Hindi
Vasan Bala’s Peddlers to show at TIFF
MUMBAI: After garnering a fantastic response whilst competing at the International Critics Week at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival recently, Vasan Bala‘s Peddlers, starring Gulshan Deviah, Siddharth Menon, Kriti Malhotra and Nimrat Kaur, is all set to screen at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year.
The film has been programmed for the City-to-City section with an aim to bring global cities to Toronto audiences where the focus will be on Mumbai this year.
Produced by Guneet Monga and Anurag Kashyap, Peddlers has definitely been creating an impact with the buzz around it in India and in the international festival circuits. Speaking about the film, Guneet Monga said, “TIFF is among world‘s top movie events, and is a gateway for international films into the North American region. We are very proud and honored to have not one, but four of our films including Peddlers at the festival this year. Eros International saw the potential in the film the moment they saw it and decided to back it up.”
Interestingly, Peddlers is Vasan Bala‘s directorial debut. Prior to Peddlers, Bala assisted Kashyap on Dev D, That Girl In Yellow Boots among others and partnered with him as the associate director of Michael Winterbottom‘s Trishna that was filmed in India.
Talking about his first film, Bala said, “It‘s great that the film has been selected at Toronto after Cannes. Since the French press sighted a very American independent influence on the film, I am quite curious how it will be received here.”
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.
