Glitterati

BINGO AT SINGAPORE
DEV BENEGAL’s Split Wide Open, which is currently being screened, bagged two top awards at the Singapore International Film Festival that concluded recently. The film was honoured with a Special Jury Prize for its “bold theme and innovative style.” Its charismatic actor Rahul Bose has also bagged a top honour for his performance as Kut Price in the film.

Dev Benegal is all praise for Rahul Bose. “Rahul deserves this award. His performance in the film was poles apart from what he has done before. He managed to reflect the very spirit of survival of the young Indians in the streets of a large city. I can’t think of anyone else who could have brought so much energy and density to bear on the character of Kut Price,” said Benegal, refusing to take much credit in the success of the film.

DISCOVERING MIND, BODY, SOUL
POET, prophet, philosopher and internationally-renowned guru of alternative medicine, DEEPAK CHOPRA captivated a large audience of Mumbai’s glitterati, including showbiz folk like Sunil Dutt, Yash Chopra, Boney Kapoor, John Abraham, Pritish Nandy, Sanjeev Choudhury, Raageshwari, Alex Kuruvilla and Lilette Dubey.

In a talk presented by BPL Mobile on April 20, Dr Chopra took the audience on an exploration of life, drawing parallels from religion, quantum physics and Newtonian science. Dr Chopra, renowned for revolutionising common wisdom about the crucial connection between body, mind, spirit and healing is known worldwide for his published works and as an international presenter and speaker.

GERMANY, HERE I COME
SHORT filmmaker, GL BHARDWAJ, has been specially invited by the organisers of Oberhausen and Hamburg Film Fests, Germany. This isn’t the first time that Bhardwaj has been honoured thus. For the maker of several award-winning shorts such as Land Of Krishna, Fibre - The Fabric Of Life, Mata Ganga, Yamuna, Melody Of Monsoon, There Are Others and Kanak Rele, has been on the jury of several European and American film fests in the past.
Virtually a one-man enterprise, he produces, directs, shoots, writes and edits all his films. Bhardwaj has made films not only for Films Division, but also for American Broadcasting Company, New York, and WorldWide Television, London.

BOTTOMS UP REVISITED
BHARAT DABHOLKAR’S back. With his new production, Oh No! Not Again. The play premieres at Mumbai’s Sophia Auditorium, on April 29. Dabholkar’s plays, particularly the Bottoms Up series have been record busters of sorts on the Mumbai stage. Bottoms Up even went on to become the longest running play in the history of English theatre in Mumbai.
As with the best of Dabholkar, Oh No! Not Again has both political and social satire, skits, gags, dances and ad jingles galore. But the cast, this time, is new. The two-hour musical written and directed by Dabholkar has the likes of Viju Khote, Bhavna Balsaver, Asif Basra, Kishore Pradhan and Vihang Nayak. Ashvin Gidwani is the producer.

REKHA DOES THE HONOURS
GUESS who was the chief guest at the music release bash for Josh? REKHA was. She brought the noisy guests to a hushed silence with her stately entry, and soon thereafter, had the film’s glamgirls, Aishwarya Rai and Priya Gill in splits with her gags (see pic).

The Venus production, incidentally, is set to release on June 2. Written and directed by Mansoor Khan, the film also stars Shah Rukh Khan and Chandrachur Singh. Post production is now on in full swing. The response to the film’s music is good, with the first copies selling like hot cakes at retail outlets.

Shaju George Alex