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2nd Gandhinagar International Film Festival 2012 is all set to be bigger than last year

Slated to be one of the upcoming film festivals in Gandhinagar, Gujarat; the 2nd Gandhinagar International Film Festival 2012 is all scheduled to open its doors this 30th August at the City Pulse campus, Gandhinagar.

Directed by Bedabrata Pain, “Chittagong” will open the festival on Thursday. Moving into its second year, last year saw the Grand Launch of the festival by Shri Narendra Modi, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Gujarat. Veteran actors and filmmakers like Satish Kaushik, Om Puri, Shyam Benegal, Fardeen Khan, Manisha Koirala, Anupam Kher and others were present at the festival.

To be inaugurated by Shyam Benegal who is also the chairman of MAMI (Mumbai International Film Festival), GIFF this year will showcase more than 45 movies from 12 countries during this 4 day festival. Veteran actors and filmmakers including Amole Gupte, Aparna Sen, Govind Nihalani, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Indrani Halder, Sudhir Mishra, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Sanghamitra Chaudhuri, Yashpal Sharma, Moushumi Chatterjee, Rituparna Sengupta, Kalpana Lajmi, Satish Kaushik, Vishal Bharadwaj, Raveena Tandon and a host of other celebrities have consented to grace the occasion.

Chittagong that will open the festival is directed by debutant director and former NASA scientist Bedabrata Pain. Based on true incidents during the British rule in India, Chittagong talks about a few teenagers, who under the leadership of their school teacher Master Surya Sen give the British their first military defeat. The movie focuses on 14-year old Jhunku Roy, the youngest participant and his journey through tough times.

Presented by Anurag Kashyap Films and Bohra Bros Productions. Chittagong had to wait for more than two years to release the film because Ashutosh Gowariker’s “Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey” starring Abhishek Bachchan and Deepika Padukone had a similar subject. However Khelein sank without a trace but Chittagong is already earning laurels globally at film festivals. With an impressive star cast including Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazzudin Siddiqui, Raj Kumar Yadav and Jaideep Ahlawat to name a few, the other cast includes Delzad Hiwale in the role of Jhunku, Barry John as Wilkinson, Vega Tamotia as Pritilata Waddedar, Dibyendu Bhattacharya as Ambika, Vishal Vijay as Ganesh Ghosh and Alexx O’Nell as Charles Johnson. With music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and sound by Resul Pookutty and dialogues by Piyush Mishra, this movie is all set to bring back patriotism to the big screens.

Other films to be screened include Sanghamitra Chaudhuri’s “Strings of Passion” that deals with the controversial subject of parental upbringing in today's society. It is a youth centric film which tells the story of three boys - Neel, Manu and Amit - essayed by Shubh Mukherjee, Avalok Nagpal and Trishan who in college form a band called Strings of Passion. Through the life of these three protagonists who are best friends in college, the film also touches the controversial subject of Male Rape as one of the protagonists becomes the victim of gang rape and later unable to come to terms with this ghastly incident, ends his life.

A big draw of the film is the evergreen Zeenat Aman in the cast who plays Manu's (Avalok Nagpal) mother while Rajesh Sharma plays Neel's (Shubh Mukherjee) dad. Indrani Halder is Neel’s love interest Insia who comes home with Neel’s dad but finds a connect with Neel because of their similar sad past and enter into a relationship. Interestingly, though the film revolves around social issues, there is a hardcore commercial element in the film as it has six songs of which two are rock band numbers while one is a hip hop club number. While editing is by Bodhaditya Banerjee and sound by National Award winning sound engineer Anup Mukherjee., the other cast includes Paru Gambhir, Sangita Sonali and others.

While “Chittagong” is the opening film, Sudipto Chattopadhyaya’s “Shobhana’s 7 Nights” will be closing the festival. The film is about Bollywood's struggling male actors, who turn to servicing clients to earn an extra buck. Raveena plays a married 40-something columnist-author who is abused by her husband (played by Rohit Roy) and finds solace in a young man (played by newcomer Amit Purohit) who is one of the many strugglers in Bollywood. The boy becomes Raveena's toy boy as he is trying to make ends meet.

Organized and promoted by “City Pulse Institute of Film & Television (CPIFT)”, Gandhinagar International Film Festival (GIFF) is an effort to nurture the platform of culture and tradition with the medium of Films.

Strings of Passion : Official Selection at 2nd GIFF

Firmly entrenched in Tollywood (Kolkata Bengali film industry), film-maker Sanghamitra Chaudhuri’s desire to tread new grounds made her foray into the world of Hindi cinema or Bollywood as known to all. But being a sensitive film maker, naturally her instincts were more focussed towards meaningful cinema with a commercial touch than just directing some mishmash of romance and action or remake something straight from Hollywood as is the trend these days. After a lot of deliberations, she decided to direct her first Hindi venture “Strings of Passion” based on parental upbringing as well as cover the sensitive issue of Male Rape which however till now was not even considered to happen. Rather its a very taboo subject to even speak about.

Once this basic frameline took shape, Sanghamitra Chaudhuri set off on her most ambitious project “Strings of Passion” that is all set to attend the 2nd Gandhinagar International Film Festival (GIFF) this year. The ambitious joint production of Mithuntara Movies with Eon Films & Tri-Color Entertainments deals with the controversial subject of parental upbringing in today's society. It is a youth centric film which tells the story of three boys - Neel, Manu and Amit - essayed by Shubh Mukherjee, Avalok Nagpal and Trishan who in college form a band called Strings of Passion. This band forms the bond between them that keeps them bonded and which forms the crux of the film.

Through the life of these three protagonists who are best friends in college, the film also touches the controversial subject of male rape as one of the protagonists becomes the victim of gang rape and later unable to come to terms with this ghastly incident, ends his life.

A big draw of the film is the evergreen Zeenat Aman in the cast who plays Manu's (Avalok Nagpal) mother while Rajesh Sharma plays Neel's (Shubh Mukherjee) dad. Indrani Halder is Neel’s love interest Insia who comes home with Neel’s dad but finds a connect with Neel because of their similar sad past and enter into a relationship.

Speaking about her role in Strings of Passion, Zeenat Aman says: “It is a good script and my role is crucial to how the story develops. But more importantly, it was the director who convinced me to do the role. I always had a deep respect for woman film makers and this was one more reason to identify and say yes to the project. Passion is the word. I liked her passion. It is passion that pulls me to work these days, not fame or money. And the word figures in the title of the film as well!”

Interestingly, though the film revolves around social issues, there is a hardcore commercial element in the film with six melodious songs of which two are rock band numbers and one is a hip hop club number. While Dev Sikdar along with SaQi has scored the music for this film, editing is by Bodhaditya Banerjee and sound by National Award winning sound engineer Anup Mukherjee. The other cast of the film includes Paru Gambhir, Sangita Sonali and others.

“Strings of Passion” will be screened on September 2nd at the festival and director Sanghamitra Chaudhary will be attending the festival with her team of actors including Indrani Halder, Avalok Nagpal, Sangita Sonali and others as well as Associate Director Bappa Dasgupta and Co-producer Mohan Das of Eon Films. 

14th MAMI announces a New Indian Competition section

The 14th Mumbai Film Festival organised by MAMI will take place from the 18-25 October, 2012 and in the run up to the gala event has begun accepting entries for the much anticipated and New section, the Indian film competition titled "India Gold 2012". This competition has been specially introduced this year by the 14th Mumbai Film Festival to celebrate the 100 years of Indian Cinema and aims at showcasing the best of Indian Cinema. Henceforth this section will become an annual part of the festival. This new competition section will carry total prize money of Rs 15 Lakhs in addition to the Golden and Silver Gateway trophies.

Open to all Indian Filmmakers having made their film post November 2011 and having their Indian Premieres are eligible to apply for this section. This truly special section will be adjudged by a panel of international Jury members, becoming the first Indian Award judged by an International Panel. This initiative comes in addition to the International Competition section offering total prize money of USD 150,000.

The buzz among those wishing to submit their films has already picked up, and is slated to persist until the last day of entry submissions - August 31, 2012. This is one opportunity no budding film maker worth his or her salt would like to miss.

For more information visit: http://mumbaifilmfest.com 

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