Hindi
MIFF 2014 concludes amid much fanfare
NEW DELHI: Are you listening by Kamar Ahmed Simon won the Golden Conch Award for best documentary film while Nishtha Jain with her Gulabi Gang was named best director at the recently concluded 13th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) for Documentary, short and animation films.
Eminent filmmakers Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Shyam Benegal presented the awards as the curtains came down to the seven-day festival.
Jury 1 comprised filmmaker Anand Patwardhan, film curator Angela Haardt from Germany, Director of the Yamagata Documentary Film Festival – Fujioka Asako of Japan, Slovenian film scholar Jurij Meden, and noted animator from Mumbai Shilpa Ranade. Jury II comprised Canadian filmmaker Mark Achbar, film director and editor Amitabh Chakrabarty, film maker from Kerala M R Rajan, noted cinematographer Piyush Shah, and Netherlands based film scholar Rada Sesic.
The 90-minute documentary by Simon won the award in the above 60-minutes category. It gets the Golden Conch trophy and Rs 500,000 cash prize (Rs 300,000 for the Director and Rs 200,000 for the producer – Sara Afreen). Set in the coastal belt of Bangladesh, the film is a powerful and beautifully photographed film that reveals the alarming effects of climate change and deftly captures the fighting spirit of a community and their will to survive. The global issue of climate change is experienced in microcosm in Simon’s film, as he observes the families of Sutarkhali.
The Golden Conch for Best Documentary Film up to 60 minutes went to Maria Stodtmeier’s (Germany) In Between : Isang Yun in North and South Korea. This documentary explores whether music can overcome the boundaries of a divided country. It examines the worlds of North and South Korean music, taking the viewer along on an exciting journey through two political systems. It got the Golden Conch trophy and Rs 500,000 cash prize (Rs 300,000 for the Director and Rs 200,000 for the producer – Paul Smaczny).
Black Rock directed by Vikrant Janardhan Pawar and produced by the Film and Television Institute of India was adjudged the Best Short Fiction film in International Competition. It got the Golden Conch trophy and Rs 500,000 cash prize (Rs 300,000 for the Director and Rs 200,000 for the producer – FTII).
The Golden Conch Best Animation Film award went to True Love Story by Gitanjali Rao. This 18-minute animation set in the streets of Mumbai explores what happens when the ultimate Bollywood fantasy is applied in reality. It gives a glimpse into the influence of Bollywood on real life in Mumbai, told through puppet animation. The award carried a Golden Conch and Rs 500,000 cash prize.
The film on Right to Information, Chakravyuh, by National Film award-winner Dhvani Desai was voted the most popular film, a new award chosen through voting by festival delegates. Chakravyuh through the struggles of four characters from different regions of India throws light on how the RTI can be used to fight corruption. The film produced by Films Division was first shown on 12 October 2013 on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of RTI in Mumbai.
Nishtha Jain received Rs 100,000 cash award and a certificate got the Best Director Award in the International Competition section. Gulabi Gang tells the story of Sampat Pal and her group of women vigilantes and activists from Bundelkhand, who fight for women’s rights and their empowerment. Armed with a lathi (stick) the Gulabis visit abusive husbands and beat them up unless they stop abusing their wives. The film has won several other awards, and there are plans to release it in theatres on 21 February as part of PVR Director’s Rare initiative. Jain, an alumnus of FTII, is based in Mumbai.
The Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari Award went to Mumbai based filmmaker Dylan Mohan Gray’s film Fire in the Blood for Best Debut Film of a Director. The 84-minute film tells the story of how Western pharmaceutical companies and governments blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the countries of the global south in the years after 1996 – causing ten million or more unnecessary deaths – and the improbable group of people who decided to fight back. This award carrying a cash prize of Rs 100,000 and a Trophy has been instituted by the Maharashtra Film Development Corporation, Mumbai
The Indian Documentary Producers Association Award for the best student film went to Sonyacha Amba (Golden Mango) directed by Govind Raju and produced by FTII, Pune. This film had participated in the Berlin and Beijing festivals as well. The Rs 100,000 cash and Trophy is given by the IDPA.
The Pramod Pati Award for most Innovative film, carrying a cash prize of Rs 100,000 and a trophy went to Pushpa Rawat’s 57-minute documentary Nirnay (Decision). The film explores the lives of women in a lower middle class colony in Ghaziabad, who are young and educated, but feel bound and helpless when it comes to major decisions about their lives, be it career or marriage.
The Kashmiri film Tamaash (The Puppets) got the Golden Conch for the best Short Fiction Film up to 45 minutes in the National Competition. Tamaash is the first film by directors Satyanshu and Devanshu Singh, who also wrote, edited, and produced it, along with Tulsea Pictures. The film insists on the power of goodness and the importance of preserving the innocence of children. It had won the Golden Elephant Award at the International Children’s Film Festival held in Hyderabad during November 2013. Along with the Golden Conch, the filmmakers also get Rs 250,000 cash award.
In the National Competition section, Seven Hundred Zero Zero Seven by Altaf Mazid got the Golden Conch for Best Documentary (upto 40 minutes), while Have You Seen the Arana by Sunanda Bhat and Invoking Justice by well-known Deepa Dhanraj shared the Best Documentary Awards in above 40 minutes category.
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.
