Pro Tools
FILMFESTIVALS | 24/7 world wide coverage
Welcome !
Enjoy the best of both worlds: Film & Festival News, exploring the best of the film festivals community.
Launched in 1995, relentlessly connecting films to festivals, documenting and promoting festivals worldwide.
Working on an upgrade soon.
For collaboration, editorial contributions, or publicity, please send us an email here.
|
MAMI: The origins of the Mumbai Film Festival, and the people who realised this dream
IFFI, or the International Film Festival of India, began in Bombay, in 1952. It was then held in 1961, and after that, more regularly, till the mid-70s, in New Delhi. From the 3rd IFFI, held in 1965, it became a competitive festival, always held in New Delhi. Eleven years later, in 1976, it came back to what was at that time the equivalent of Hollywood in India. The festival in Bombay took on a new name, Filmo...
MAMI's MFF: The 25 obstacles you have to cross before you DO NOT get a Press badge
To get a Press badge from the Mumbai Film Festival, an offer they make on their website and not something the press demands or coerces them to do, is a multiple stage process. And this happens only at MFF. Here are the 25 stages I had to go through, from 10 October 2024 to 6.32 October 2024, and I still do not have a Badge. This is how it begins ...
MAMI's MFF Director denies PRESS accreditation to seniormost journalist, suggests he pay & register
In a mobile phome conversation, Siraj Syed asnd Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
"Why don't you pay and register, instead of trying to get a free Press badge?"-MAMI Festival Director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur to me, on the phone, at 6.30 pm, on 19th October, after being chased for a week with several phone calls, SMSs, emails and WhatsApp, all unanswered, askin...
MAMI’s Mumbai Film Festival treats media like dirt, and then denies accreditation
ScreenShots from the MAMI website and information about the (now deleted) Registration Google Form, for PRESS Accreditation at the Mumbai Film Festival, October 19-24.
All clicked around 12.45 pm-1.45 pm, on 20 October 2024.
You have to go through more than a dozen stages before your application is even accepted by the Festival authorities. Getting Accreditation is another story altogether.
Read on.
Plea...
Citadel Honey Bunny Trailer launch: Leaping into the past, via the present and the future
Wait and watch. November 7, 2024 is the date. The third? chapter in the series. With credentials that span India and the USA, and is set in Mumbai, shot in locales like Bhayandar. No set-pieces for Raj and D.K., who believe in the wild outdoors. It comes on the heels of the Italian edition, and covers the ‘generation gap’ in the Indian segment (read on). The heady mix of James Bond and Jane B...
Dharma’s Dharmatic Decision: Will it make a difference?
Film critics in Mumbai received a communication last week from Dharma Productions, which has been the talk of the community since then.
Dharma was founded in the 1970s by the late Yash Johar, and is currently owned by the Johars, Karan and his mother, Hiroo Yash Johar. On the Dharma website, we are told that: “The name Karan Johar is synonymous with prestige, elegance, versatility and success. He is amongst a prolific group...
Jigra, Review: JigrAlia
Though ‘jigar’ literally means liver in Hindustani, ‘jigra’ means courage, guts and gumption, essential qualities of a brave-heart. In an era of super-heroes and super-heroines, the title gives little away. So you try to relate the title to its star, Alia Bhatt. Having made a terrific impact with her performances in the last 2-3 years, you feel this might be a new avenue, an action showcase, for her considerable talent. You would not be far from...
Amaze on and on and on: Matka King, Dupahiya, Snakes and Ladders, Matka King and The Rana Connection
In the third part of my report, here’s the lowdown on four more shows that Amazon has lined-up, in various languages.
Matka King (Hindi)
In this fictional tale set in 1960s Mumbai, an enterprising cotton trader who craves legitimacy and respect, starts a new gambling game, dubbed ‘Matka’, which takes the city by storm and democratises a terrain previously reserved for the...
Amaze on and on: Citadel: Honey Bunny (Hindi)
Raj and D.K. The duo that always pay! They take-over Citadel from and name their series Honey Bunny. “We believe in giving titles that are in sharp contrast to the content of the show. (Well, what else would you say about The Family Man and Guns and Gulabs, for example?”). Honey and Bunny, co-incidentally, happen to be the names of the leading pair, Varun Dhawan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, in the series. This is Varun Dhawan’s stre...
Amaze on Prime video: PLOTT A LOTT GOTT
Inviting us at 12 noon for lunch at a 5-star hotel was unusual. The practice is to invite you at 12 or 12.30 pm, and serve you lunch at any time between 3 and 5 pm. Oh, the price you pay for being a journalist! Proceedings begin at around 2 pm, and last for about 1- ½ --2 hours. Lunch dare not be served before the proceedings begin, or while they are on, because savvy organisers believe that starved journalists would wait, while ‘lunched&rs...
Gin Ke Dus, Review: I’ll count till ten
There was a film titled Ab Tak Chhappan (So Far, 56), about a specialist cop who had killed 56 criminals in what are known as ‘encounters’. These are often incidents where the victim is lulled into believing that he has been let off, only to be shot dead by the policeman who set this up. A giveaway, the tile told you that there would be 56 killings, though cinematically, all might not be shown in detail, due to time constraints. Now co...
Kusum Ka Biyaah: A bridge that divides
Jharkhand was carved out of the state of Bihar many years ago. Perhaps some people in either state and the governments have not yet reconciled to the partition. There appear to be irreconcilable differences between them. With this background comes a small indie film, Kusum Ka Biyaah (Kusum’s Marriage), that is set in the border areas of the two states and involves the marriage of a graduate girl called Kusum, from Bihar, to a colliery worker from J...
Yodha, Review: You are on the wrong plane
First they got the spelling wrong, using Yodha instead of Yoddha. Secondly, they got the meaning wrong. Yodhha means a warrior, whereas the Yoddha, who is the protagonist of the film, is an ultra-modern special missions operative, who is disgraced and demoted to the duty of an air security officer, as a result of being over-ambitious during a dangerous mission. At the core of the film is a long second segment inside an aircraft, which is also the most...
Bastar-The Naxal Story, Review: GhostBastar
Conflict has been raging at India’s borders for decades and decades. India-China and India-Pakistan borders are conflagration points since the last century, and Kashmir is a region which India claims as its own, while insurgents align themselves with Pakistan. We also face conflict in the North-East, where there are separationists in action. But the largest conflict is between Maoists (Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist), known as Naxa...
Chandigarh gets its investiture: Cinévesture International Film Festival
Rana Dagubatti, Jérôme Paillard, Julian Friedmann, Nicole Guillemet, Nuhash Humayaun, and Ajitpal Singh must be familiar names to film festival buffs. Now they have come together to serve on the Advisory Board of a film festival, which will be held in the northern Indian city of Chandigarh, a city that serves as the capital of two states, Punjab and Haryana. The festival is called Cinévesture I...
FICCI FRAMES 2024, 04: Skilled entertainment industry crucial in realising the vision of Developed India
On March 7, the closing day of the 3-Day Convention, Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Government of India, said that the Indian media and entertainment sector is growing rapidly, and there is immense potential for ‘skilling’ in this sector. This sector has been growing with a CAGR of over 13 per cent in the last few years, and ...
FICCI FRAMES 2024, 03: AVGC policy to facilitate investments, foster innovation
Realisation of ‘Viksit Bharat’ (Developed India) depends on collective contribution of everyone. ‘Skilling’ is integral to the future of India, said Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Minister, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of Maharashtra.
He was speaking on the first day of the 3-day annual conclave, FICCI FRAMES, held during March 5-7, 2024. This was the 24th such summit, whic...
The latest FICCI-Ernst and Young (EY) report, titled ‘#Reinvent: India’s media & entertainment sector is innovating for the future’ was launched at the FICCI FRAMES 2024, at the Westin Hotel, Powai, in Mumbai, on 05 March. FICCI is the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and EY is a consulting, assurance, tax and transaction services law firm.
New media, comprising digital and online gaming, emerged as the frontrunner in growth, contributing INR 122 bi...
A return to its long-term base of Hotel Westin, by the lake in Powai, might just be a step in the right direction. As usual, the conclave runs for three days, Tuesday to Thursday. The dates are March 5-7. This time around, the media could register online and get a confirmation too. The process was smooth. But whether the media will be treated any better in 2024 than it was in 2013 will be known over the next few days.
FRAMES looks towards Turkey this time to invite Turkish Actress Hande Ercel...
288 days to go for the 2024 edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival
At the end of the third edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF), on 09 December 2023, audiences, media and professionals alike were left craving for more. And more is coming your way. While some film festivals have fixed dates, and other international film festivals announce their dates much closer to the event, RSIFF has chosen to announce its dates almost ten months in advance. With very high p...
Love & Latte launch: A feast for the eyes, both on and off the screen
They call it the Red Bulb. It is a preview theatre, located on the third floor of a high-profile building, off Link Road, Andheri West. The invitation said 6.30 pm. Traffic jams made sure I reached at 7.15 pm. Too early. Things started moving at 9 pm, and went on until almost 11 pm. A little too long for the launch of a music video, which was projected thrice. Shot in Azerbaijaan, with a Sydney Opera House look-alike in...
Argylle, Review: Spyurious stuff
Don’t even try. To make sense of this one. It’s a tribute to James Bond, Jason Bourne, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon. That is what the makers want you to believe. Well, it’s one tribute the ‘quartet’ can do without. There is a cat in the film, getting a fair amount of footage. Maybe that’s a tribute to Solomon, the cat of the Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who appears in several 007 films, a white, blue-eyed Turkish Angora. In...
RSIFF, 12: Bakhtawar Mazhar: In Flames of Glory
A day before the awards were announced, declaring In Flames the best film, at the Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF), I was face–to-face with Bakhtawar Mazhar, one of the protagonists of In Flames, her feature debut, a film that had made a tremendous impression on me. This, a face-to-face with a Pakistani actress, had never happened before, and I was not going to let this opportunity go by. We got into a car, and started talking.
...
RSIFF, 11: Winners Declared, the Festival over, or is it?
Red Sea International Film Festival was to be held from 29 November to 09 December. But when we got our invitations to the closing night, it was indicated as 07 December. Sounds strange, doesn’t it? But if you have attended other film festivals, like the Mumbai Film Festival (held by MAMI), you would not be surprised. Actually, it is a great idea. Announce the awards two days before the closing, so that the invited guests do not ha...
RSIFF, 10: Foundation, Fun d-a-mentals, Funding, Figures and Films
A major initiative of Saudi Arabia in developing film production and co-production is the Red Sea Film Fund. Supporting Development, Production, and Post-Production of Arab and African Films. The Red Sea Film Festival Foundation is a non-profit cultural organization registered in Saudi Arabia. The foundation is chaired by Jomana Al Rashid, the president of the foundation is the Saudi producer Mohammed Al Turki.
The Red Sea Fu...
|
About Siraj Syed
 Syed Siraj
(Siraj Associates)
Siraj Syed is a film-critic since 1970 and a Former President of the Freelance Film Journalists' Combine of India.
He is the India Correspondent of FilmFestivals.com and a member of FIPRESCI, the international Federation of Film Critics, Munich, Germany
Siraj Syed has contributed over 1,015 articles on cinema, international film festivals, conventions, exhibitions, etc., most recently, at IFFI (Goa), MIFF (Mumbai), MFF/MAMI (Mumbai) and CommunicAsia (Singapore). He often edits film festival daily bulletins.
He is also an actor and a dubbing artiste. Further, he has been teaching media, acting and dubbing at over 30 institutes in India and Singapore, since 1984.
Bandra West, Mumbai India View my profileSend me a message
|
