Hollywood
Keira Knightley starrer ‘Begin Again’ to hit theaters on 18 July
MUMBAI: Bring out the romantic within you, this monsoon. PVR Director’s Rare gears up to release its latest offering, Begin Again.
Starring Keira Knightley and Mark Ruffalo, the film which is written and directed by John Carney also marks the acting debut of the lead singer of pop rock band Maroon 5, Adam Levine.
PVR JMD Sanjeev Kumar Bijli said, “We are glad to bring a fun, light-hearted movie like ‘Begin Again’ under the banner of PVR Director’s Rare. We are certain that the movie will not be liked just by music lovers but will strike a chord with the wider Hollywood cinema loving audience as well. By investing in such critically-acclaimed movies, we want to continue our pursuit of bringing an eclectic mix of niche and independent cinema to Indian theatres.”
Begin Again is a soul-stirring comedy about what happens when lost souls meet and make beautiful music together. Greta (Keira Knightley) and her long-time boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) are college sweethearts and songwriting partners who decamp for New York when he lands a deal with a major label. But the trappings of his new-found fame soon tempt Dave to stray and a reeling, lovelorn Greta is left, all alone. Her world takes a turn for the better when Dan (Mark Ruffalo), a disgraced record-label exec, stumbles upon her performing at an East Village stage and is immediately captivated by her raw talent. From this chance encounter emerges an enchanting portrait of a mutually transformative collaboration, set to the soundtrack of a summer in New York City.
SGN Mediaworks director Kishor Shrivastav added, “SGN Mediaworks is proud to be associated with a film like Begin Again that boasts of a great star cast and such an engaging storyline. Begin Again is the kind of movie that leaves you with a smile. With our especial love for romance and music, the film is the perfect watch for the Indian audience.”
A romantic musical set in New York, Begin Again will release on 18 July 2014, across the country.
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.
