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The Echo of India Kolkata Wednesday June 8, 2016
CREATIVE WORLD
Marriage to Ashmit is
still too early: Maheck
NEW DELHI, JUNE 7 /--/ They made their relationship
public on a recent reality show, but actress Maheck Chahal
says she and boyfriend Ashmit Patel are not in hurry to tie
the knot. The "Nayee Padosan" actress said their respective
professional commitments are keeping them busy at the moment. "I think marriage is still too early. We have not completed a year yet so, I can't really say when we will be tying the knot. We both are very fond of each other and have
a great friendship. Our thinking process is quite similar. We
both are busy with our work," Maheck told PTI.
The 37-year-old actress is currently busy shooting supernatural finite series "Kavach...Kaali Shaktiyon Se", which
marks her debut in fiction. "I won't do saas-bahu fiction. But
definitely, I would love to do a character which is interesting. I don't think I would do a daily show at this point of
time. I have done reality shows but not fiction." In the show,
she is playing the main antagonist, an evil spirit, opposite
Mona Singh and Vivek Dahiya. "Vivek and Mona are sweet.
I have a great chemistry with Mona. We immediately started
chatting on the first day. I think it is a Punjabi connection
between me and Mona. Vivek encourages me. There are no
hassles and we all help each other in whatever way we can,"
she said. Maheck opted for the negative role because she
finds such characters more interesting."I think it is more fun
playing a bad girl. I think this is pretty interesting to watch.
This is also one of the reasons I said 'yes' to the role. I have
done a lot of negative roles and when I did my first one in
'Wanted', it was appreciated," she said. Asked if TV is moving
back to the regressive state where they are promoting superstition, Maheck said, "No,I don't think so. People are
making TV shows on each and every subject. It depends on
what you are interested in. Had it not been the case 'Naagin'
would have been a flop show." Produced by Ekta Kapoor,
"Kavach...Kaali Shaktiyon Se" will air on Colors from June
11. (PTI)
Will never work with
Honey Singh : Raftaar
NEW DELHI, JUNE 7 /--/
Rappers Raftaar and Yo Yo
Honey Singh churned out hit
tracks as a part of their group
Mafia Mundeer but the
former says he is no more interested in any collaboration
with "Lungi Dance" hitmaker.
Raftaar and Honey Singh
have been at log gerheads
since March after the latter
took potshots at rapper
Badshah, who used to be a
member of Mafia Mundeer.
When asked if he and
Badshah intend to collaborate with Singh in future,
Raftaar told PTI, "I can only
vouch for myself. Never."
Meanwhile, Raftaar is
ready with his first solo single "Instagram Love" and
though the musician has
been in the business for long
now, he feels this song is the
perfect start to his career as
a solo artist. The 27-year-old
artist has previously worked
with popular music band
RDB. "I was waiting for the
right time to start my solo journey. Before this, I was learning by being part of all the
songs that you know me for.
I am hoping much more from
my journey," he said in an interview.
"Instagram Love" is about
a guy falling for a girl after
looking at her Instagram pictures. It is produced and released by One Digital Entertainment and DNH Artists.
Talking about the inspiration
for the song, Raftaar said,
"Basically this is how the
new generation falls in love.
Gone are the days when people use to meet in parks,
malls etc. Now, it is so easy to
search for somebody on
Instagram and easier to convince yourself that you are
in love." Personally, however,
the young artist does not like
the idea of instant-dating. "I
don't approve of this as you
don't fall for the actual person but the filters that they
add on to themselves but as
they say you can hate it but
you can't ignore it." While fans
and Hindi music film industry have embraced Punjabi
rappers with open arms,
lately people have complained that rap has become
boring and redundant with
most of the songs sticking to
the formula of booze, women
and party.
"I agree but I have never
been the part of most. I have
done songs like 'Allah-Ve' for
Coke Studio, 'Mother Nature', one on women empowerment, which get overshadowed by my own work that
plays in the clubs. Who do
you blame?" The musician
g ave a sneak-peek into his
upcoming projects, which
include one with Oscar-winner A R Rahman. "Lot of singles are planned as a part of
my album, 'Zero to Infinity.
Then there are endless list of
songs with Manj paaji (singersongwriter Manj Musik) and
the rest of the team. "There
are a few Bollywood projects
with the likes of Sachin Jigar,
Pritam Da and The Mighty
AR Rahman sir. (PTI)
Nominations open for children’s authors, illustrators
MUMBAI, JUNE 7 /--/ Authors and illustrators of children's literature in
Indian languages can now take a shot
at winning the 'Big Little Book Award,'
that recognises significant contribution of authors and illustrators of children's literature. Nominations for the
BLB award, instituted by Parag, an initiative of Tata Trusts in association
with Literature Live! The Mumbai
LitFest, is open till June 30 this year
and is seeking nominations from publishers, librarians, academicians and
experts.
The award is in two categories one
for author and the other for illustrator
or artist. "Children's literature and
books have been a neglected category in
Indian publishing, with a handful of
publishers striving to publish stories
that reflect the multicultural and mul-
tilingual world that children grow up
in today," org anisers said. T he BLB
award will recognise authors and illustr ators who have written and illustrated stories "that connect with children, make them laugh, encourage
them to think, introduce them to new
ideas and cultures, are inclusive and
balance the traditional with the contemporary."
In literature, illustrations can tell a
story or add several layers to the text.
"Illustrations need to have humour and
fun because children enjoy that the
most. At the same time they need to address social biases, champion values of
sustainable development, equality of
gender, caste and religion and break
stereotypes," says Swaha Sahoo, who
leads the Parag Initiative. Sahoo says
"many of us grew up reading Western
authors and Russian books. But today,
children's publishing in India is vibrant
and active. We have stories from across
the country, young char acters that
speak to children and reflect our sensibilities and struggles. Childhood in
books is not foreign anymore." The first
award will be given out at the Mumbai
Litfest la ter this year. Anil Dharkar,
Holly films giving Bolly a run for its money
MUMBAI, JUNE 7 /--/ As Bollywood
touches its half-way mark in 2016, the
industry looks back at a rather slow box
office while Hollywood movies stand
tall after causing quite a stir in the
domestic market during last six
months. The biggest example is "The
Jungle Book", which created history
of sorts at the Indian box office. The
live action adaptation of the book of
the same name, released on April 8, a
week before its US premiere to avoid
box office clash with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's "Fan".
As anticipated, "Fan" took a massive opening, the highest this year, at
nearly 19 crore, clocking a whopping
52.35 crore in the weekend and opposed to this, "The Jungle Book" opened
at 10 crores and registered a Rs 40 crore
weekend. The box office for both the
films, however, completely changed
later, with the 50-year-old "Dilwale"
actor's film struggling to reach even 90
crores while the Disney project
zoomed past the 100 crore mark. By the
end of its run, "Fan" made nearly 85
crores while "The Jungle Book" shattered all the previous records held by
any Hollywood film released in India,
earning approximately 183 crores. This
is the highest earning film of the year
so far, beating Akshay Kumar's "Airlift"
which is the biggest Bollywood hit of
2016 so far with 127 crore.
The margin between Bollywood's
highest grosser of the year and "The
Junglebook", that of nearly 60 crores,
is alarming. "The Jungle Book" is not
the only Hollywood film which scored
better at the domestic box office. The
comedy-superhero film "Deadpool",
released alongside Katrina Kaifstarrer "Fitoor" on February 12, fared
better. The Ryan Reynolds-starrer collected approximately 29 crores at the
domestic box office while "Fitoor",
helmed by "Kai Po Che" director
Abhishek Kapoor, managed to collect
a total of nearly 19 crore. One of the
most awaited superhero movies of the
year, "Batman v Superman" opened to
mixed reviews but managed to put up
a total of Rs 36 crore in one week. The
Zack Snyder directed film clashed
with John Abraham' "Rocky Handsome", and easily beat the latter. Animated film "Kung Fu Panda 3" also
clocked impressive collections despite
facing competition from Kareena
Kapoor Khan's "Ki & Ka". The American-Chinese film raked in Rs 32 crore
at the Indian box-office, which was just
nearly 20 crore short of "Ki & Ka",
which made Rs 51 crores. A more prominent example of Hollywood films doing much better business than their
Bollywood counterparts can be seen
with the collections of "Captain
America: Civil War".
The mega-budget superhero action
movie clocked Rs 27 crore in the first
weekend. The film, which starred Chris
Evans, Robert Downey Jr and Scarlett
Johansson, was dubbed in Hindi where
actor Varun Dhawan voiced the character of Captain America. The movie
registered a total collection of approximately 59 crore, which is more than
Priyanka Chopra's "Jai Gangaajal",
Emraan Hashmi's "Azhar" and even
Amitabh Bachchan starrer "Wazir".
Not only this, the recently released
"X-Men: Apocalypse" clashed with
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan-starrer
"Sarbjit" and had a better opening week
than the biopic. The superhero film
clocked Rs 26 crore in its first week
while the Omung Kumar-directed
movie made nearly Rs 22 crore. The
Friday of May 27 saw the release of
three Bollywood films, "Phobia",
"Veerappan" and "Waiting" and one
Hollywood project, "The Angry Birds
Movie". The animated action-adventure comedy earned Rs 9.4 crore in the
opening weekend, more than the combined weekend collection of the three
Bollywood films.
Interestingly, almost all the
Hollwyood films which did better business than Bollywood movies were either
successful franchsie movies or bigbudget superhero projects. Hollywood
movies, which did not boast massive CGI
action pieces, managed to do decent
business at the domestic market like
Alejandro G Inarritu's "The Revenant".
Despite the Academy Award, the
Leonardo DiCaprio-starrer earned a
modest Rs 3.5 crore in its opening weekend in India. There are still many Hollywood big-wigs releasing this year including "Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist", "Suicide Squad", "Fantastic
Beasts And Where To Find Them" among
others. It remains to be seen how much
will these films affect upcoming
Bollywood movies. (PTI)
founder and festival director feels the
Big Little Book Award adds the missing dimension to the popular literature festival. "Due to a variety of reasons, children's book publishing in India still lags woefully behind in the
overall publishing scene.
It was this thought which made
Tata Trusts come up with the idea of
these awards. We at Literature Live!
welcomed the idea immediately and
agreed to make it part of our annual
literary festival," Dharkar said.
"Hopefully, this will encourage writers and illustrators, as well as publishers, to strive for world class quality in future publications," he said.
While nominations from illustrators
fr om all languages are invited, only
authors in Marathi are eligible to be
shortlisted, organisers said. (PTI)
Dwayne Johnson launching
new Youtube channel
LOS ANGELES, JUNE 7 /--/ Seven Bucks Productions, cofounded by Dwayne Johnson and Dany Garcia, this summer will launch a new YouTtube channel in partnership
with Studio71, the digital entertainment company and
multichannel network owned by ProSiebenSat.1 Group.
The new channel, Seven Bucks Digital Studios, will feature
44-year-old Johnson's own videos. The Youtube channel
promises monthly collaborations with top digital talent as
well as an "action-filled" scripted online series, reported
Variety.
"Other than my family, social media is my strongest relationship and it's allowed me to connect on a very direct
and personal level with fans globally," Johnson said. "We're
thrilled to partner with the world-class team at Studio71 to
deliver cool, compelling and entertaining content for audiences around the world to enjoy." Johnson's existing
Youtube channel, which has served as an outlet for trailers
and video from his projects, has about 58,000 subscribers
and has been infrequently updated. The Seven Bucks Productions slate includes movies such as Paramount's
"Baywatch," New Line Cinema's "Shazam," Universal Pictures' "The Janson Directive" and DreamWorks Animation's
"Alpha Squad Seven." The company also produces original
TV series including TNT's "The Hero" and "Wake Up Call,"
HBO's "Ballers" and Spike TV's "Rock the Troops. (PTI)
Hrithik teases fans with
Mangesh unfazed with Vidya ‘Mohenjo Daro’ world
getting attention for ‘Ek Albela’
MUMBAI, JUNE 7 /--/
Popular Marathi actor
Mangesh Desai says he has no
qualms about the spotlight
being on his co-star Vidya
Balan in their upcoming film
"Ekk Albela".
In 1951, Hindi cinema saw a
huge hit in the form of
"Albela" and a star - Bhagwan
Abhaji Palav aka Bhagwan
Dada - was born. Now, 64 years
after 'Albela' and 14 years
after Bhagwan Dada's demise,
a biopic on him is ready for
release. The Marathi film,
titled "Ekk Albela", features
actor Mangesh Desai as
Bhagwan Dada and also
marks the Marathi screen
debut of Vidya Balan, who
will be seen as yesteryear's
actress Geeta Bali in the film.
"I am not worried about
the focus being on Vidya. If
there would have been some
other actress from Marathi
film industry then the film
would have been of the same
level. The film needed a star
like Vidya," Mangesh told
PTI. "She (Vidya) is the USP
of the film and the producers
would have felt it correct to
have her in the film and be
part of promotions. I am
happy and ok that Vidya's
name is used first for this
film," he said. Initially
Mangesh was scared to shoot
with the "Paa" actress.
"I was frightened as she
(Vidya) is the superstar of
Hindi cinema. I thought she
will overpower me and
whether we will have a tuning or not. When I started
working with her I felt she is
down to earth and very warm
and sweet person." Mangesh
revealed he was mesmerised
by Vidya's patience and her
want to be perfect in everything she does on screen. Towards the end of the
shoot, the "Kahaani" actress
gifted an idol of Bal Krishna
to Mangesh. "While giving
the gift, she (Vidya) said rise
like the sun. She liked my
work, it feels great when
someone like her praises
you," he said. For the actor,
portraying the role of
Bhagwan
Dada
was
challenging. "There is not
much information on
Bhagwan Dada, so it was challenging as I had to make sure
it doesn't look caricaturish
or like doing his mimicry,"
Mangesh said. "Dancing was
the most challenging thing
for me. I was confused about
my acting, but dance was a
big challenge," he said.
The biopic is all set to hit
the screens on June 24. (PTI)
MUMBAI, JUNE 7 /--/Actor Hrithik Roshan has
teased his admirers with the
motion poster of his muchawaited epic adventure-romance drama "Mohenjo
Daro". The poster, which did
not unveil either Hrithik or
his leading lady Pooja
Hegde's looks, talks about
the
ancient
city
of
Mohenjo-daro in the era of
the Indus Valley civilisation. "Right guys, here we
go," Hrithik posted on Twitter. "Before the British Raj,
the Mughals, Christ, Alexander, Buddha and India as
we know it, there was...
Mohenjo Daro," the motion
poster reads.
Co-written,
co-produced and directed by
Ashutosh Gowariker, the
film is produced by
Siddharth Roy Kapur and
Sunita A Gowariker. The
facebook page of filmmaker
Ashutosh
Gowariker's states, "Here's
a sneak peek into the world
of
?#?MohenjoDaro?!!!"
Based on romance through
the cultures and ancient
civilisations of Mohenjo
Daro, Gowariker took over
three years to develop the
film with the help archaeologists who documented
the discovery of Indus Valley civilisation. The film
was shot in Bhuj and
Mumbai with short schedules in Jabalpur and
Thane. It is scheduled to release on August 12. (PTI)