NEWS THIS WEEK 

Bachchan, Jackie in Mehul's film
All efforts made by producer-director Mehul Kumar to bring Amitabh Bachchan and Nana Patekar together for his next film have met with failure. He has now launched his new film with Amitabh and Jackie Shroff in the lead roles.

Mrinal Sen to head Mumbai fest
Veteran filmmaker Mrinal Sen will be the chief guest at the inauguration of the Mumbai International Film Festival at the YB Chavan Centre on November 23.

The festival organised by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) will be held from November 24 to 30.

Maharashtra’s chief minister Manohar Joshi will preside over the function.

Intel hosts 'The Creative PC'
Last week Intel hosted an industry event, ‘The Creativity PC’, for the software, film and entertainment industry to showcase the power of Intel’s new high Pentium II processor as a platform to create, edit and playback digital content. The highlight of the event was a demo of A R Rahman’s music video Vande Mataram and Rakesh Roshan’s film Koyla which were created on Digital Versatile Disk (DVD).

According to Ron Whittier, senior vice president Intel and Content Group, general manager, “Intel aims to provide a single affordable hardware platform to create, edit and playback “creative” content such as movie clips, music, advertising and special effects and animations as well as traditional business productivity applications.” This was demonstrated by the screening of Vande Mataram which had the six surround sound effect and high quality visuals. A R Rahman who attended the function said, “Earlier I used to slog for hours in the studios and yet could not hear the low frequencies. With CD there was some consolation but DVD is the best and I am encouraged to produce more music.” Koyla showed the level of interactivity one can achieve with DVD. Classified into four chapters one could go to any chapter or even a chapter within a chapter of Koyla at the click of a mouse. DVD Rom has an incredible capacity to store. A film dubbed in multiple languages can be stored in one disc.

That this platform can be used by fashion designers too was demonstrated by showing Indian models draped in different textiles at a click of the mouse on the menu indicating colours, fabrics, styles etc.

Intel has also set up a visual computing laboratory at National Centre for Software Technology (NCST), an autonomous unit of India’s Department of Electronics.

Intel is the world’s largest chip maker and a leading manufacturer of personal computer networking and communication products. The Intel Asia Electronics, Inc (Intel India) was established in 1988 and since then has been endeavouring to promote the growth of computing technology.

FMC will have three chiefs
Three chairpersons to head different committees of the Film Makers Combine (FMC) were elected at its annual general meeting held in Mumbai recently. While Sultan Ahmed will head the committee liaising with the government and other state and central agencies, Surinder Kapoor will chair the committee dealing with matters relating to the different areas of the film industry. GP Shirke will head the title registration and the workers’ committees.

At the AGM, TC Dewan and Surjit Aujla were elected general secretaries and SK Kapur and Ram Gopal Gupta as treasurers of the newly-elected executive committee.

Shabana enters RS
Shabana Azmi took her oath as a member of the Rajya Sabha on October 27. She was accompanied by her husband, the well-known lyricist and writer Javed Akhtar during the ceremony. Speaking to Screen, Ms Azmi said, “My first priority is to serve the downtrodden and the underprivileged in the society”. Shabana also made it clear that she would not join any political party in her fight.

Sharmila wins two awards
Sharmila Tagore was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and the La Medaille de la Ville de Paris Ministry of Culture — at the screening of Merchant Ivory Productions’ Gaanch (The tree), directed by Catherine Berge and produced by Nayeem Hafizka, before a packed house at the prestigious International Rencontre Film Festival at the Videotheque de Paris on October 18.

Gaanch is a docu-drama based on the life and art of the renowned Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee.

All set for The Oscar
Rahul Anand is all set to go ahead with his late brother Mukul Anand’s project, The Oscar, starring Govinda, which was to follow Dus as a launching pad for his banner Aavishkaar Movietons. “Govinda,” says Rahul, “has reiterated his commitment to my brother and has assured full co-operation.” Anand is in the process of finalising a director to handle The Oscar.

Cousin Tinnu Anand will also make a film for the banner with Sanjay Dutt in the lead.