Jaya Bachchan, renowned for her work in Indian cinema and politics, is celebrating her 76th birthday on Tuesday. Born as Jaya Bhaduri in a Bengali family, Jaya’s father, Tarun Kumar Bhaduri, was a well-known journalist and a poet.
After completing her education, Jaya attended the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii), Pune, where she honed her acting skills.
She made her acting debut as a teenager in 1963 with the Bengali film ‘Mahanagar’ directed by Satyajit Ray. The film starred Madhabi Mukherjee in the leading role.
Jaya then transitioned to Hindi cinema and quickly gained prominence with her versatile performances in films like Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s directorial ‘Guddi’, and ‘Anamika’.
The 1971 movie ‘Guddi’ featured Jaya as a petite schoolgirl who is obsessed with actor Dharmendra. The film had created the girl-next-door image for her.
Movies like ‘Uphaar’, ‘Piya Ka Ghar’, ‘Parichay’ and ‘Bawarchi’ made her a superstar.
In 1973, she married Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan,...
After completing her education, Jaya attended the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii), Pune, where she honed her acting skills.
She made her acting debut as a teenager in 1963 with the Bengali film ‘Mahanagar’ directed by Satyajit Ray. The film starred Madhabi Mukherjee in the leading role.
Jaya then transitioned to Hindi cinema and quickly gained prominence with her versatile performances in films like Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s directorial ‘Guddi’, and ‘Anamika’.
The 1971 movie ‘Guddi’ featured Jaya as a petite schoolgirl who is obsessed with actor Dharmendra. The film had created the girl-next-door image for her.
Movies like ‘Uphaar’, ‘Piya Ka Ghar’, ‘Parichay’ and ‘Bawarchi’ made her a superstar.
In 1973, she married Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan,...
- 4/9/2024
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
After the recently-concluded ‘Bachchanalia’ where Amitabh Bachchan memorabilia went under the hammer, the auction house DeRivaz & Ives has announced a similar tribute to ‘feminine icons’ of Indian cinema.
Vintage souvenirs of Bollywood actresses that will also celebrate a saga of beauty and their acting prowess will be auctioned in Mumbai.
The auction will celebrate actresses like Nadia, Jayashree, Devika Rani, Noor Jahan, Suraiya, Nargis, Geeta Bali, Bina Rai, Madhubala, Madhabi Mukherjee, Mala Sinha, Suchitra Sen, Shashikala, Sharmila Tagore, Meena Kumari, Jaya Bhaduri, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman, Rekha, Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit and many more.
Titled ‘Feminine Icons of Indian Cinema’, the auction will be held on November 23-25, and a variety of iconic photographs, film posters, lobby cards and other original artworks will be on offer for film buffs.
Among them will be a rare ‘The Light of Asia’ original publicity still in silver gelatin, of the classic 1925 Indian silent film...
Vintage souvenirs of Bollywood actresses that will also celebrate a saga of beauty and their acting prowess will be auctioned in Mumbai.
The auction will celebrate actresses like Nadia, Jayashree, Devika Rani, Noor Jahan, Suraiya, Nargis, Geeta Bali, Bina Rai, Madhubala, Madhabi Mukherjee, Mala Sinha, Suchitra Sen, Shashikala, Sharmila Tagore, Meena Kumari, Jaya Bhaduri, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman, Rekha, Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit and many more.
Titled ‘Feminine Icons of Indian Cinema’, the auction will be held on November 23-25, and a variety of iconic photographs, film posters, lobby cards and other original artworks will be on offer for film buffs.
Among them will be a rare ‘The Light of Asia’ original publicity still in silver gelatin, of the classic 1925 Indian silent film...
- 11/1/2023
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
After the recently-concluded ‘Bachchanalia’ where Amitabh Bachchan memorabilia went under the hammer, the auction house DeRivaz & Ives has announced a similar tribute to ‘feminine icons’ of Indian cinema.
Vintage souvenirs of Bollywood actresses that will also celebrate a saga of beauty and their acting prowess will be auctioned in Mumbai.
The auction will celebrate actresses like Nadia, Jayashree, Devika Rani, Noor Jahan, Suraiya, Nargis, Geeta Bali, Bina Rai, Madhubala, Madhabi Mukherjee, Mala Sinha, Suchitra Sen, Shashikala, Sharmila Tagore, Meena Kumari, Jaya Bhaduri, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman, Rekha, Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit and many more.
Titled ‘Feminine Icons of Indian Cinema’, the auction will be held on November 23-25, and a variety of iconic photographs, film posters, lobby cards and other original artworks will be on offer for film buffs.
Among them will be a rare ‘The Light of Asia’ original publicity still in silver gelatin, of the classic 1925 Indian silent film...
Vintage souvenirs of Bollywood actresses that will also celebrate a saga of beauty and their acting prowess will be auctioned in Mumbai.
The auction will celebrate actresses like Nadia, Jayashree, Devika Rani, Noor Jahan, Suraiya, Nargis, Geeta Bali, Bina Rai, Madhubala, Madhabi Mukherjee, Mala Sinha, Suchitra Sen, Shashikala, Sharmila Tagore, Meena Kumari, Jaya Bhaduri, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman, Rekha, Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit and many more.
Titled ‘Feminine Icons of Indian Cinema’, the auction will be held on November 23-25, and a variety of iconic photographs, film posters, lobby cards and other original artworks will be on offer for film buffs.
Among them will be a rare ‘The Light of Asia’ original publicity still in silver gelatin, of the classic 1925 Indian silent film...
- 11/1/2023
- by Agency News Desk
The struggles and triumphs of a 1950s Kolkata family whose highest earner is a woman is told with marvellous lucidity in an optimistic masterpiece
Satyajit Ray’s magnificent movie from 1963 is now rereleased as part of a Ray retrospective at London’s BFI Southbank, and what a pleasure to marvel again at this film’s freshness, its fluency, its directness, its powerful and essential optimism. Ray’s lucid storytelling always strikes me as a kind of miracle whenever I see this film. He makes the miracle look easy.
The setting is Kolkata in the early 1950s and Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee) is the harassed employee of a bank which – though he doesn’t know it – is on the verge of going under. He is reasonably happy with his lot, with a humorous, distracted manner, often absent-mindedly smoking or eating during conversations. He lives with his wife Arati, whose sensitivity, sweetness...
Satyajit Ray’s magnificent movie from 1963 is now rereleased as part of a Ray retrospective at London’s BFI Southbank, and what a pleasure to marvel again at this film’s freshness, its fluency, its directness, its powerful and essential optimism. Ray’s lucid storytelling always strikes me as a kind of miracle whenever I see this film. He makes the miracle look easy.
The setting is Kolkata in the early 1950s and Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee) is the harassed employee of a bank which – though he doesn’t know it – is on the verge of going under. He is reasonably happy with his lot, with a humorous, distracted manner, often absent-mindedly smoking or eating during conversations. He lives with his wife Arati, whose sensitivity, sweetness...
- 7/21/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The Big City (Mahanagar), dir. Satyajit Ray, 1963)
“There’s a saying in English,” Bhombol (Anil Chatterjee) says to his wife, Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee): “ ‘a woman’s place is in the home’.” When Arati asks if he really believes that, Bhombol tells her that he does, that he’s like his father, very conservative.
But for Arati, this is an important issue. Her household – consisting of herself, her husband, their son, Pintu, and Bhombol’s parents and sister Binu (Jaya Bhaduri) is struggling on just Bhombol’s salary. There is barely enough money to keep the household running, and when Arati hears that a friend’s wife has taken a job, Arati decides that she, too, must find employment. Her reasoning is that it’s not right for her husband to have to be responsible for this whole household.
Bhombol may be conservative, but he is not so traditional that...
“There’s a saying in English,” Bhombol (Anil Chatterjee) says to his wife, Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee): “ ‘a woman’s place is in the home’.” When Arati asks if he really believes that, Bhombol tells her that he does, that he’s like his father, very conservative.
But for Arati, this is an important issue. Her household – consisting of herself, her husband, their son, Pintu, and Bhombol’s parents and sister Binu (Jaya Bhaduri) is struggling on just Bhombol’s salary. There is barely enough money to keep the household running, and when Arati hears that a friend’s wife has taken a job, Arati decides that she, too, must find employment. Her reasoning is that it’s not right for her husband to have to be responsible for this whole household.
Bhombol may be conservative, but he is not so traditional that...
- 7/13/2022
- by Katherine Matthews
- Bollyspice
Amid a galaxy of stars from Bollywood, Bengali cinema and foreign shores, megastar Shah Rukh Khan on Friday inaugurated the 25th Kolkata International Film Festival at Netaji Indoor stadium here.
Flanked by yesteryear's top heroine Rakhi Gulzar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and 'thali girl' Srabonti Chatterjee, Srk lit the ceremonial lamp to wild cheers from the audience, who later enjoyed every bit of the opening film - Satyajit Ray's children's classic "Goopy Gayen Bagha Bayen", which is celebrating its 50th year.
Also Read:?Srk's family photograph is winning hearts
Germany's Oscar winning director Volker Schlondorff, "Sex, Lies and Videotape" actress Andie MacDowell, Slovak film maker Dusan Hanak graced the occasion, alongside Bollywood auteur Mahesh Bhatt, and Bcci President and former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly were among those who graced the function.
Srk, in his speech, described the 25th year of the festival as an important landmark.
Flanked by yesteryear's top heroine Rakhi Gulzar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and 'thali girl' Srabonti Chatterjee, Srk lit the ceremonial lamp to wild cheers from the audience, who later enjoyed every bit of the opening film - Satyajit Ray's children's classic "Goopy Gayen Bagha Bayen", which is celebrating its 50th year.
Also Read:?Srk's family photograph is winning hearts
Germany's Oscar winning director Volker Schlondorff, "Sex, Lies and Videotape" actress Andie MacDowell, Slovak film maker Dusan Hanak graced the occasion, alongside Bollywood auteur Mahesh Bhatt, and Bcci President and former Indian cricket captain Sourav Ganguly were among those who graced the function.
Srk, in his speech, described the 25th year of the festival as an important landmark.
- 11/9/2019
- GlamSham
He turned a frock-clad school going teen Sharmila Tagore into Aparna - Apu?s wife. The clich? concept of all-evil in silver screen villains bored him. Javed Akhtar once said, ?While Hindi films have ferocious villains who only evoked hatred, you actually felt sad for Ray?s negative character. Such was the sensitivity of the man?. He gave Bengali cinemas? most real and grounded hero ? Soumitra Chatterjee who turned into his blue-eyed boy. He used real comedians in humour, he transformed his characters into all time legends ? Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee), Aparna (Sharmila Tagore) Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee), Nayak (Uttam Kumar), had a unique eye for creating child characters, the man who created the iconic Feluda.
One of Indian cinema?s most influential filmmaker it won?t be an exaggeration if I say Asian cinema or world cinema in that matter ? Satyajit Ray if by any reasons or circumstances couldn?t make it as a filmmaker,...
One of Indian cinema?s most influential filmmaker it won?t be an exaggeration if I say Asian cinema or world cinema in that matter ? Satyajit Ray if by any reasons or circumstances couldn?t make it as a filmmaker,...
- 2/28/2019
- GlamSham
It’s all in the eyes, and this case they belong to Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), a housewife-turned-saleswoman in Satyajit Ray‘s classic film The Big City. Her personal growth is charted through her gazes, whether they are exchanged with husband, customers, boss—or even her own reflection. Throughout The Big City, Ray uses eye contact to establishes familiarity, intimacy and shifting power dynamics; the story of the film is told through the way the characters look at one another.>> - Joel Bocko...
- 7/6/2015
- Keyframe
It’s all in the eyes, and this case they belong to Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), a housewife-turned-saleswoman in Satyajit Ray‘s classic film The Big City. Her personal growth is charted through her gazes, whether they are exchanged with husband, customers, boss—or even her own reflection. Throughout The Big City, Ray uses eye contact to establishes familiarity, intimacy and shifting power dynamics; the story of the film is told through the way the characters look at one another.>> - Joel Bocko...
- 7/6/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Charulata
Written and directed by Satyajit Ray
India, 1964
Adopting an understated approach, Satyajit Ray tells the story of Charulata the young and beautiful wife of an older man, Bhupati Dutta, who is the editor of a political newspaper. Centered on her restless days and introspective nature, the film takes place almost exclusively within the walls of the couple’s Victorian Calcutta home. The interior private space of the home will come to reflect the interior private space of the woman. The film’s great incident is the arrival of the husband’s younger cousin, Amal, who is urged to keep company with Charulata. Charulata and the cousin bond over a love of art and their friendship disrupt the fragile comfort of Charaluta’s loneliness.
To call Charulata a film without great incident would betray the internal transformations of the characters and to understate the experience of most women. In many ways,...
Written and directed by Satyajit Ray
India, 1964
Adopting an understated approach, Satyajit Ray tells the story of Charulata the young and beautiful wife of an older man, Bhupati Dutta, who is the editor of a political newspaper. Centered on her restless days and introspective nature, the film takes place almost exclusively within the walls of the couple’s Victorian Calcutta home. The interior private space of the home will come to reflect the interior private space of the woman. The film’s great incident is the arrival of the husband’s younger cousin, Amal, who is urged to keep company with Charulata. Charulata and the cousin bond over a love of art and their friendship disrupt the fragile comfort of Charaluta’s loneliness.
To call Charulata a film without great incident would betray the internal transformations of the characters and to understate the experience of most women. In many ways,...
- 7/7/2014
- by Justine Smith
- SoundOnSight
Madhabi Mukherjee in Mahanagar
A digitally restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Bengali classic Mahanagar (The Big City) will be released on April 18, in select theatres in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Pune, under the PVR Director’s Rare banner.
The film, which was originally released in September 1963, will be re-released with English subtitles.
Mahanagar has been digitally restored by The Rdb Organization headed by Kamal Bansal. The British Film Institute (BFI), had held screenings of the restored version in the United Kingdom last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.
Made in 1963, the timeless classic based on Narendranath Mitra’s short story ‘Abataranika’, stars Madhabi Mukherjee as Arati, a housewife who takes a job of a saleswoman and unsettles her family in the process.
Ray won the Silver Bear for Mahanagar at the 14th Berlin International Film Festival in 1964.
A digitally restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Bengali classic Mahanagar (The Big City) will be released on April 18, in select theatres in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Pune, under the PVR Director’s Rare banner.
The film, which was originally released in September 1963, will be re-released with English subtitles.
Mahanagar has been digitally restored by The Rdb Organization headed by Kamal Bansal. The British Film Institute (BFI), had held screenings of the restored version in the United Kingdom last year to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.
Made in 1963, the timeless classic based on Narendranath Mitra’s short story ‘Abataranika’, stars Madhabi Mukherjee as Arati, a housewife who takes a job of a saleswoman and unsettles her family in the process.
Ray won the Silver Bear for Mahanagar at the 14th Berlin International Film Festival in 1964.
- 4/11/2014
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
★★★★★ The years 1964-5 saw the release of Satyajit Ray's arguable masterpiece The Lonely Wife (Charulata) and the smaller variation on a theme, The Coward (Kapurush), both now reissued in pristine Blu-ray versions by distributor Artificial Eye. Set in the closing years of the nineteenth century, The Lonely Wife tells the story of a privileged woman, Charulata (played by the luminous Madhabi Mukherjee), whose wealthy husband Bhupati (Sailen Mukherjee) is committed to producing a political newspaper, and whose main pleasure is the smell of newsprint and the sound of his own voice.
With the arrival of her brother-in-law, the Bohemian poet Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), Charulata begins to realise her yearning for something different both in finding her voice as a writer and her unfulfilled romantic longings in the lighter more attractive brother. Ray takes the conventional premise of the desperate housewife and creates something astonishing, a subtle and measured examination of frustration,...
With the arrival of her brother-in-law, the Bohemian poet Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), Charulata begins to realise her yearning for something different both in finding her voice as a writer and her unfulfilled romantic longings in the lighter more attractive brother. Ray takes the conventional premise of the desperate housewife and creates something astonishing, a subtle and measured examination of frustration,...
- 10/1/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Considering how popular a topic marital discontent is in American cinema, you’d like to think we were the masters of the genre, but famed Indian director Satyajit Ray captured the despondence and disconnect of a marriage in decline subtly and completely with his 1964 film Charulata, starring Madhabi Mukherjee as the titular dissatisfied wife. Balancing some overt symbolism with a story of a woman who yearns for her husband to notice her desires for his attentions and not to be dismissed as a “traditional” wife, content with house chores and lounging about, Ray takes the “new vs. traditional” theme found in many of his films and translates it to one of the most character-driven forms he ever delivered. From the film’s mostly silent opening scenes to its dour but hopeful ending, Charulata paints a nearly perfect picture of a woman desperate for something or someone to engage her intellect...
- 8/27/2013
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
Moviefone's Top DVD of the Week
"Amour"
What's It About? Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke tells the heart-wrenching story of an elderly couple fighting against the deterioration of the body and mind in this brutally honest French drama. Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are retired octogenarian music teachers whose lives vastly alter when Anne suffers from the first of several strokes. Georges struggles to take care of his wife as watches her gradually lose her ability to move and speak.
Why We're In: One of the most powerful films in recent years and winner of the 2012 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, "Amour" shows love at its most harrowing. Known as a horror master, Haneke uses slow-pacing and raw storytelling in this film to truly show life's real horrors. With some of the best performances ever from Riva and Trintignant, "Amour" is not merely a film that will make you weep,...
"Amour"
What's It About? Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke tells the heart-wrenching story of an elderly couple fighting against the deterioration of the body and mind in this brutally honest French drama. Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are retired octogenarian music teachers whose lives vastly alter when Anne suffers from the first of several strokes. Georges struggles to take care of his wife as watches her gradually lose her ability to move and speak.
Why We're In: One of the most powerful films in recent years and winner of the 2012 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, "Amour" shows love at its most harrowing. Known as a horror master, Haneke uses slow-pacing and raw storytelling in this film to truly show life's real horrors. With some of the best performances ever from Riva and Trintignant, "Amour" is not merely a film that will make you weep,...
- 8/20/2013
- by Erin Whitney
- Moviefone
Satyajit Ray's enduring 1963 masterpiece about one woman's struggle for independence is back on the big screen
Satyajit Ray, who died in 1992 at the age of 70, is one of the giants of world cinema. The son of a prominent Bengali literary figure, he was an accomplished writer, composer, editor and artist as well as a great movie director. His passionate interest in the cinema developed early on, and shortly after the second world war he accompanied Jean Renoir when he travelled to India to scout locations for The River. Subsequently he wrote a wonderfully perceptive article about this experience for Sequence, the film magazine edited by Lindsay Anderson, Gavin Lambert and Karel Reisz.
During a visit to Europe to work in the London headquarters of his Calcutta advertising agency, he saw Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and decided that on his return he wanted to make a movie in...
Satyajit Ray, who died in 1992 at the age of 70, is one of the giants of world cinema. The son of a prominent Bengali literary figure, he was an accomplished writer, composer, editor and artist as well as a great movie director. His passionate interest in the cinema developed early on, and shortly after the second world war he accompanied Jean Renoir when he travelled to India to scout locations for The River. Subsequently he wrote a wonderfully perceptive article about this experience for Sequence, the film magazine edited by Lindsay Anderson, Gavin Lambert and Karel Reisz.
During a visit to Europe to work in the London headquarters of his Calcutta advertising agency, he saw Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves and decided that on his return he wanted to make a movie in...
- 8/17/2013
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Kick-Ass 2 | 2 Guns | Planes | The Big City | Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Again | Bachelorette | Call Girl | Aftershock | Kuma | When The Dragon Swallowed The Sun
Kick-Ass 2 (15)
(Jeff Wadlow, 2013, Us/UK) Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Moretz, Jim Carrey, 103 mins
The amateur Avengers return, though the sequel finds them weighed down by their superhero lifestyles, or is it audience expectations? The ingredients that made the first movie such a pleasure are all here – absurd alter-egos, ultraviolence, high-school angst, swearing – just minus the element of surprise. As a result, this incident-packed story struggles to recapture that balance between comic-book zaniness and real-world teen comedy.
2 Guns (15)
(Baltasar Kormákur, 2013, Us) Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton. 109 mins
Two double-crossed undercover agents must unravel a convoluted conspiracy (and learn to get along, of course) in what could almost be a Lethal Weapon reboot. Washington and Wahlberg spark off each other nicely, which is all that's needed.
Kick-Ass 2 (15)
(Jeff Wadlow, 2013, Us/UK) Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Moretz, Jim Carrey, 103 mins
The amateur Avengers return, though the sequel finds them weighed down by their superhero lifestyles, or is it audience expectations? The ingredients that made the first movie such a pleasure are all here – absurd alter-egos, ultraviolence, high-school angst, swearing – just minus the element of surprise. As a result, this incident-packed story struggles to recapture that balance between comic-book zaniness and real-world teen comedy.
2 Guns (15)
(Baltasar Kormákur, 2013, Us) Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton. 109 mins
Two double-crossed undercover agents must unravel a convoluted conspiracy (and learn to get along, of course) in what could almost be a Lethal Weapon reboot. Washington and Wahlberg spark off each other nicely, which is all that's needed.
- 8/17/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Satyajit Ray's 1963 film about a Calcutta woman blossoming in the world of work is utterly absorbing
Satyajit Ray's glorious film Mahanagar, or The Big City, is rereleased 50 years on: it is an utterly absorbing and moving drama about the changing worlds of work and home in 1950s India, and a hymn to uxorious love acted with lightness, intelligence and wit. Madhabi Mukherjee is superb as Arati, the demure wife of Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), a sweet-natured, semi-competent bank employee in Calcutta. To help out with the family finances, she takes a job as a door-to-door saleswoman, promoting a new knitting machine – and is electrified by her new self-esteem and cash. Encouraged by her feisty, flighty colleague Edith (Vicky Redwood), an Anglo-Indian of the sort not much loved in the city, she insists on lucrative commissions for her rocketing sales and blossoms as a beautiful professional woman about town. Ray...
Satyajit Ray's glorious film Mahanagar, or The Big City, is rereleased 50 years on: it is an utterly absorbing and moving drama about the changing worlds of work and home in 1950s India, and a hymn to uxorious love acted with lightness, intelligence and wit. Madhabi Mukherjee is superb as Arati, the demure wife of Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), a sweet-natured, semi-competent bank employee in Calcutta. To help out with the family finances, she takes a job as a door-to-door saleswoman, promoting a new knitting machine – and is electrified by her new self-esteem and cash. Encouraged by her feisty, flighty colleague Edith (Vicky Redwood), an Anglo-Indian of the sort not much loved in the city, she insists on lucrative commissions for her rocketing sales and blossoms as a beautiful professional woman about town. Ray...
- 8/15/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Re-released for its fiftieth anniversary, Satyajit Ray’s The Big City tells the tale of a family struggling to adjust to great social change, in a time when the notion of a woman’s place was suddenly debatable. Ray’s deeply sensitive portrayal of his subject is as relevant today as it was upon its original release.
Set in 1950’s Calcutta, The Big City centres on Arati Mazumdar (Madhabi Mukherjee) and her husband Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee), as the power balance in their marriage starts to shift in response to great social pressures. In a city in financial crisis, the Mazumdar family find that Subrata’s bank clerk wage is increasingly falling short of what is required to support himself, his wife and their extended family, generations of which live under one roof. However, when Arati decides to contribute herself, and takes a job as a door-to-door sales girl, Subrata...
Set in 1950’s Calcutta, The Big City centres on Arati Mazumdar (Madhabi Mukherjee) and her husband Subrata Mazumdar (Anil Chatterjee), as the power balance in their marriage starts to shift in response to great social pressures. In a city in financial crisis, the Mazumdar family find that Subrata’s bank clerk wage is increasingly falling short of what is required to support himself, his wife and their extended family, generations of which live under one roof. However, when Arati decides to contribute herself, and takes a job as a door-to-door sales girl, Subrata...
- 8/15/2013
- by Georgia Fleury Reynolds
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Criterion brings two of auteur Satyajit Ray’s early 60s works to the collection this month with Charulata (1964) and The Big City (1963), both starring Madhabi Mukherjee in phenomenal performances. While both explore women’s lives in a rigidly male dominated world, it’s the earlier film that stands as Ray’s first look at contemporary life in his native Kolkata. While his nine previous films were either period pieces or set outside of the city (Charulata, in fact, sees him returning to period, set in 1870s India), the coalescence of budget and talent finally brought his modern times project to fruition, which he had apparently been wanting to make since his 1955 Palme d’Or winning debut, Pather Panchali. Beyond being simply the story of a woman, Ray constructs an intimate character study that examines an uncomfortably changing social climate, economic pressures, racial injustice, and the moral obligation to do the right thing.
- 8/6/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Kolkata, July 23: The West Bengal government will honour 50 Bengali film personalities on the occasion of the 33rd death anniversary of matinee idol Uttam Kumar Wednesday.
Actors Madhabi Mukhopadhyay, Ranjit Mullick, Dipankar Dey and Sandhya Roy, and filmmaker Gautam Ghosh would be presented the lifetime achievement award for their contribution to Bengali cinema.
Actors Chinmoy Roy and Partha Mukherjee, and directors Sandip Roy, Kaushik Ganguly, Sujit Guha, Srijit Mukherjee and Raj Chakraborty would be presented special awards.
The Mahanayak Samman, 2013, will be awarded to leading actors Tapas Pal and Prosenjit Chatterjee.
Other.
Actors Madhabi Mukhopadhyay, Ranjit Mullick, Dipankar Dey and Sandhya Roy, and filmmaker Gautam Ghosh would be presented the lifetime achievement award for their contribution to Bengali cinema.
Actors Chinmoy Roy and Partha Mukherjee, and directors Sandip Roy, Kaushik Ganguly, Sujit Guha, Srijit Mukherjee and Raj Chakraborty would be presented special awards.
The Mahanayak Samman, 2013, will be awarded to leading actors Tapas Pal and Prosenjit Chatterjee.
Other.
- 7/23/2013
- by Smith Cox
- RealBollywood.com
Madhabi Mukherjee in “Mahanagar”
The British Film Institute (BFI) is releasing a restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (The Big City) to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.
The film will hit theatres in UK on August 16, 2013.
“Satyajit Ray’s wonderfully enjoyable portrait of mid-50s Calcutta, a society still adjusting to Independence, displays warmth, wit and genuine insight into its large, multi-generational cast of characters, including Arati’s conservative old father-in-law, her studious teenage sister-in-law, and her benevolently despotic boss,” says Margaret Deriaz of the BFI.
The film was restored in India by scanning the original negative at a high resolution (2K), enabling the film’s “epic scale and intimate detail – from the portrayal of bustling urban life to the exquisite play of emotions on Arati’s face – to emerge in greater beauty and clarity,” according to Deriaz.
She adds, “The Big City, with its emphasis on...
The British Film Institute (BFI) is releasing a restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (The Big City) to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.
The film will hit theatres in UK on August 16, 2013.
“Satyajit Ray’s wonderfully enjoyable portrait of mid-50s Calcutta, a society still adjusting to Independence, displays warmth, wit and genuine insight into its large, multi-generational cast of characters, including Arati’s conservative old father-in-law, her studious teenage sister-in-law, and her benevolently despotic boss,” says Margaret Deriaz of the BFI.
The film was restored in India by scanning the original negative at a high resolution (2K), enabling the film’s “epic scale and intimate detail – from the portrayal of bustling urban life to the exquisite play of emotions on Arati’s face – to emerge in greater beauty and clarity,” according to Deriaz.
She adds, “The Big City, with its emphasis on...
- 7/12/2013
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Aug. 20, 2013
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Madhabi Mukherjee is Charulata.
The 1964 film drama Charulata about a woman’s artistic and romantic yearning by the great Bengali director Satyajit Ray (The Music Room) is set in late 19th Century, pre-independence India.
It takes place in the gracious home of a liberal-minded, workaholic newspaper editor (Sailen Mukherjee) and his lonely, stifled wife, Charulata (The Big City’s Madhabi Mukherjee), whose exquisitely composed features mask a burning creativity. When her husband’s poet cousin (Soumitra Chatterjee) comes to stay with them, Charulata finds herself both inspired by him to pursue her own writing and dangerously drawn to him physically.
Based on a novella by the great Rabindranath Tagore, Charulata is a work of subtle textures, a delicate tale of a marriage in jeopardy and a woman taking the first steps toward establishing her own voice.
Presented in Bengali with English subtitles,...
Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95
Studio: Criterion
Madhabi Mukherjee is Charulata.
The 1964 film drama Charulata about a woman’s artistic and romantic yearning by the great Bengali director Satyajit Ray (The Music Room) is set in late 19th Century, pre-independence India.
It takes place in the gracious home of a liberal-minded, workaholic newspaper editor (Sailen Mukherjee) and his lonely, stifled wife, Charulata (The Big City’s Madhabi Mukherjee), whose exquisitely composed features mask a burning creativity. When her husband’s poet cousin (Soumitra Chatterjee) comes to stay with them, Charulata finds herself both inspired by him to pursue her own writing and dangerously drawn to him physically.
Based on a novella by the great Rabindranath Tagore, Charulata is a work of subtle textures, a delicate tale of a marriage in jeopardy and a woman taking the first steps toward establishing her own voice.
Presented in Bengali with English subtitles,...
- 6/13/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Aug. 20, 2013
Price: DVD $29.99, Blu-ray $39.99
Studio: Criterion
Madhabi Mukherjee takes a job to help support her family in The Big City.
The 1963 drama The Big City is set in mid-1950s Calcutta and directed by the legendary Satyajit Ray (The Music Room).
The film follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of middle-class surburban housewife Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), who decides, despite the initial protests of her bank-clerk husband, to take a job to help support their family.
With remarkable sensitivity and attention to the details of everyday working-class life, Ray gradually builds a powerful human drama that is at once a hopeful morality tale and a commentary on the identity of the contemporary Indian woman.
Ray won considerable praise for his work on Mahanagar (as the movie is known in its native Bengali), winning the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 14th Berlin International Film Festival.
Presented in Bengali with English subtitles,...
Price: DVD $29.99, Blu-ray $39.99
Studio: Criterion
Madhabi Mukherjee takes a job to help support her family in The Big City.
The 1963 drama The Big City is set in mid-1950s Calcutta and directed by the legendary Satyajit Ray (The Music Room).
The film follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of middle-class surburban housewife Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), who decides, despite the initial protests of her bank-clerk husband, to take a job to help support their family.
With remarkable sensitivity and attention to the details of everyday working-class life, Ray gradually builds a powerful human drama that is at once a hopeful morality tale and a commentary on the identity of the contemporary Indian woman.
Ray won considerable praise for his work on Mahanagar (as the movie is known in its native Bengali), winning the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 14th Berlin International Film Festival.
Presented in Bengali with English subtitles,...
- 6/5/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
A still from “Charulata”
Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (The Lonely Wife) is one among the twenty feature films to be presented at Cannes Classics, as part of the Official Selection.
Based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore about a lonely housewife, the film features Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee and Shailen Mukherjee. It won Satyajit Ray a Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin international film festival in 1965.
Cannes Classics was created in 2004 to present old films and masterpieces from cinematographic history that have been carefully restored. It is also a way to pay tribute to the essential work being down by copyrightholders, film libraries, production companies and national archives throughout the world.
This year’s programme of Cannes Classics is made up of twenty feature-length films and three documentaries.
Restored Prints
Borom Sarret (1963, 20’) by Ousmane Sembène
Charulata (Charluta: The Lonely Wife) (1964, 1:57) by Satyajit Ray
Cleopatra (1963, 4:03) by Joseph L. Mankiewicz...
Satyajit Ray’s Charulata (The Lonely Wife) is one among the twenty feature films to be presented at Cannes Classics, as part of the Official Selection.
Based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore about a lonely housewife, the film features Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee and Shailen Mukherjee. It won Satyajit Ray a Silver Bear for Best Director at Berlin international film festival in 1965.
Cannes Classics was created in 2004 to present old films and masterpieces from cinematographic history that have been carefully restored. It is also a way to pay tribute to the essential work being down by copyrightholders, film libraries, production companies and national archives throughout the world.
This year’s programme of Cannes Classics is made up of twenty feature-length films and three documentaries.
Restored Prints
Borom Sarret (1963, 20’) by Ousmane Sembène
Charulata (Charluta: The Lonely Wife) (1964, 1:57) by Satyajit Ray
Cleopatra (1963, 4:03) by Joseph L. Mankiewicz...
- 4/30/2013
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Kolkata, Feb 3: Satyajit Ray, known for having the "director's gaze", harboured a "deep respect" for women and portrayed them as having more moral strength than men in various roles other than the stereotyped idea of a "woman belonging to the kitchen", say the filmmaker's leading ladies.
Actresses Sharmila Tagore, Aparna Sen and Madhabi Mukherjee still turn euphoric while recounting their experiences of working with the Oscar-winning director, even more than 22 years after his death.
And this came out vividly during a late evening session called Nayikar Bhumikay - Satyajiter Nari Charitra (Playing the Actress - Satyajit's Women.
Actresses Sharmila Tagore, Aparna Sen and Madhabi Mukherjee still turn euphoric while recounting their experiences of working with the Oscar-winning director, even more than 22 years after his death.
And this came out vividly during a late evening session called Nayikar Bhumikay - Satyajiter Nari Charitra (Playing the Actress - Satyajit's Women.
- 2/3/2013
- by Ketali Mehta
- RealBollywood.com
Starring Sridevi, Adil Hussain, Mehdi Nebbou,Sujata Kumar
Directed by Gauri Shinde
There are no villains in English Vinglish. Only imperfect human beings like you and I, who make that common error of taking loved ones for granted.
Admit it. At some point in our lives we have all felt that if we don’t speak good English, we are not destined to be successful human beings. Imagine a housewife–beautiful, efficient, charming, supportive…imagine if she looks like…well, Sridevi and still feels she is being taken for granted just because she can’t speak fluent angrezi.
Shashi’s children find her embarrassing at times. Her husband openly cracks jokes about her accent and poor grasp of a language we should have thrown out with Tom Alter’s wig in Shatranj Ke Khiladi. Shashi’s husband thinks he’s just being urbane and witty. But it hurts. We see...
Directed by Gauri Shinde
There are no villains in English Vinglish. Only imperfect human beings like you and I, who make that common error of taking loved ones for granted.
Admit it. At some point in our lives we have all felt that if we don’t speak good English, we are not destined to be successful human beings. Imagine a housewife–beautiful, efficient, charming, supportive…imagine if she looks like…well, Sridevi and still feels she is being taken for granted just because she can’t speak fluent angrezi.
Shashi’s children find her embarrassing at times. Her husband openly cracks jokes about her accent and poor grasp of a language we should have thrown out with Tom Alter’s wig in Shatranj Ke Khiladi. Shashi’s husband thinks he’s just being urbane and witty. But it hurts. We see...
- 10/5/2012
- by Subhash K Jha
- Bollyspice
The Mumbai Film Festival (October 18 – 25, 2012) is the largest film festival in India with over 100,000 attending. The Festival is 14 years old itself but Reliance Big Entertainment, the company that backs both Dreamworks and Im Global, one of U.S.’s foremost international sales agents, has backed this festival for the last 4 years and the result is a scaled up festival. It is part of the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image, a not for profit trust founded in 1997 by Indian Film Industry personalities led by renowned filmmaker late Hrishikesh Mukherji. Its 220 films are all free.
Parenthetically, though not part of the festival itself, Mumbai is "'in the news" with the Tiff's City-to-City program focusing on Mumbai. This was organized by Cameron Bailey directly with filmmakers in Mumbai and is not a Mumbai Film Festival program…Also of interest is that Mumbai also hosts India's largest international Queer Film Festival For Everyone which was held in May of this year with the Alliance Francaise de Bombay.
The Mumbai Film Festival also works with Unifance and French Rendez-Vous.
Sections include Discovery, Retrospective - this year to feature 50 years of the Cannes Critics Week, International Competition which awards $200,000 to a first feature.
Three new developments are taking place this year.
1. To celebrate 100 years of Indian cinema, the festival is launching a new competition for Indian films (called 'India Gold') with cumulative cash rewards of around $30,000 Us. The winners will be selected by an international jury to be announced.
2. The festival is moving to historic South Bombay. The festival, previously held mostly in the Juhu and Andheri districts of Mumbai – where Bollywood is located - will now take place in the south of the city, the historic center of old colonial Bombay with amazing Victorian landmarks – train station, court house, with the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Ncpa) and Inox Theatre as the main venues. The retrospective of restored films will be screened in a third theater - a historic art deco theater named the Liberty Cinema – so named because it was built in 1949, the year of India's independence from Britain. For more information on the Liberty see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Cinema
3. The Spotlight on Film Restoration and Preservation. For the first time, a section of the festival (programmed by Ian Birnie, U.S. Representative for the Mumbai Film Festival) will be devoted to screenings of restored classic films with a particular focus on Twentieth Century Fox. Screenings will be introduced by various archivists all of whom are leading experts in the field. A panel will bring together Western archivists and their Indian counterparts and the discussion will focus on the economic challenges and new technologies that are changing the future of film preservation.
The American participants are:
Schawn Belston, Senior VP, Library and Technical Services, Twentieth Century Fox
Margaret Bodde, Executive Director, The Film Foundation
Mike Pogorzelski, Director, The Academy Film Archive
Douglas Laible, Managing Director, World Cinema Foundation
TheTwentieth Century Fox Archive will present 8 films spanning 40 years in the 'Fox Classics' series. Note: all were restored in-house at Fox, and by Fox in association with the Academy Film Archive (Afa) and with The Film Foundation (Ff)
Sunrise (1928/b&w/94 min.) dir: F.W. Murnau; w /George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston.(Fox/Afa)
How Green Was My Valley(1941/b&w/118 min.) dir: John Ford; w/ Walter Pigeon, Maureen O'Hara. (Fox/Afa)
Laura (1944/b&w/88 min.) dir: Otto Preminger; w/ Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb. (Fox in-house)
Leave Her to Heaven(1945/color/110 min.) dir: John Stahl; w/ Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain. (Fox/Afa/Ff)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953/color/91 min.) dir: Howard Hawks; w/ Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell.(Fox in-house)
Wild River(1960/color/110 min./CinemaScope) dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet. (Fox/Afa/Ff)
The Leopard (1963/color/187 min.) dir: Luchino Visconti; w/ Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale.(Fox/Ff/Cineteca di Bologna)
Two for the Road(1967/color/110 min./Panavision) dir: Stanley Donen; w/ Audey Hepburn, Albert Finney. (Fox/Afa)
In addition to the Fox titles, 7 additional restored films will be screened.
The Academy Film Archive will present two recent restorations from their ongoing project to restore all the films by the great Indian director Satyajit Ray:
Charulata(1964/b&w/117 min.) w/ Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee.
The Chess Players (1977/color/129 min.) w/ Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Shabana Azmi
The Film Foundation will present two recent restorations:
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1945/color/163 min.) dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger; w/ Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook.
Once Upon a Time in America (1984/color/ ??? min.) dir: Sergio Leone; w/ Robert DeNiro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern.
The World Cinema Foundation will present its new restoration of a classic Indian film:
Kalpana (1948/b&w/155 min.)
The Cineteca Bologna will present two restored Italian silent classics as part of an Italian Cinema retrospective.
Sections of the Festival
Dimensions Mumbai, a short film competition of films dealing with any aspect of life in Mumbai and targeted to the Mumbai Youth below 25 years was introduced in 2008.
An International Competition for the First Feature Film of directors with the award money of Us $ 150,000 (Us $ 100,000 for the Best Film and Us $ 50,000 for the Jury Grand Prize) was introduced in 2009. The UK Film 'White Lightn'in won the 2011 Best Film Award and Austria-Italy co-production La Pivillina won the Jury Grand Prize.
The Audience Choice Award carrying U.S. $ 20,000 for any film participating in the Festival, (excepting the Retrospectives and Tribute sections) was introduced in 09 as well. The Indian Film 'Road to Sangam' won this award.
International Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on the Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos.
A new initiative Mumbai Young Critics was introduced in '09 as well. 24 college students selected from more than 80 aspirants recommended by the colleges in Mumbai went through a workshop conducted by the German writer and film critic Daniel Kothenschulte for three days before the Festival. This group watched the films in the festival, wrote about them in Festival publications and newspapers and also selected a film for the Mumbai Young Critics Award.
Last year the festival showcased over 200 films from 60 countries across various sections at its three venues- Cinemax Versova, Cinemax Sion and Metro Big Cinemas.
The festival hosts a special section ‘4me Rendez-Vous’, in collaboration with Unifrance, Embassy of France in India and Consulate General of France in Mumbai. The section screens the best of New French Cinema, which last year included ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’, ‘The Conquest’ and ‘Declaration of War’ amongst others.
Last year's highlight was the special presentation by Lee Yong Kwan, Director, Busan International Film Festival, who presented a selection of the latest Asian Films from Busan.
Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on the legendary actor Morgan Freeman. Olivia Harrison widow of George Harrison presented the documentary film “George Harrison: Living in the material World”.
The Festival strengthened and consolidated its academic activities with an Indo-German Script Development Workshop scheduled from 11th to the 13th of October just ahead of the festival opening. Speakers at the workshop included the renowned directors Dani Levy, Thorsten Schulz, Screenwriters Anjum Rajabali and Sooni Taraporevala amongst others.
This year's Festival continues to facilitate cinema business with the Mumbai Film Mart, created 'by' the industry, 'for' the industry, 'in' the industry hub - Mumbai, the Film Capital of India. The Mumbai Film Mart saw participation from the biggest Entertainment Industry players, both from India and abroad. In the three days, over 2,000 meeting requests were received, 400 meetings were carried out face to face, while an equal number took place among the senior decision makers from leading film production houses, buyers, sellers, festival programmers and independent filmmakers as they milled around and networked with each other.
Among the many firsts, the Mart attracted all the forthcoming big ticket films such as ‘Ra One’, ‘Don 2’, ‘Rockstar’, ‘Ricky Behl v/s Ladies’, ‘The Dirty Picture’, ‘DesiBoyz’ , tabled for acquisition and distribution in the non-traditional markets for Indian Cinema in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Germany, France and Latin America. The focus on these countries attracted leading buyers that included Huayi Brothers Media Corp. (China), NikkatsuCorp.(Japan), Happinet Corp.(Japan), Showbox (Korea), Apex Entertainment (Korea), Cj Entertainment (Korea), Top Films (Ukraine), Novo films (France), Rapid Eye (Germany), Im Global (USA), amongst many others.
The International Jury will be responsible choosing the winners out of 14 films, all first features of debut filmmakers around the world, awarding them with a huge cash prize. This way we would like to recognize and encourage the first time filmmakers, going in line with the festival theme of discovery.
Apart from the main international section, there are many other sections including the world cinema, Indian Frame, New Faces in Indian Cinema, Documentaries etc. Please do check out their website www.mumbaifilmfest.com for more information. Last year, it screened about 220 films from 60 countries.
Composition of Mami:
Shyam Benegal, Eminent Filmmaker – Chairman
Amit Khanna, producer, lyricist and Chairman of Reliance Entertainment
Amol Palekar, acclaimed actor-director
Ashutosh Gowarikar (Oscar Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film for Lagaan)
Farhan Akhtar, one of the youngest directors and actor
Jaya Bachchan, acclaimed and award winning actress
Karan Johar, director-producer of some of the most successful films at the box office
Ramesh Sippy, well known filmmaker of Sholay fame
Shabana Azmi, renowned actress who has won acclaim and awards Internationally
Yash Chopra, producer-director, doyen of the Hindi film industry.
Narayan is the Director and head programmer, Anu is second in command.
And there is a selection committee that screens all the competition films – industry people and critics in Mumbai.
About Reliance Big Entertainment
Reliance Big Entertainment Ltd. (Rbel) is the flagship media and entertainment arm of India's Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, with a significant presence in film entertainment (film production, distribution, and exhibition), broadcasting and new media ventures.
Rbel's motion picture brand, Reliance Big Pictures ( www.reliancebigpictures.com ) has built a impressive film production slate in Hindi, English & other Indian languages, which it markets and distributes worldwide. Following Reliance Big Picturess association with Im Global, the company now benefits from an international sales team with an excellent reputation and global presence dedicated to selling its Bollywood and regional language slate. Going into production in November is the $45 million ðDreddð, which Reliance Big Entertainment is co-financing with Im Global.
In Hollywood, Reliance Big Pictures has partnered with Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider on the formation of DreamWorks Studios and hasdevelopment deals with Nicolas Cage's Saturn Films, Jim Carrey's Jc 23 Entertainment, George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions, Chris Columbus'1492 Pictures, Tom Hanksð Playtone Productions, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, Jay Roach's Everyman Pictures, Brett Ratnerðs Rat Entertainment,Julia Robertsð Red Om Films and Brian Grazer and Ron Howardðs Imagine Entertainment.
Also worth noting: the competition section of the festival is for first features and carries a Grand prize of Us$100,000 and a Jury prize of Us$50,000.00, with a percentage of the money of allocated to the sales agent who submitted the film. With 14 features, the odds are better than most lotteries… This was last year's lineup http://www.mumbaifilmfest.com/Mami/films_list.php The Salesman, one of the films their U.S. Representative Programmer, Ian Bernie (former longtime Lacma programmer) selected, won the Jury Award and Best Actor.
Parenthetically, though not part of the festival itself, Mumbai is "'in the news" with the Tiff's City-to-City program focusing on Mumbai. This was organized by Cameron Bailey directly with filmmakers in Mumbai and is not a Mumbai Film Festival program…Also of interest is that Mumbai also hosts India's largest international Queer Film Festival For Everyone which was held in May of this year with the Alliance Francaise de Bombay.
The Mumbai Film Festival also works with Unifance and French Rendez-Vous.
Sections include Discovery, Retrospective - this year to feature 50 years of the Cannes Critics Week, International Competition which awards $200,000 to a first feature.
Three new developments are taking place this year.
1. To celebrate 100 years of Indian cinema, the festival is launching a new competition for Indian films (called 'India Gold') with cumulative cash rewards of around $30,000 Us. The winners will be selected by an international jury to be announced.
2. The festival is moving to historic South Bombay. The festival, previously held mostly in the Juhu and Andheri districts of Mumbai – where Bollywood is located - will now take place in the south of the city, the historic center of old colonial Bombay with amazing Victorian landmarks – train station, court house, with the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Ncpa) and Inox Theatre as the main venues. The retrospective of restored films will be screened in a third theater - a historic art deco theater named the Liberty Cinema – so named because it was built in 1949, the year of India's independence from Britain. For more information on the Liberty see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Cinema
3. The Spotlight on Film Restoration and Preservation. For the first time, a section of the festival (programmed by Ian Birnie, U.S. Representative for the Mumbai Film Festival) will be devoted to screenings of restored classic films with a particular focus on Twentieth Century Fox. Screenings will be introduced by various archivists all of whom are leading experts in the field. A panel will bring together Western archivists and their Indian counterparts and the discussion will focus on the economic challenges and new technologies that are changing the future of film preservation.
The American participants are:
Schawn Belston, Senior VP, Library and Technical Services, Twentieth Century Fox
Margaret Bodde, Executive Director, The Film Foundation
Mike Pogorzelski, Director, The Academy Film Archive
Douglas Laible, Managing Director, World Cinema Foundation
TheTwentieth Century Fox Archive will present 8 films spanning 40 years in the 'Fox Classics' series. Note: all were restored in-house at Fox, and by Fox in association with the Academy Film Archive (Afa) and with The Film Foundation (Ff)
Sunrise (1928/b&w/94 min.) dir: F.W. Murnau; w /George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston.(Fox/Afa)
How Green Was My Valley(1941/b&w/118 min.) dir: John Ford; w/ Walter Pigeon, Maureen O'Hara. (Fox/Afa)
Laura (1944/b&w/88 min.) dir: Otto Preminger; w/ Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb. (Fox in-house)
Leave Her to Heaven(1945/color/110 min.) dir: John Stahl; w/ Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain. (Fox/Afa/Ff)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953/color/91 min.) dir: Howard Hawks; w/ Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell.(Fox in-house)
Wild River(1960/color/110 min./CinemaScope) dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet. (Fox/Afa/Ff)
The Leopard (1963/color/187 min.) dir: Luchino Visconti; w/ Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale.(Fox/Ff/Cineteca di Bologna)
Two for the Road(1967/color/110 min./Panavision) dir: Stanley Donen; w/ Audey Hepburn, Albert Finney. (Fox/Afa)
In addition to the Fox titles, 7 additional restored films will be screened.
The Academy Film Archive will present two recent restorations from their ongoing project to restore all the films by the great Indian director Satyajit Ray:
Charulata(1964/b&w/117 min.) w/ Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee.
The Chess Players (1977/color/129 min.) w/ Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Shabana Azmi
The Film Foundation will present two recent restorations:
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1945/color/163 min.) dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger; w/ Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook.
Once Upon a Time in America (1984/color/ ??? min.) dir: Sergio Leone; w/ Robert DeNiro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern.
The World Cinema Foundation will present its new restoration of a classic Indian film:
Kalpana (1948/b&w/155 min.)
The Cineteca Bologna will present two restored Italian silent classics as part of an Italian Cinema retrospective.
Sections of the Festival
Dimensions Mumbai, a short film competition of films dealing with any aspect of life in Mumbai and targeted to the Mumbai Youth below 25 years was introduced in 2008.
An International Competition for the First Feature Film of directors with the award money of Us $ 150,000 (Us $ 100,000 for the Best Film and Us $ 50,000 for the Jury Grand Prize) was introduced in 2009. The UK Film 'White Lightn'in won the 2011 Best Film Award and Austria-Italy co-production La Pivillina won the Jury Grand Prize.
The Audience Choice Award carrying U.S. $ 20,000 for any film participating in the Festival, (excepting the Retrospectives and Tribute sections) was introduced in 09 as well. The Indian Film 'Road to Sangam' won this award.
International Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on the Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos.
A new initiative Mumbai Young Critics was introduced in '09 as well. 24 college students selected from more than 80 aspirants recommended by the colleges in Mumbai went through a workshop conducted by the German writer and film critic Daniel Kothenschulte for three days before the Festival. This group watched the films in the festival, wrote about them in Festival publications and newspapers and also selected a film for the Mumbai Young Critics Award.
Last year the festival showcased over 200 films from 60 countries across various sections at its three venues- Cinemax Versova, Cinemax Sion and Metro Big Cinemas.
The festival hosts a special section ‘4me Rendez-Vous’, in collaboration with Unifrance, Embassy of France in India and Consulate General of France in Mumbai. The section screens the best of New French Cinema, which last year included ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’, ‘The Conquest’ and ‘Declaration of War’ amongst others.
Last year's highlight was the special presentation by Lee Yong Kwan, Director, Busan International Film Festival, who presented a selection of the latest Asian Films from Busan.
Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on the legendary actor Morgan Freeman. Olivia Harrison widow of George Harrison presented the documentary film “George Harrison: Living in the material World”.
The Festival strengthened and consolidated its academic activities with an Indo-German Script Development Workshop scheduled from 11th to the 13th of October just ahead of the festival opening. Speakers at the workshop included the renowned directors Dani Levy, Thorsten Schulz, Screenwriters Anjum Rajabali and Sooni Taraporevala amongst others.
This year's Festival continues to facilitate cinema business with the Mumbai Film Mart, created 'by' the industry, 'for' the industry, 'in' the industry hub - Mumbai, the Film Capital of India. The Mumbai Film Mart saw participation from the biggest Entertainment Industry players, both from India and abroad. In the three days, over 2,000 meeting requests were received, 400 meetings were carried out face to face, while an equal number took place among the senior decision makers from leading film production houses, buyers, sellers, festival programmers and independent filmmakers as they milled around and networked with each other.
Among the many firsts, the Mart attracted all the forthcoming big ticket films such as ‘Ra One’, ‘Don 2’, ‘Rockstar’, ‘Ricky Behl v/s Ladies’, ‘The Dirty Picture’, ‘DesiBoyz’ , tabled for acquisition and distribution in the non-traditional markets for Indian Cinema in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Germany, France and Latin America. The focus on these countries attracted leading buyers that included Huayi Brothers Media Corp. (China), NikkatsuCorp.(Japan), Happinet Corp.(Japan), Showbox (Korea), Apex Entertainment (Korea), Cj Entertainment (Korea), Top Films (Ukraine), Novo films (France), Rapid Eye (Germany), Im Global (USA), amongst many others.
The International Jury will be responsible choosing the winners out of 14 films, all first features of debut filmmakers around the world, awarding them with a huge cash prize. This way we would like to recognize and encourage the first time filmmakers, going in line with the festival theme of discovery.
Apart from the main international section, there are many other sections including the world cinema, Indian Frame, New Faces in Indian Cinema, Documentaries etc. Please do check out their website www.mumbaifilmfest.com for more information. Last year, it screened about 220 films from 60 countries.
Composition of Mami:
Shyam Benegal, Eminent Filmmaker – Chairman
Amit Khanna, producer, lyricist and Chairman of Reliance Entertainment
Amol Palekar, acclaimed actor-director
Ashutosh Gowarikar (Oscar Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film for Lagaan)
Farhan Akhtar, one of the youngest directors and actor
Jaya Bachchan, acclaimed and award winning actress
Karan Johar, director-producer of some of the most successful films at the box office
Ramesh Sippy, well known filmmaker of Sholay fame
Shabana Azmi, renowned actress who has won acclaim and awards Internationally
Yash Chopra, producer-director, doyen of the Hindi film industry.
Narayan is the Director and head programmer, Anu is second in command.
And there is a selection committee that screens all the competition films – industry people and critics in Mumbai.
About Reliance Big Entertainment
Reliance Big Entertainment Ltd. (Rbel) is the flagship media and entertainment arm of India's Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, with a significant presence in film entertainment (film production, distribution, and exhibition), broadcasting and new media ventures.
Rbel's motion picture brand, Reliance Big Pictures ( www.reliancebigpictures.com ) has built a impressive film production slate in Hindi, English & other Indian languages, which it markets and distributes worldwide. Following Reliance Big Picturess association with Im Global, the company now benefits from an international sales team with an excellent reputation and global presence dedicated to selling its Bollywood and regional language slate. Going into production in November is the $45 million ðDreddð, which Reliance Big Entertainment is co-financing with Im Global.
In Hollywood, Reliance Big Pictures has partnered with Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider on the formation of DreamWorks Studios and hasdevelopment deals with Nicolas Cage's Saturn Films, Jim Carrey's Jc 23 Entertainment, George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions, Chris Columbus'1492 Pictures, Tom Hanksð Playtone Productions, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, Jay Roach's Everyman Pictures, Brett Ratnerðs Rat Entertainment,Julia Robertsð Red Om Films and Brian Grazer and Ron Howardðs Imagine Entertainment.
Also worth noting: the competition section of the festival is for first features and carries a Grand prize of Us$100,000 and a Jury prize of Us$50,000.00, with a percentage of the money of allocated to the sales agent who submitted the film. With 14 features, the odds are better than most lotteries… This was last year's lineup http://www.mumbaifilmfest.com/Mami/films_list.php The Salesman, one of the films their U.S. Representative Programmer, Ian Bernie (former longtime Lacma programmer) selected, won the Jury Award and Best Actor.
- 8/31/2012
- Sydney's Buzz
October 15, 2010: Vidya Balan is in Kolkata, shooting for the film ‘Kahaani’ and the actress is delighted to be present in the city during Durga Puja. Balan has a strong bond with Bengal and the Bengali festival for quite some time now.
First time appeared on-screen was in a music video of Euphoria where she got married to the band’s lead singer Palash Sen in Bengali style next she made her film debut in a Bengali film named Bhalo Theko. Soon it was followed by an ad film which saw her with Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee and it was shot had the setting was of Durga Puja.
Next in her Hindi film debut Vidya was seen in Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta a film inspired by Benglai novelist Sarat Chandra Chattophadhyay’s.
First time appeared on-screen was in a music video of Euphoria where she got married to the band’s lead singer Palash Sen in Bengali style next she made her film debut in a Bengali film named Bhalo Theko. Soon it was followed by an ad film which saw her with Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee and it was shot had the setting was of Durga Puja.
Next in her Hindi film debut Vidya was seen in Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta a film inspired by Benglai novelist Sarat Chandra Chattophadhyay’s.
- 10/15/2010
- by realbollywood
- RealBollywood.com
October 15, 2010: Vidya Balan is in Kolkata, shooting for the film ‘Kahaani’ and the actress is delighted to be present in the city during Durga Puja. Balan has a strong bond with Bengal and the Bengali festival for quite some time now.
First time appeared on-screen was in a music video of Euphoria where she got married to the band’s lead singer Palash Sen in Bengali style next she made her film debut in a Bengali film named Bhalo Theko. Soon it was followed by an ad film which saw her with Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee and it was shot had the setting was of Durga Puja.
Next in her Hindi film debut Vidya was seen in Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta a film inspired by Benglai novelist Sarat Chandra Chattophadhyay’s.
First time appeared on-screen was in a music video of Euphoria where she got married to the band’s lead singer Palash Sen in Bengali style next she made her film debut in a Bengali film named Bhalo Theko. Soon it was followed by an ad film which saw her with Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee and it was shot had the setting was of Durga Puja.
Next in her Hindi film debut Vidya was seen in Pradeep Sarkar’s Parineeta a film inspired by Benglai novelist Sarat Chandra Chattophadhyay’s.
- 10/15/2010
- by realbollywood
- RealBollywood.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.