Annecy-Backed AniMela Reveals India Festival Dates, Digital Partner (EXCLUSIVE)

Naman Ramachandran Kajol and Kriti Sanon will lead the cast of Netflix India’s mystery thriller original film “Do Patti.” The film also marks the producing debuts of Sanon and writer Kanika Dhillon. Billed as a “thrilling suspense-filled ride,” the film is set in the hills of northern India. A director has not been revealed yet. Kajol, one of India’s best-loved actors, has credits that include romance “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,” melodrama “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham…,” romantic thriller “Fanaa” and drama “My Name Is Khan.” She made her streaming debut with Netflix film “Tribhanga,” which played from 2021, and stars in a segment of the streamer’s “Lust Stories 2,” which released June 29. She will next be seen in Disney+ Hotstar series “The Trial – Pyaar, Kaanoon, Dhokha,” the Indian adaptation of CBS series “The Good Wife.”

Naman Ramachandran Amazon miniTV, the free streaming service available on the Amazon Shopping app in India, is dubbing a raft of Korean, Turkish, Mandarin and Spanish dramas into the Hindi language for local consumption under the MiniTV Imported banner. The first set of shows, which streams from July 7, are all Korean and includes “Cheer Up,” “Heart Surgeons” and “Doctor Detective.” Amogh Dusad, head of content, Amazon miniTV, said: “In recent times, the viewing preferences of digital video consumers in India have changed significantly. They love diversity in content offering and are looking for unique stories & captivating characters from across the world. We have curated a list of blockbuster shows, from Korean, Turkish, Mandarin, Spanish and many more languages, that we believe will resonate with Indian viewers.”

Naman Ramachandran Renowned filmmaker Shekhar Kapur (“Bandit Queen,” “Elizabeth”) has revealed the theme for the sequel to his 1983 directorial debut “Masoom.” Written by Gulzar (Oscar-winner for “Slumdog Millionaire” song “Jai Ho”), “Masoom” was an adaptation of Erich Segal’s 1980 novel “Man, Woman and Child.” It followed a happily married couple and their two daughters whose lives are disrupted with the arrival of a boy who is the man’s son from an earlier affair. The cast included Naseeruddin Shah (“Taj: Divided by Blood”), Shabana Azmi (“Halo”), Jugal Hansraj (“NRI Wives”), Supriya Pathak (“Tabbar”), Saeed Jaffrey (“The Man Who Would Be King”) and Urmila Matondkar (“Rangeela”).

Blur have cancelled their upcoming headline slot at a French festival due to an injury. The news comes just days ahead of their upcoming shows at London’s Wembley Stadium.The returning Britpop veterans were set to play the set at Festival Beauregard this Thursday (July 6) – but according to an update from the festival’s official Twitter page, the band will no longer be performing drummer Dave Rowntree has suffered a knee injury.“The bad news has just fallen: Blur will not be able to perform their concert in Beauregard,” the update began (translated from French).

Naman Ramachandran Losing streaming rights to the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament has been a blessing in disguise for Indian market leader Disney+ Hotstar, an Ampere Analysis study reveals. Disney won broadcasting rights but ceded streaming rights to rival JioCinema, owned by billionaire Mukesh Ambani. Ampere estimates that this “saved the company a figure just short of twice its entire streaming revenue from the past five years.” Despite recent subscriber declines, Disney+ Hotstar still leads the market and holds a 29% streaming market share, Ampere said. As of the first quarter of 2023, Disney+ Hotstar had some 50 million subscriptions, far higher than other global SVODs in India including Amazon Prime Video (12.4 million) and Netflix (6.2 million). However, that compares with some 61 million subscribers in October 2022.

Refresh for latest…: Disney/Lucasfilm’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is off to a disappointing start with a $130M global opening. Of that, $70M is from 52 international box office markets as the the fifth installment in the beloved 42-year-old franchise came in below projections.

Former Manchester United midfielder Juan Mata is back in the city this week to attend the Manchester International Festival.

Naman Ramachandran Prime Video India has revealed a blockbuster lineup of Indian and international titles ahead of Prime Day 2023 on July 15 and 16. The lineup includes the Hindi-language version of “Ponniyin Selvan 2,” starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, “Babylon,” headlined by Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, Gerard Butler thriller “Kandahar” and Nawazuddin Siddiqui‘s Hindi-language drama-comedy “Tiku Weds Sheru.” Hindi-language original horror series “Adhura,” headlined by Rasika Dugal, the final season of hit series “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” Tamil-language superhero film “Veeran” and Telugu-language family entertainer “Anni Manchi Sakunamule” are also part of the lineup as are Tamil-language series “Sweet Kaaram Coffee” that captures the journey of three women and Telugu-language Young Adult series “Hostel Days.”

Prime Video has announced a slate of upcoming releases for its India service ahead of Prime Day 2023 (July 15-16 in India), including horror series Adhura and a Telugu adaptation of hit YA drama Hostel Days. 

Naman Ramachandran A decade after scoring a major hit with “Raanjhanaa,” Indian director-producer Aanand L. Rai is returning to its universe with “Tere Ishk Mein.” “Raanjhanaa,” an intense Hindu-Muslim romantic drama, was the Hindi-language debut of Tamil cinema star Dhanush and featured chartbusting music by Oscar-, BAFTA-, Grammy- and Golden Globe-winner A.R. Rahman. While keeping the plot under wraps, Rai told Variety, “When we were working on the ‘Tere Ishk Mein’ script, we realized that we are catching on to the same aggression. And in terms of genre, it’s falling in that genre of tragedy and I said, it’s actually belonging to that world. They’re not similar stories, but they have a similar heartbeat. We were getting the same feeling what we were getting when we were working on ‘Raanjhanaa.’ I said, let’s start belonging to that world.”

Naman Ramachandran Sony Music-owned music distribution company AWAL has launched in India and South Asia, following the acquisition of OKListen, a digital music platform for independent artists and record labels. Based in Mumbai and supported by Sony Music India, AWAL will offer independent artists in the region a range of services including global marketing, creative, synch and brand partnerships, radio promotion and distribution as well as access to real-time music analytics. Vijay Basrur, who founded OKListen in 2012 as India’s first homegrown digital distribution service, has been appointed head of India and South Asia, AWAL, reporting into Lonny Olinick, CEO of AWAL and Vinit Thakkar, managing director, Sony Music India.

Naman Ramachandran In the midst of the England-Australia Ashes cricket series that is scoring record viewership for Sky Sports, a bombshell report has revealed that rot runs deep in the sport in England. The report, published on Tuesday by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC), was commissioned by the England Cricket Board (ECB) in 2021 after the Equality and Human Rights Commission was called upon to conduct a formal investigation into allegations of racism in English cricket. More than 4000 people responded to the ICEC’s call for evidence. 87% of Pakistani and Bangladeshi respondents, 82% of Indian respondents and 75% of Black respondents told the survey that they have experienced discrimination.

Naman Ramachandran Indian cinema legend Amitabh Bachchan is venturing into the field of generative AI with studio, aggregator and digital IP monetization platform Ikonz. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence (AI) system capable of generating text, images, or other media in response to prompts, with ChatGPT and Bing Chat being current popular examples. Ikonz, which already works with Indian graphic novel properties Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle and Chacha Chaudhary, has a stated vision of “bringing together advanced technologies and cultural icons to create a new era of interactive entertainment.”

TV presenter Anna Richardson has revealed the bunch of eager celebrities who are desperate to take their clothes off for a celebrity special on the hit Channel 4 show Naked Attraction.The premise of the dating show includes single men and women picking a partner to go on a date with based solely on their naked attraction to one another. Anna , 52, opened up on the names of the celebrities who want to strip off in the name of finding love, including Blue singer Duncan James.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent India looks to be moving closer to hiking its recently inaugurated cash rebates on international shoot spend in the country, including on animation and VXF works. The confirmation came at last week’s Animation Film Festival, as India showed further signs of expansion in animation on various fronts: “Heirloom,” an Annecy Residency project from India’s Upamanyu Bhattacharyya, bowed at MIFA feature film pitches, the strongest in memory, and though it didn’t take a prize, it was regarded as one of the section’s standouts; Annecy-backed, AniMela, India’s first international festival for animation, VFX, XR, gaming and comics (AVGC-XR), revealed dates for its first edition in 2024.    

Naman Ramachandran Prolific Indian studio Maddock Films has three successful projects currently on, 15 more in the pipeline and is developing an ambitious film series based on the “Arabian Nights.” Laxman Utekar’s comedy-drama film “Zara Hatke Zara Bachke,” a co-production with Jio Studios starring Vicky Kaushal and Sara Ali Khan, has emerged as the sleeper hit of the year grossing $11.1 million theatrically so far. Homi Adajania’s action drama series “Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo,” starring Dimple Kapadia, is a hit for streamer Disney+ Hotstar, while Arunima Sharma, Hussain Dalal and Abbas Dalal’s coming-of-age Prime Video drama series “Jee Karda,” starring Tamannaah Bhatia, is garnering positive reviews.

Chris Hemsworth opened up about working with his family in Hollywood.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Mother of all Lies, a docu-drama film that probes the secrets of Morocco’s 1981 Bread Riots, was Sunday named the best picture at the Sydney Film Festival. The jury, headed by Anurag Kashyap, called the Asmae El Moudir-directed film “audacious, cutting-edge and courageous.” It presented the A$60,000 ($41,100) cash prize film ahead at the State Theatre ahead of the Australian premiere screening of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” The film, which uses doll-like figurines, recently premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where it earned the section’s best director prize. “Juxtaposing evidence from barely existent public materials with private family memory, this film reconstructs the history of the state, the family and the individual, in three distinct levels,” said the jury of Kashyap, actor Mia Wasikowska (Australia), film curator and journalist Dorothee Wenner (Germany), writer and director Larissa Behrendt (Australia) and filmmaker Visakesa Chandrasekaram (Australia – Sri Lanka).

Michael Morpurgo’s 1999 children’s book comes vividly to life in Neil Boyle and Kirk Hendry’s joint feature debut, a castaway fantasy in which a young boy learns vital lessons about the natural order of things. Seasoned screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce is on board too, and yet this is likely one of his sparsest screenplays yet, leaning into the subtleties of the animation: traditional hand-drawn 2D with mixed-media elements for the background. Older kids will likely love it, but a beautifully stark encapsulation of the bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 may rule it out as something for the whole family.

Naman Ramachandran Indian media personality Karan Johar will be honored at the British parliament for his contribution to the global entertainment industry. Johar has many avatars, as a film director, as a producer and distributor via his Dharma Productions and Dharmatic Entertainment, a flamboyant talk show host, talent show judge and actor. He has a special relationship with the U.K., having filmed many of his productions such as “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,” “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham” and “Ae Dil Hai Mushkil” across the country. His blockbusters “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham” and “My Name Is Khan” became the highest grossing Indian films at the U.K. box office upon their respective theatrical releases, setting new records at the time. In 2012, he was appointed as a goodwill ambassador for Visit Britain for a special campaign to attract and invite people to visit and explore the country.