English Entertainment
Over 790 entries for Mumbai International Film Festival
NEW DELHI: A total of 793 entries have been received from 34 countries for the Mumbai International film Festival for documentary, short and animation films.
The festival organised by the Films Division will be held as usual at the NCPA, Mumbai, (also known as Tata Centre) from 3 to 9 February.
Information and Broadcasting Secretary Bimal Julka, along with Joint Secretary (Films) Raghvendra Singh held a review meeting with the festival director V S Kundu and the organizing committee members in Mumbai.
Of the entries, 588 are for the national section and 205 for the international section.
MIFF is the oldest and the largest international film festival for the non-feature and animation films in Asia, and is often held at par with internationally renowned short film festivals like Berlin, Leipzig, Krakow (Poland) and Tampere (Finland).
Julka said: “The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is committed to promoting documentary and short films, and MIFF provides one of the best platforms for showcasing our film making talent. MIFF 2014 brings a lot of valuable content for film makers and cineastes.”
The total number of awards for MIFF 2014 has gone up from 22 to 32. Apart from the regular awards, new awards have been introduced for producer, cinematographer, editor, sound recordist and animator. Awards for the most innovative film (named after Pramod Pati who was an experimental filmmaker and head of the Films Division) and most popular film of the festival have also been instituted.
A veteran Indian documentary filmmaker will be honoured with the V Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award. MIFF will distribute cash awards worth Rs 55 lakhs apart from golden conches, trophies and certificates to the winners in different categories.
MIFF 2014 will also see an increased international participation. As part of an initiative to take cinema to the students, Cinekids, Amsterdam and Lennep Media will hold a ‘Dutch Children’s film festival-cum-students film workshop’ for school children of Mumbai. ActionAid will hold a film festival on ‘Our City Ourselves’ as part of MIFF 2014.
An attempt is being made to hold a Film Market for documentary films, which will be a first of its kind initiative in India.
In another new initiative, the festival directorate has decided to hold parallel screenings of national competition films in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Guwahati and Nagpur, for the benefit of documentary film lovers, who are unable to travel to Mumbai to participate in the festival.
The festival will pay tribute to the acclaimed Canadian documentary filmmaker Peter Wintonick who passed away on 18 November by screening his select works. Besides, the festival will have panel discussions, directors’ adda, retrospectives, homages, curated film packages, seminars, workshops and master classes to make MIFF-2014 a rich and wholesome experience for filmmakers, students and cinephiles.
The government of Maharashtra and the Indian Documentary Producers’ Association (IDPA) are the partners of MIFF 2014.
English Entertainment
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approve Paramount deal
Investors wave through a $111 billion megamerger but deliver a stinging, if toothless, rebuke over half-a-billion-dollar goodbye packages
NEW YORK: The shareholders said yes to the deal. They said no to the cheque. At a virtual special meeting on Thursday that lasted barely ten minutes, Warner Bros. Discovery investors voted overwhelmingly to approve Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of the company — and then turned around and voted against the lavish exit pay packages lined up for chief executive David Zaslav and his fellow outgoing executives.
Not that it will make much difference. The compensation vote is purely advisory and non-binding. The Warner Bros. Discovery board can, and almost certainly will, pay out as planned.
But the symbolism stings. It is the second consecutive year that WBD shareholders have voted against the executive compensation packages, and this time they had good reason. Zaslav’s exit deal is, by any measure, extraordinary. Under the terms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he is set to receive $34.2 million in cash severance, $517.2 million in equity in the combined company, and $44,195 in continued health coverage — a total of at least $550 million. On top of that, Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to reimburse Zaslav up to $335 million for taxes assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on his accelerated stock vesting, though the company says that figure will decline depending on when the deal closes. As of March 11, Zaslav also held $115.85 million in vested WBD stock awards — and last month sold a further $114 million worth of WBD shares.
Shareholder advisory firm ISS recommended voting against the compensation measure, citing “problematic” tax reimbursements to Zaslav and the full vesting of his stock awards.
Zaslav will be bound by a two-year non-competition covenant and a two-year non-solicitation of customers and employees after the deal closes.
His lieutenants are not walking away empty-handed either. J.B. Perrette, chief executive and president of global streaming and games, is in line for $142 million, comprising $18.2 million in cash severance and $123.9 million in equity. Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer, will receive an estimated $121.5 million, including $18.8 million in severance and $102.7 million in equity. Chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels is set for $120 million, made up of $6.6 million in cash severance and $113.1 million in equity. Gerhard Zeiler, president of international, will get $82.6 million, including $11.9 million in severance and $70.7 million in equity.
The deal itself, clinched in February after Netflix declined to raise its bid for Warner Bros., still needs regulatory clearance from the Justice Department and European authorities. Several state attorneys general are also weighing legal action to block it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was unsparing. “The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger isn’t a done deal,” she said after the shareholder vote. “State attorneys general across the country are stepping up to stop this antitrust disaster. We need to keep up this fight.”
If it does go through, the combined entity would be a formidable beast, bringing together Paramount Skydance’s stable — CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon — with WBD’s portfolio of HBO, Max, Warner Bros. film and TV studios, DC, CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV and Discovery+. Paramount has said it expects $6 billion in cost savings from the merger, which is Wall Street shorthand for mass layoffs on a significant scale.
The ten-minute meeting was presided over by chairman Samuel Di Piazza Jr., with Zaslav, Campbell, Wiedenfels and chief communications officer Robert Gibbs in virtual attendance. Di Piazza was bullish. “We appreciate the support and confidence our stockholders have placed in us to unlock the full value of our world-class entertainment portfolio,” he said. “With Paramount, we look forward to creating an exceptional combined company that will expand consumer choice and benefit the global creative talent community.”
Zaslav echoed the sentiment. “Over the past four years, our teams have transformed Warner Bros. Discovery and returned the company to industry leadership,” he said. “Today’s stockholder approval is another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction that will deliver exceptional value to our stockholders.”
Paramount Skydance struck a similar note. “Shareholder approval marks another important milestone towards completing our acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” it said in a statement, adding that it looked forward to “closing the transaction in the coming months.”
The shareholders have spoken on the merger. On the pay, they were ignored before the vote was even counted.
