Hindi
Percept Picture Company unveils anti-piracy documentary
MUMBAI: Piracy is chewing into Indian movie profits! This has been a long lingering whine amongst stakeholders of the Indian movie business.
In a bid to combat the menace, Percept Picture Company (PPC) has unveiled a documentary campaign. PVR Cinema has joined hands with PPC to convey the social message in an entertaining manner aimed at educating movie-goers.
The two-minute documentary on anti-piracy will be aired across the PVR cinema chain. This is not the first time that PVR Cinemas has extended its hands towards such efforts. The multiplex major had also teamed up with BBC World Service Trust’s initiative Haath se Haath Mila to screen the music video in all its screens.
The theme of the campaign Stop Piracy, showcases a woman on the delivery table giving birth to a child. On seeing the baby, the women utters, “Have you ever seen something so beautiful.” The husband reacts by saying that he has a copy. In agreement, the doctor says that he too has a copy. While the overwhelmed nursed informs that she has the ninth version from Bangkok and suggests that the couple can get multiple copies of it from Ahmed bhai.
The husband points out that henceforth he would opt for copies. Listening to this, the poor mother is left weeping…
“Every movie or song you copy is someone’s baby. Stop Piracy.” This subtle message has been conceptualised and directed by O&M senior creative director Rensil D’Silva and senior creative director Anup Chitnis.
The scourge that is gnawing at the industry’s innards affects everyone in the film food-chain, points out PPC MD Shailendra Singh, who has joined hands with the Excel Home Video for this initiative and is in talks with other fraternity members to come together on this project. “Though the fraternity, judiciary and the government are all working to curb piracy, the epidemic has just been growing,” says Singh.
Interestingly, the PPC also has a movie project in the pipeline with the theme of ‘piracy’ as the backdrop.
For the industry, which churns out at least a 1,000 films per year, piracy of content is happening at the theatre level (camera prints), on cable networks and through distribution of illegal VCDs / DVDs. According to Sony BMG MD Shridhar Subramaniam, 90 per cent of all hit movies are hit by the scourge. Conversely, flop movies are barely scathed.
Music revenues are affected to the extent of 50 per cent, while with DVDs it is to the tune of 80 per cent. As for theatrical receipts, it is affected by up to 50 per cent, Subramaniam points out.
Pirated content copying and distribution costs the industry an estimated Rs 4.3 billion annually, which is as much as 42 per cent of the industry’s total revenues. The Indian audio-video market is estimated to be growing at an explosive pace of almost 300 per cent. However, this growth has not been reflected in a corresponding growth in the legitimate sale of CDs, VCDs and DVDs. The volume or pirated units has been rising consistently despite the falling prices of legitimate music, concludes Subramaniam.
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.
