Hindi
The Lunchbox wins more international awards
NEW DELHI: The Lunchbox has won the highest number of awards with three awards – Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and Outstanding Achievement for star Irrfan Khan – at the 56 Asia-Pacific Film Festival held in Macau.
Kore-Eda’s Like Father, Like Son won the two top awards of Best Picture and Best Director.
Hong Kong producer Nansun ShiI served as the head of the jury. She was joined by China’s Zhang Zhao, Malaysia’s Afdlin ShaukiI, Taiwan’s Sylvia Chang and South Korea’s Hur Jin-ho.
Meanwhile, The Lunchbox has also won two awards at the 10th Dubai International Film Festival held in the Madinat Arena of the Madinat Jumeirah resort: Irrfan Khan received Best Actor for his role portraying the role of a lonely man nearing retirement. Director Ritesh Batra shared the Special Mention for his screenplay with Souleymane Démé for his role in Grigris, a France-Chad co-production.
The best director went to India’s Sandeep Ray for Thin Arms in the Muhr AsiaAfrica Shorts competition.
The president of the AsiaAfrica Feature jury was Indian film-maker Shekhar Kapur. Its members include Lebanese actress Carole Abboud and cinematographer Tareq El-Telmissany. Kapur thanked his five-member jury, saying “We started with complete disagreement but within two or three hours ended in complete agreement. So we did our job well.”
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.
