English Entertainment
Discovery channel’s new documentary ‘India 2050’ to premiere on 29 Dec
MUMBAI: Discovery Channel is all set to premiere ‘India 2050’, a thought-provoking documentary, on 29 December, 2019 at 9 pm. The film highlights a larger crisis that humanity is likely to face – the crisis of environmental migration and climate refugees, the effects of which we are already facing in 2019 in certain patches in the Sundarbans and on India’s east coast.
Going forward, experts predict this to be the single most urgent crisis to be faced by every country in the world as sea levels will continue to rise and glaciers will continue to melt bringing about unprecedented and irrevocable changes to human life as we know it.
The documentary begins with Jaipur, known as the Pink City of India, but imagined as in 2050, completely buried under piles of sand. It then moves into the future of currently flourishing metropolises of Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata, giving viewers a terrifying glimpse of what is to come, for each of these metro cities.
Highlighting the importance of the show, Discovery South Asia Content, Factual & Lifestyle Entertainment director Sai Abishek said, “India 2050 shines light on what could lie-ahead if we don’t change. It is a wake-up call, urging each one of us to emerge from our collective slumber to act before it gets too late.”
Amitav Ghosh, author of Great Derangement, says, “We cannot in any way absolve companies and corporations of playing a role in this because we know now that there’s been a huge systematic, well-funded climate denial machine! It was really the role of money, which has actually held up any kind of climate action for a very long time now.” While, Environmentalist and Climate Change Expert Chandra Bhushan, warns, “We are going to leave our children a planet which is going to be much harsher than what we have today.”
“We don't have time anymore. In the month of August 2019, within 12 days, India received more than a thousand extreme and heavy rainfall events! You're getting to see the worst impacts of climate change and they're happening now!” says, Centre for Science and Environment director general Sunita Narain highlighting the need for immediate action. “People like us are protected. We believe… and it's our arrogance which has created the problem. Because we believe nothing can affect us! We will ramp up, we'll put on another air conditioner – the heat outside goes on. If there is no water, we’ll buy bottled water. But we're not worried about a dying river – because we still get clean water in our taps,” she further adds highlighting human apathy as one of the key reasons as to why we haven’t been able to come together as a species to counter climate change in any way.
English Entertainment
Ellison takes his Paramount-Warner Bros case straight to theater owners
The Skydance chief goes to CinemaCon with promises and a skeptical crowd waiting
CALIFORNIA: David Ellison strode into a room packed with thousands of cinema owners and executives at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday and did something rather bold: he looked them in the eye and asked them to trust him.
The chief executive of Paramount Skydance vowed that his company would release a minimum of 30 films a year if regulators greenlight its proposed $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, a deal that has made theater owners deeply, and loudly, nervous.
“I wanted to look every single one of you in the eye and give you my word,” Ellison told the crowd. “Once we combine with Warner Bros, we are going to make a minimum of 30 films annually across both studios.”
It was a confident pitch. Whether it landed is another matter. Cinema operators have already called on regulators to block the deal, and scepticism in the room was hardly concealed.
Ellison pushed back by pointing to recent form. Paramount, born from the merger of Paramount Global and Skydance Media last August, plans to release 15 films this year, nearly double the eight it put out in 2025. Progress, he argued, was already underway.
He also threw theater owners a bone they have long been chasing: all films, he pledged, would run exclusively in cinemas for a minimum of 45 days, drawing applause from a crowd that has spent years fighting for exactly that commitment across the industry.
“People can speculate all they want,” Ellison said, “but I am standing here today telling you personally that you can count on our complete commitment. And we’ll show you we mean it.”
Fine words. The regulators, however, will have the last one.
