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11TH MUMBAI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The ‘11th Mumbai International Film Festival’ was started on yesterday at National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) complex in South Mumbai. It is a festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films. The 11th edition festival was inaugurated by Veteran film maker Yash Chopra, and it will be ended on 9th February, 2010. Union minister for information and broadcasting Ambika Soni, the actors Ajay Devgan, Tanushree Datta and Oscar Award winning sound recordist Resul Pookutty was also present in the inauguration ceremony. This festival was started with Naresh Bedi’s Documentary “On a Tiger Trail” and Shih-Ting Hung’s “Viola: The Traveling Rooms of a Little Giant”. This six day festival is organized by the Films Division of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Maharashtra government. 200 films from 37 countries are participating in this festival in different categories including Puppet Film section, Cinema Legends, Science Fiction, Environment, North East India and newly-created Best Student Cinema section. A number of interactive sessions, seminars and forums are also included in this festival. The seminars will highlight topics like documentary culture, working environment for the documentary filmmaker, raising funds, changing style of acting, content in Indian Cinema. There is also speech of many celebrities including Subhash Ghai, Javed Akhtar, Mahesh Manjrekar and Mike Pandey. This festival exclusively showcasing short films and documentaries. So short films and documentaries got more popularity through this festival. The popularity of this festival is increased year to year. The 11th edition of this Festival received 864 entries from 37 countries and about 43 films are to be screened in the Non-Competition Section. Some changes have been introduced in this edition. `Competition’ category now covers both International and Indian sections. An award for Best Student Film/Video has been introduced as also the Dr. V. Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award, which includes a cash award and trophy. This year, Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to MV Krishna Swamy for his contribution to documentary film movement.

MUMBAI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (MIFF)

‘Mumbai International Film Festival’ is a festival focused on documentary, short and animation films. It was started on 1990 and this six day festival organized in the city of Mumbai by the ‘Film Division’, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting , Govt. of India and the Maharashtra government. Now this festival is risen into high position on the world’s documentary film festival circuit. The awards of this festival are amazing. The best short film or documentary upto 30 minutes will be awarded a Golden Conch and cash prize of Rs 300000. Another Golden Conch and Rs 300000 cash award will be given to the best film or documentary over 30 minutes duration. There are also awards for best animation film, fiction film and student’s film. Government of Maharashtra’s Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari will give a Trophy and Rs 100000 for best debut film of a director. ‘Dr V Shantaram Lifetime Achievement Award’ which carries cash prize of Rs 5 lakh will also be given in this festival.

MY NAME IS KHAN

Directed by       :  Karan Johar
Produced by      :  Karan Johar and Shahrukh Khan
Starring             :  Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Jimmy Shergill, Sonya Jehan, Zarina
Music                :  Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Generation        :  Drama
Release Date    :  12th February 2010

Bollywood’s king Shahrukh Khan’s new film “My Name Is Khan” directed by Karan Johar is now ready for releasing in all over the world. But the people of Mumbai may not be seen this movie, unless Shiv Sena has changed their decision. The Siva Sena has been opposing against the Shahrukh Khan’s comments on Pakistani players in the IPL and declared that it will not allow the film to be released in Mumbai till he apologizes. Shahrukh Khan and Kajol are main characters of this film. This film is produced by Karan Johar and Shahrukh Khan and music of this movie is composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Shooting locations of this film is Los Angeles, San Francisco and slums of Mumbai. Hope that this film will be hit on the box office on 12th February 2010

ABOUT MOVIE

“My Name Is Khan” is the most awaited movie of the year 2010. This is based on a true story, and it is about a Muslim man Rizwan Khan (Shahrukh Khan)who suffers from Asperger syndrome. In childhood, Rizwan lived with his mother (Zarina Wahab) in the Borivali section of Mumbai. When he has grown up, Rizwan moved to San Francisco to live with his brother and sister-in-law.There he falls in love with a Hindu woman Mandira (Kajol). Despite protests from his family, they get married and start a small business together. They are happy until September 11 attacks by al-Qaeda on US. After that tragedy, the attitudes towards Muslims were changed. Rizwan and Mandira had to face a number of difficulties, which caused them to separate. In order to win her back, Rizwan made a touching and inspiring journey across the United States. In the process of that journey, he produces optimism and joy in the hearts of the people by spreading of messages of goodwill, wherever he roams. On that journey, he was even arrested because, the authorities thought that he is acting suspicious, but the fact that it is due to his disability that he is acting like that. Director Karan Johar says about this film is that terrorism has no religion, and it will never have a religion. He believed that he has a social responsibility to fulfill that fact. Main actor Shahrukh Khan commented that this film is not about a disabled man’s fight against disability, but the fight against the disability including terrorism, hatred, fighting, etc exists in the world. Kajol is played the role of Shahrukh Khan’s wife in this film. She paired with him after a gap of many years. Kajol and Shahrukh’s on-screen chemistry had helped deliver several hit films in the past. Shahrukh Khan, Kajol and Karan Johar’s previous movie “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” was one of the biggest hits of the 90’s. This film made Shahrukh Khan and Kajol as the super star pair and Karan Johar as one of the notable directors in the Hindi film industry.  Hope that this interesting movie based on a true story will be super hit after the release of the movie.

MUSIC

The movie “My Name Is Khan” is from Karan Johar, who is known for soulful tunes in his super hit films. In this film also Karan did not disappointing his fans. He presents this film with beautiful songs composed by the music composers Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy for the lyrics of Niranjan Iyengar. This film has six original songs, which are sung by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Shankar Mahadevan, Richa Sharma, Adnan Sami, Shreya Ghoshal, etc. The songs are in the following,

1. Sajda, Singers : Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Shankar Mahadevan, Richa Sharma
2. Noor E Khuda, Singers : Adnan Sami, Shankar Mahadevan, Shreya Ghoshal
3. Tere Naina, Singer : Shafqat Amanat Ali
4. Allah Hi Rahem, Singer : Rashid Khan
5. Khan Theme
6. Rang De, Singer : Shankar Mahadevan, Suraj Jagan

RATING

Before the release of this movie, it got good reviews from the people. “Bollywood Hungama”, the leading Bollywood entertainment website selected this film as the most anticipated Bollywood films of 2010. It ranked number one for Top 20 movies overall in the worldwide, Top 1 movie for UK, and Top 1 movie for USA. It ranked number two for Top 10 movies for India. This film will be screened at the Berlin International Film Festival in this month.

UPDATES

Over thousand Shiv Sena activists have been arrested in Mumbai for damaging cinema halls and multiplexes that will screen actor Shah Rukh Khan’s new movie “My Name Is Khan” on 12th February, 2010. The Siva Sena has been opposing against the Shahrukh Khan’s comments on Pakistani players in the IPL and declared that it will not allow the film to be released in Mumbai till he apologizes. Tight security has been provided to 63 theaters across the city and the guidelines have also been issued to all police stations by the city police chief regarding security arrangements. Some theatres have stopped advance bookings for this film.