The last place you are expecting a film festival is at a height of over 30,000 feet, a temperature of minus 45 degrees and a journey that is 24 hours long. But this is exactly where Korean cinema and I finally met face to face. Sure, we had heard a lot about each other…err correction: Korean cinema of course had never heard of petty li’l me. I however, had gone almost deaf (or was it the aircraft engine sneezing?) hearing about this latest darling of film festival circuits. Yet, nothing had prepared me for the historic event. Snippets from my first time:

There are a whole lot of actors in Bollywood who have reached heights of fan-following yet they are unhappy people because adulation may not necessarily bring in admiration.

That is why there is a Salman Khan who has millions praying when he goes to court trials but no one speaks about his work. In his films he has been noticed for his rippling muscles that too nobody talks about now because there is competition from John Abrahm, Hritik Roshan, Upen Patel, Ranbir Kapoor and many many more.

There is Dharmendra who is adored by so many yet no awards till not one but two Lifetime Achievement Awards were showered on him.

Same with Rishi Kapoor who was quintessentially the first lover boy of Bollywood

Tendulkar was such a man, who like the ideal teacher for Gandhi, did not just preach lessons, but became the lesson himself. And that is where the greatest contribution of his lay. In the deletion of hypocrisy in his life. In the striving for ‘satyagraha’ - the steadfastness in truth, despite repeated failures. Purists may scoff at this comparison between Gandhian ideals and Ten, who was preoccupied with violence. But to me, there was no greater Gandhian than him, for he not only believed in truth, but lived by the truth, fought for truth and wrote the truth. And violence was the truth he discovered in the times and the society he lived in.

The Oscar Awards list of winners spurred me to watch “No Country For Old Men” last night, just to understand whether it deserved the statuette.

The film’s a racy thriller for the most part… will have you riveted and chewing your nails… and then suddenly it slows down, the film goes into a philosophical tangent… the ruthless psychopathic killer seems almost vulnerable and …

If you think that the films nominated for the foreign category Oscars are the best of the world, you’re wrong. Some of the greatest films of this year didn’t even make it to the nominations. Reasons: some weren’t simply sent by their country as their official entry while others were disqualified for various reasons.

Critics allege that the Oscar juries are markedly conservative in their view, declaring only the widely accepted and politically correct films as winners. That allegation may have some substance as many widely acknowledged masterpieces have not been given the Red Carpet treatment. Films like Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, or Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs failed to generate Oscar buzz in the 1970s.

Taare Zameen Par, unlike 70s Amitabh movies or 90s ‘challenge society and change it’ movies, does not talk about customizing society or using society according to an indivisual’s (or a group’s) need. It talks about rehabilitation, writes Anirban Lahiri
Taare Zameen ParI loved Taare Zameen Par. It is a film rich with messages, challenging dominant social […]

Has the world cinema really arrived in India, Bikas Mishra ponders in the wake of initiatives such as Palador DVD releases and the launch of NDTV Lumiere
NDTV LumiereWatching 13 Tzameti, a Georgian film, in Metro Adlabs theatre of Mumbai, I felt that world cinema has finally arrived in India. From elite groups of film clubs […]