Hindi
Kerala festival head steps down in protest
NEW DELHI: Bina Paul, who heads the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) as the artistic director for 12 years, has resigned as she feels the festival now concentrates more on individual personalities.
Her last assignment has been the recent International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK).
She said the festival is less about team work and her work, which she had done with passion, had become “more like an event management job, and I am not an event manager.” She added in a statement that “a festival needs to be reinvented with time. We needed to re-think the festival through but that was not happening which I found very upsetting.”
Paul, a national-award winning film editor and alumnus of the Film and TV Institute of India (FTII), is reportedly joining the newly set up Trivandrum campus of LV Prasad Film & TV Academy as the director.
The 19th International Film Festival of Kerala is scheduled to take place from 12 to 19 December.
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.
