Hindi
Top honours at Haryana fest for film on kite flying
MUMBAI: Filmmaker Gitanjali Sinha’s Yeh Khula Aasmaan has received top honours at the Haryana Film Festival that ended recently.
Starring Raghubir Yadav and Yashpal Sharma, the film revolves around a kid learning how to soar again like a kite, notwithstanding his academic failures.
Yeh Khula Aasman revolves around Avinash, a 12th standard student staying alone in a metro city, who does not do too well in his exams. His career-oriented parents compromise on their parenthood responsibilities to take up permanent residence in London, leaving Avinash to fend for himself in an emotional vacuum.
Unable to take peer and parental pressure to excel in studies and bereft of any true friends, Avinash becomes lonely and hence depressed. He decides to escape his routine and visit his grandfather who has been staying alone in a small town in North India.
What happens when Dadu realises the fragile mental state of Avinash forms the crux of the film.
In short, the film is a relationship-based motivational film that touches the audience of all ages with specific message to both the youth and their parents.
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.
