Hindi
MPA APSA Academy Film Fund to help aspiring film makers
MUMBAI: The Motion Picture Association (MPA) and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) gives an opportunity to aspiring filmmakers with the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund. MPA APSA Academy Film Funds is a unique initiative which has aided aspiring film makers in a lot of development in new film projects. A panel discussion was hosted at the 13th Pune Internation film festival on January 10th, 2014, to create awarness about the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and MPA APSA Academy Film Funds . The panelelist for the discussion comprised of celebrated actor, Atul Kulkarni & Lohita Sujith, Director, Corporate Communications, Motion Picture Dist. Association (India) Pvt. Ltd. Panelists also discussed how upcoming filmmakers/ professionals can benefit from the MPA APSA Academy Film Fund worth USD 100,000.
MPA APSA Academy Film Fund has been a hugely successful initiative taking the number of successful projects funded to a total of twenty feature films over the last six years. The projects now count amongst them winners of an Academy Award®, APSAs and an International Emmy Award. Grants have been awarded to projects from.
India, Bangaldesh, Republic of Korea,People’s Republic of China, Iraq,Kazakhastan, Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2014, over 100 submissions were received for the film fund. Four grants were awarded to two documentary film projects from Israel and Denmark and twofilm projects from Bangladesh and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Speaking on the occasion, Atul Kulkarni, Actor, says “The MPA APSA Academy Film Fund is a great stepping stone for aspiring filmmakers, enabling them to develop their film projects from script to screen. I encourage aspiring filmmakers from Pune and the rest of India to expand their horizons and opportunities by submitting their projects to the film fund this year.
Adding to this, the panelist also discussed how The MPA APSA Academy Film Fund stimulates collaboration between filmmakers across Asia Pacific. The $100,000 development fund which provides four US$25,000 grants each year is wholly supported by the Motion Picture Association (MPA).The Fund supported the development of Iranian writer/director AsgharFarhadi’s film A SeparationI, which went on to win an Academy Award, and an APSA Best Feature Film Award.
Hindi
Jio Studios unveils AI-powered Krishna teaser at NAB Show 2026
Global first look of Krishna uses Galleri5 AI pipeline on Azure, Historyverse slate as Jio’s Dhurandhar crosses Rs 3,000cr worldwide.
MUMBAI: Krishna has just dropped a divine teaser and this time the gods are powered by silicon, not just scripture. Jio Studios and Collective Studios’ Historyverse stole the spotlight at the NAB Show 2026 in Las Vegas with the world’s first teaser for their upcoming theatrical feature Krishna, directed by Manu Anand. The big reveal happened during Microsoft’s keynote “Powering Intelligent Media, From AI Experimentation to Real-World Impact,” where the film’s AI-native production pipeline took centre stage alongside Collective Artists Network’s in-house platform, Galleri5.
At the heart of this mythological spectacle lies a fresh cinematic workflow built by Galleri5 on Microsoft Azure’s advanced AI and cloud infrastructure. Forget bolting AI onto traditional VFX or animation, this is an end-to-end, production-grade system woven into every layer: world-building, character creation, shot design and final output. Yet the storytelling remains firmly director-led, emphasising emotional depth, stillness, music and performance rather than pure spectacle. The result? Large-format theatrical cinema rooted in Indian history and culture, but conceived in ways that were simply not possible before.
Collective Artists Network runs Galleri5 natively on Azure, leveraging Microsoft Foundry and cutting-edge AI tools to handle film, episodic and advertising workflows in a secure enterprise environment. Microsoft highlighted Collective as a “Frontier” organisation successfully moving AI from pilot projects to real production-scale deployment in cinema. The technology is also on display at Microsoft’s NAB booth in the West Hall (Booth W1731).
Jio Studios (Media & Content Business, Reliance Industries), president Jyoti Deshpande said the project advances the studio’s mission to take Indian stories global with scale, ambition and authenticity, “With Krishna, we are embracing cutting-edge AI-led filmmaking while democratising these tools to make them more accessible, intuitive and cost-effective for storytellers everywhere.”
Collective Artists Network founder & group CEO Vijay Subramaniam added, “We’re using technology developed in India to carry our culture and history to audiences worldwide at a scale never seen before.”
Microsoft, vice president for telco media & entertainment, gaming Silvia Candiani noted that the media industry has reached an inflection point, “AI is no longer about experimentation but delivering real impact at production scale… By building AI-native creative systems on Microsoft Azure, Collective exemplifies how storytellers can unlock new formats, move faster and realise a true return on intelligence while keeping human creativity at the centre.”
Krishna forms part of Historyverse, Collective Studios’ ambitious slate of history and culture-driven IPs. The slate draws from iconic figures and traditions that shaped the Indian subcontinent, including stories inspired by Kali, Karna and Durga. It builds on the already-released Mahabharat: Ek Dharmayudh series, showing how ancient narratives can be reimagined for modern screens.
Jio Studios, India’s leading content studio and the media and content arm of Reliance Industries, continues its blockbuster run. The studio’s Dhurandhar franchise led by Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge has become the first Indian film series to cross Rs 3,000 crore worldwide. It also delivered three consecutive years of India’s highest-grossing Hindi films: Stree 2 (2024), Dhurandhar (2025) and Dhurandhar: The Revenge (2026). In just eight years, Jio Studios has assembled a library of over 160 films and series, with more than 60 titles winning over 500 awards. Other notable successes include Laapataa Ladies (India’s official Oscar entry 2025), Stree, Article 370, Shaitaan and Mrs.
The NAB unveiling marks another step in Jio Studios and Collective’s push to blend Indian storytelling talent with frontier technology proving that the future of cinema may well be both ancient in spirit and thoroughly modern in execution. For audiences who love epic tales with a fresh twist, Krishna promises to deliver divine drama, this time with a little help from the cloud.
