Hindi
Mumbai film fest to screen films from Afghanistan
NEW DELHI: A 13-film special package from Afghanistan is one of the key attractions of the ongoing Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation films.
Short filmmaker Reena Mohan who has curated the package said: “Afghanistan is the most reported but least understood region in the world.”
The war in that country had ensured a heavy international media presence in that country, but the coverage and depiction is often ‘narrow and limited‘, with emphasis on conflict, opium and feuding tribes. A number of other documentaries made by non-Afghans show topics like cricket in Afghanistan or women playing football.
Mohan said her main aim of putting together the Afghanistan package was to show to the world the depiction of the ‘real Afghanistan’ through the eyes of Afghan filmmakers. The package aims to trace the differences in their way of representing and seeing their own country. It also explores the challenges faced by artistes in expressing their thoughts amidst growing opposition to creative freedom.
Films include Addicted to Afghanistan by Jawed Taiman on the issue of opium and drug’s devastating effect on the children of Afghanistan; Death to the Camera by Sayed Qasem Hossaini examines the delicate gender issue; Shabana by Mohammad Haroon Hamdard is an insight into the life of a girl child in Afghanistan; and Hameed Alizadeh’s Checkpoint looks into the life and work of 15 border policemen.
Half Value Life is the story of Marya Bashir, the first woman public prosecutor in Afghanistan. Other films are A letter to light, House No111, Joys of Fervency, Playing the Taar, You Don’t belong to this country, and animation films Hope, Shelter and Death to Freedom.
Cinema entered Afghanistan at the beginning of the 20th century. The political changes in Afghanistan have not allowed cinema to flourish, but several Pashto and Dari film makers, both inside and outside Afghanistan, have been producing films.
Amir Habibullah (1901–1919) introduced film to Afghanistan, but in the royal court only. Pahgam was the first silent film shown to public in 1924. In 1968 Afghan Film, a state-run film production company, was formed and it began producing documentaries and news films highlighting official meetings and conferences of the government which were shown before the screening of feature films, which were mostly Hindi films from India. After the civil wars of the 1990s which forced people to migrate to Iran or Pakistan, the cinema of Afghanistan has slowly started to emerge from a lengthy period of silence.
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.
