Hindi
Indian, Irani films dominate Jaipur film festival awards
NEW DELHI: The Franco-Iranian co-production, ‘A Separation’ by Asghar Farhadi, bagged the top Golden Camel Award for best Director while its actress Sareh Bayat received the Best Actress Award in the International Category at the Fourth Airtel Jaipur International Film Festival which concluded today in the Pink City.
In the award ceremony dominated by films from Iran and India, the Red Rose Award for best film released between October 2010 and October 2011 went to ‘Golchehreh’ by Vahid Mousaian of Iran.
Iran won the best animation film award for ‘The Jar’ by Ali Ahmadi at the end of the festival which had commenced on 27 January with the presentation of the Life Achievement Award to veteran actor Jaya Bachchan who inaugurated the Festival.
The festival featured 178 films from 70 countries of the world and awards were given in 28 categories including four awards for Rajasthani films.
During the award ceremony, thespian Om Puri, Princess Diya Kumari, members of the jury, Hollywood producer Leslee Udwin, Festival director Hanu Roj, as well as cinema dignitaries from around the world were present.
The Green Rose Award for the film which gives a Global message went to ‘The Pipe’ from Austria by Risteard Dohmnaill, while the Yellow Rose Award for the upcoming film which had its world premiere in Jaipur went to the British-India co-production ‘Pink Saris’ by Kim Longinotto.
The Indian film ‘Handover’ by Saurabh Kumar won the Special Jury Mention as well as the best actress award in the national category for Nutan Sinha.
Senior actor Ila Arun and actor Shilpa Shetty bagged the Special Jury Mentions for their acting in the British film ‘West is West’ starring Om Puri in the main role, and the Indian film ‘The Desire – A woman of Journey’.
The Bangladeshi film ‘Meherjaan’ by Rubaiyat Hossain won the Best Critics Award, while the best debutante director award went to Angelo Cianci for the Franco-Luxembourg film ‘Top Floor Left Wing’.
The best short film award went to ‘Khule Darwaze’ by Ashish Pandey, with the film also bagging the award for best sound for Tapas Nayak. The best short director award went to Mitu Kumar for ‘Banwara Mann’. ‘Dilli’ by Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas of India got the Best Documentary award.
The best cinematography award went to Chris Freilich of the United States for the Japan-US co-production “Miyuki’s Wind Bell”, while C R Reisser and Olivia Retzar bagged the editing award for the German film ‘Protect the Nation’. The best script award went to Israel’s Joseph Fackenheim and Ariel Weisbrod for ‘A Wonderful Day’.
Spain’s ‘Dulce’ (Sweet) by Ivan Ruiz Flores won the Special Jury mention for short films, while this award went to Patrick Chadwick of the United Kingdom in the documentary category for ‘Memories of Old Awake’.
‘The Tigers, they are all dead’ by Reema Sengupta of India received the award for best film with upcoming stars. Johnny Maa of Australia won the Special Jury Mention for upcoming star for the film ‘The Robbery’.
The Special Jury Mention went to ‘Bat Wahi Hai’ by Nina Sabnani of India.
The four awards for Rajasthani films were: short film – ‘Facepack’ by Gaurav Panjwani, documentary – ‘Jungal mein Jallianwala’ by Anurag Sharma, animation – ‘LOC’ by Kuldeep Saini, and Special Jury Mention – ‘The End’ by Rakesh Gogna.
The organisation of the market section ‘The Merchant’ rendered a new energy to all the filmmakers. Two workshops and three seminars were also conducted. These workshops and seminars helped an immense number of participants with valuable lessons and knowledge.
The next year’s Festival will commemorate 100 successful years of Indian cinema.
Marc Baschet, producer of the Academy Award winning film ‘No Man’s Land’, was the special guest at the inauguration which saw the presence of a large number of major filmmakers from countries like the United States, England, Nigeria and France.
Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, inventor of the Mohan Veena, gave a scintillating performance at the opening.
Festival Director Hanu Roj said, “Cinema is one such art that make the inner and outer self of a person beautiful. The participation of hundreds of filmmakers from around the world is sufficient to tell how much they trust in JIFF. The festival is a unique platform on which the filmmakers from any part of the world can come and express their dialogues in front of others“.
He added that the major objective of including the important monuments to the festival venues this year is that people can get close to the Rajasthani culture and feel very good about cinema. According to him, the major dream of developing the Film City in Rajasthan will be realised by the year 2016.
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.
