, giving India’s diverse stories the stage, and the scares, they deserve.
Hollywood
Utopai Studios partners Huace to deploy PAI for long form content
Deal includes revenue sharing as Huace adopts AI engine across global ops
MUMBAI: Lights, camera… algorithm, the script just got a silicon co-writer. In a move that signals how storytelling itself is being re-engineered, U.S.-based Utopai Studios has partnered China’s Huace Film & TV Co. Ltd. to bring artificial general intelligence into the heart of long-form content creation.
At the centre of the deal is PAI, Utopai’s cinematic storytelling system, which Huace will deploy as a core engine across its production pipeline from development and creative iteration to global localisation. The partnership includes a large-scale annual usage commitment from Huace, alongside a usage-based revenue-sharing model, underscoring both ambition and commercial confidence on both sides.
For Huace, one of China’s largest film and television companies, the bet is not on automation alone but on scale with control. With distribution spanning over 200 countries and a presence across more than 20 international platforms, including Netflix and YouTube, the company brings a vast content ecosystem where even marginal efficiency gains can translate into significant output shifts. Its extensive TV IP library further positions it as fertile ground for AI-assisted storytelling workflows.
The choice of PAI follows what Huace described as a rigorous evaluation of existing AI tools, many of which remain limited to fragmented use cases such as video generation or editing. What tipped the scales, according to the company, was PAI’s ability to handle long-form narrative complexity maintaining continuity, structure, and creative coherence across entire story arcs rather than isolated clips.
Utopai, for its part, is using the partnership to anchor its international expansion strategy, pitching PAI as an enterprise-ready system built for customisation, privacy, and regulatory adaptability across markets. That positioning becomes particularly relevant as global media companies increasingly scrutinise how AI integrates into proprietary workflows.
The timing is notable. Earlier this month, Utopai upgraded PAI to support three-minute 4K video generation and advanced multi-shot sequencing features designed to tackle one of AI storytelling’s biggest hurdles: consistency across scenes.
What emerges is not just another tech collaboration, but a glimpse into how the grammar of filmmaking could evolve. Because if stories were once crafted frame by frame, the next chapter might just be coded scene by scene.
