Hindi
Preity Zinta honoured at Venice fest
MUMBAI: Preity Zinta was honoured at the 68th Venice Film Festival yesterday for bringing cultural harmony through her work. She was awarded the World Diamond Group Platinum Award for Peoples‘ Friendship on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Kineo Diamanti al Cinema event at the Festival.
She was felicitated with a white olive tree, with its tree trunk sculpted off a block of Carrara hand-carved marble, and its branches and leaves fashioned out of 3,333 grams of platinum and 3,003 diamonds – 2,503 marquise cut and 500 new 82 facets round cut – adding to a total of 366 carats.
With this, Preity becomes the only Indian actor to have been presented this award.
On the other hand, veteran Al Pacino has also been honoured at the Venice Film Festival. He was awarded the Jaeger Lecoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award. Pacino is in Venice to promote his new directorial project Wilde Salome, a part-documentary about writer-poet Oscar Wilde and part-movie adaptation of his play Salome.
Other guests who were present at the event included Oscar-winning actor Kate Winslet and singer Madonna.
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.
