Tagore for Bollywood

Ujwal Chatterjee of Escape from Taliban fame is now making a film based on Rabindranath Tagore’s 1928 novel Sesher Kobita. Jackie Shroff has been signed on to play a freedom fighter, akin to his role in Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 1942: A Love Story. Kunal Kapoor, Ashmit Patel, Anuj Sawhney and Rituparna Sengupta have been roped in for major roles in the Rs 45-crore film to be shot in London, Shimla and Calcutta extensively.

Meter down again

The Taxi No 9211 team of John Abraham and Nana Patekar is back. And this time the duo is trying to kick the butt with a film called No Smoking produced by Kumar Mangat. The film is being directed by Anurag Kashyap. What Kashyap already has in his bag is an unreleased Paanch and an almost ready Gulal. Mangat’s mentor Ajay Devgan, however, could not be a part of the film as he is one of the major exponents of the art of smoking. He could possibly play a chimney.

Attracting Bollywood

Countries kissing Malaysia’s borders are now attracting Bollywood film makers. Kulbhushan Gupta who made a film called Police Officer and has been the public relations person for films like Karz has signed on a $1 million deal to shoot a film at Sarawak. Many countries want a piece of Bollywood and they don’t mind spending a few dollars for that. Bulgaria is another destination. Vinod Khanna is shooting in Sofia with a team of 80 people for yet another take on the Godfather.

Digital lab for IPTV

Time Broadband Services, the company that has set up Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd’s internet protocol TV (IPTV) project in Delhi, is now ready to set up a digital lab in Mumbai. Company managing director Sujata Deb says that the digital centre, which will re-format analog content for IPTV, is being set up at an approximate cost of $5 million. Films, television shows, music videos, soap operas and the like will be turned here into a digital format (MPEG 4) and made IPTV-ready. Time Broadband Services feels that as a content aggregator for IPTV, it needs to have its own digital laboratory.

Bengali bouquet

Channel Four’s much- awaited annual Indian film season has kicked off this year with Ritwik Ghatak’s classic Meghe Dhaka Tara. The season, put together by documentary film maker Nasreen Munni Kabir, is focussing on Bengali cinema from both India and Bangladesh and has a special tribute to Bimal Roy and Yash Chopra. Discovering Ritwik Ghatak includes his classics like Subarnarekha, Titash Ekti Nadir Naam and Komal Gandhar. The films from Bangladesh include the award-winning Matir Moyna by Tareque Masud and Ontorjatra by the same director. The Bimal Roy package covers such classics as Devdas, Madhumati, Do Bigha Zamin, and Parineeta. The World of Yash Chopra will screen some of his all-time favourites like Dil To Pagal Hai, Veer Zaara, Lamhe, and Bunty Aur Babli.