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India’s indie studio Platoon One Films has acquired theatrical rights to festival darling “Second Chance,” the directorial debut from Subhadra Mahajan, setting a June 13 release in key Indian metro markets. A trailer has been unveiled.

The black-and-white drama, which world premiered in 2024 in competition at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and had its Asian bow at the 28th Busan International Film Festival, has since traveled to more than 25 festivals worldwide, including AFI Fest, Sao Paulo, and the International Film Festival of Kerala.

“Second Chance” follows 25-year-old Nia who retreats to her family’s summer home in the Himalayas after experiencing significant trauma, where she forms healing bonds with a 70-year-old mountain woman and her mischievous seven-year-old grandson. The film stars Dheera Johnson as Nia, alongside Thakri Devi (Bhemi) and Kanav Thakur (Sunny).

“‘Second Chance,’ like most first features, comes from a very deeply personal space and purpose,...

“Second Chance,” the directorial debut of Indian filmmaker Subhadra Mahajan, has been picked up for international sales by Thailand-based Diversion ahead of its world premiere at the 2024 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film is set to debut on July 2 in the festival’s Proxima Competition section.

The film tells the story of Nia, a young woman from the city who returns to her family home in the western Himalayas after a decade-long absence. Grappling with personal trauma, Nia forms an unexpected bond with Bhemi, an elderly mountain woman, and Sunny, a spirited young boy. As Nia begins to heal, she must confront the demons of her past while striving for a new beginning.

“Second Chance” was developed through various industry programs, including Produire Au Sud Kolkata 2020, Nfdc Film Bazaar Co-Production Market 2020 and the Cannes Marche du Co-Production Day 2021. The film also participated in the Film Independent Global Media Makers...

There are multiple complexities, the other world and darkness always seep into his creations. And that is because National Award-winning filmmaker Bhaskar Hazarika very casually says that he has an extremely bleak view of humanity.

“We are forever ruled strongly by our egos. Why should we assume ourselves to be the most heroic of species only because we have intelligence? This superiority complex has made us destroy so many other beings in the world. Just because we can walk on two legs does not make us special in any way. All these issues guide me when I make films, precisely why my viewpoint is so cynical,” says the director who runs a small studio that just finished its fourth movie. “Now we are making a Hindi horror film as well and an Assamese one too,” he tells Ians.

Hazarika, whose 2019 Indian Assamese-language romantic horror film ‘Aamis’ was called by many...

The first edition of India’s Cinevesture International Film Festival (Ciff) has revealed 20 projects that will participate in its accompanying market.

Comprising 17 features and three series, several of the projects are by creators who have found acclaim both internationally and in South Asia.

From Bangladeshi auteur Mostofa Sarwar Farooki (Busan title “Something Like an Autobiography”) comes Hindi and English-language unconventional romance “To Hell With Love.” Alankrita Srivasttava (Tokyo winner “Lipstick Under My Burkha”) has English and Hindi-language drama “Girls of Orlem,” an adaptation of Lindsay Pereira’s bestselling novel “Gods and Ends.” Gurvinder Singh is prepping Hindi, Punjabi and English-language historical thriller series “The Trial.”

“#Jack” is a thriller film from Bhaskar Hazarika (Tribeca selection “Aamis”), while “Chhaal” (“The Skin”) by Don Palathara (Rotterdam title “Family”) is a folk thriller adapted from a story by Vijayan Detha. “Encounter” by Anurag Singh (the Jatt and Juliet franchise) is a drama-thriller in...

Zee5’s entry into anthology filmmaking has garnered mixed reviews. The stories are weird and interesting at the same time. Lantrani is the name of the film, it tells three stories from three different years and places and talks about many issues at hand in the most satirical manner. Directed by three filmmakers, the stories in the film are quirky takes on health, moral, and social issues, and all of which are presented most realistically.

Spoilers Ahead

Hud Hud Dabbang

The title of the first short film directed by Kaushik Ganguly is a homage to the title song of the cult Salman Khan film Dabangg. The movie was set in 2017, and it was about a policeman at a secluded police station in rural India. He was a day away from retirement, and his last duty was to present the accused at the magistrate court. The journey was long, and there...

Pan Nalin, producer and director of Indian Oscar-shortlisted film “Last Film Show,” has boarded Subhadra Mahajan’s debut feature “Second Chance” as an executive producer.

Mahajan previously served as assistant director on Nalin’s “Echo of Eco,” “Angry Indian Goddesses,” “Beyond the Known World” and “Last Film Show.”

“Second Chance,” now in the final stages of post-production, was launched at India’s Film Bazaar co-production market in 2020, and has participated in labs and development programs including Film Independent Global Media Makers Program 2022, the Cannes market co-production day 2021 and Produire Au Sud Kolkata.

The film follows city girl Nia who visits her family home in the western Himalayas after a decade, in the dead of winter, alone. An illicit abortion paired with a stinging abandonment has broken her spirit. The caretaker of the house departs, leaving his old mother-in-law, Bhemi, a weathered mountain woman, in charge, along with his live wire of a young son,...

The projects will be pitched at South Asia’s largest film market.

India’s Film Bazaar market has revealed the 20 projects selected for this year’s Co-Production Market.

The invited titles originate from 11 countries and will be pitched to producers, distributors, festival programmers, financiers and sales agents at Goa’s Marriott Resort from November 20-24.

The line-up includes projects from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the US, UK, Singapore, Germany, France, Poland, Luxembourg and Israel.

Scroll down for full list of projects

Titles include The Distant Near, directed by UK-based Polish director Rafael Kapelinski who won a Crystal Bear at the...

India’s Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest film market, has selected a range of projects from around the world for its annual co-production market.

The 20 selected projects are from 11 countries, most are already structured as co-productions, and they are all South Asian-themed. From Israel, the Hebrew-language “Raju” by Dror Sabo (“Dead End”), will be produced by Lee Yardeni for My TV Productions (“Nevelot”). Rafael Kapelinski, director of Berlinale winner “Butterfly Kisses,” is at the market with English, German and Hindi-language Germany-India-France-Poland-u.K. co-production “The Distant Near,” produced by Katharina Suckale for Bombay Berlin Film Production (“Loev”).

Hindi-language Germany-Luxembourg-France co-production “Kohinoor,” by Udita Bhargava (Berlinale selection “Dust”), will be produced by Martin Lehwald for Schiwago Film (Berlinale winner “Styx”). Fresh off Busan’s Asian Project Market, feature debutant Aakash Chhabra’s Hindi-language “I’ll Smile in September” will be produced by Sanjay Gulati for India’s Crawling Angel Films and...

Competition titles include Cannes Critics’ Week winner ‘Tiger Stripes’.

South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (Bifan) is set to open its 27th edition with Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid, starring Joaquin Phoenix, and close with the world premiere of Takashi Shimizu’s Sana.

The festival will run June 29 - July 9 with its award ceremony on July 7, followed by the screening of Sana.

Best known for The Grudge, J-horror master Shimizu’s latest film follows the disappearance of an idol group’s members and an eccentric private detective’s investigation into the matter. Shimizu received the Screen International...

Previous projects include Cannes Critics’ Week winner ‘Tiger Stripes’.

South Korea’s Bucheon International Film Festival (Bifan), Asia’s largest genre film festival, has revealed 29 titles from 18 countries for this year’s Network of Asian Fantastic Films (Naff) project market.

The 17 titles selected for the It Project strand include Biraa from Taiwanese writer/director Bhaskar Hazarika, whose transgressive love story Ravening played Tribeca in 2019.

Scroll down for full list

Naff received 279 submissions from 40 countries, up nearly 30% from 217 projects in 2022. One-to-one meetings will take place with producers, investors, and distributors from June 30 to July 3.

This year, Naff will expand its support...

India’s Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest film market, has selected a range of projects from around the world for its annual co-production market, which will be held in-person this year after two years of being online due to Covid-19.

Though the 20 selected projects are from 11 countries, and most are already structured as co-productions, they are all South Asian-themed. Michael Radford, best known for BAFTA and Oscar-winning film “Il Postino,” has Spanish-language Spain-India project “The Princess of Kapurthala,” which he will co-direct with Manuel Estudillo (“Caso Urquijo”). Juan Antonio Casado and Davide Cottarelli of Pok Production are producing.

Gautam Arora’s Hindi and English-language film “The Last Lane” (India) is being produced by Kite Rabbit Films, the production company of Shaunak Sen, whose “All That Breathes” won best documentary at both Sundance and Cannes this year.

Gogularaajan Rajendran’s Tamil and Malay-language project “Depth of Darkness” is being produced...

Leading indie film project market, the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum has revealed a selection of 28 titles for its twentieth edition and confirmed that it will be held online for the third time in a row.

“Unfortunately, we won’t have the opportunity to celebrate our 20th anniversary by hosting our usual in-person event due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions,” Hkiff industry director Jacob Wong said. “Nevertheless, based on experience gained from the last two years, we will strive to improve our online booking and meeting system to make it a breeze for all participants.”

The market will operate March 14-16, 2022, alongside the 26th edition of rights market Hong Kong FilMart (March 14-17.)

The market contains a familiar mix of experienced hands and newcomers. Among the well-established producers and directors with projects selected are: Huang Ji (2021 Rotterdam festival winner “Egg and Stone”); Hong Kong’s Jun Li...

The selection includes eight Hong Kong projects and the first-ever Thai-Muslim horror

The Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (Haf) has announced 28 in-development projects for its 20th anniversary edition.

All are fiction projects, including eight from Hong Kong, 12 debut features and projects spearheaded by renowned filmmakers and producers including Huang Ji, Jun Li, Tetsuya Mariko, Ida Panahandeh, Michael J. Werner, Fruit Chan, Nonzee Nimibutr, Yang Chao and Jane Zheng.

For the third year in a row, Haf will run online from March 14-16 alongside the 26th edition of Hong Kong Filmart.

“Unfortunately, we won’t have the opportunity to celebrate our...

Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest co-production market, has joined hands with the Cannes Film Market to present seven projects looking for co-producers and financiers on July 9.

Film Bazaar, an annual event that takes place in Goa, India, is organized by the country’s National Film Development Corporation (Nfdc). The selected projects are the ones that attracted the most meetings at the Bazaar’s January online edition.

The projects include “Dengue” by Prantik Basu, produced by Basu and Jan van der Zanden, where a feverish romance plays out between two men as a tropical virus develops. Basu’s “Bela” played at Rotterdam and Visions du Réel, Nyon International Documentary Film Festival.

“Rasa” (Immerse) by Anjali Menon (India), produced by Menon and N.P. Prakash is a dance-based film. Menon is one of India’s most commercially successful filmmakers whose credits include “Bangalore Days” and “Koode.”

“Kuhiro Pariko Sahar” (A Hidden Tale...

The 19th edition Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles has announced an expanded virtual lineup of shorts and narrative and documentary features after canceling 2020’s event due to the pandemic and lockdown.

Taking place from May 20 to May 27, the Iffla boasts 40 films spanning 17 languages, with 16 women directors.

The festival will open with Ajitpal Singh’s “Fire in the Mountains,” which immerses audiences in the splendor of the Himalayas, and close with Akshay Indikar’s “Sthalpuran (Chronicle of Space),” which explores the inner life of its young protagonist, Dighu. Singh and Indikar’s films will be followed by Q&As with Asif Kapadia and Anurag Kashyap, respectively.

Special programs include “Childhood on Edge,” curated by Uma da Cunha; a panel featuring South Asian showrunners; and a screening of Prakash Deka’s “Fireflies” followed by a panel on transgender and non-binary representation in India and the diaspora.

Iffla’s feature lineup includes...

Film Bazaar, South Asia’s largest co-production market, has revealed 21 eclectic projects from several countries and in a welter of languages, for its 2021 online edition.

The selected filmmakers will pitch their projects virtually to a curated audience of Indian and international producers, distributors, festival programmers, financiers and sales agents at an open pitch session. This year, Film Bazaar has also collaborated with the French Embassy in India which will be sponsoring the French Institute Award for one market project.

As is the usual case, the projects are a mix of festival favorites and debutants.

From India, Berlinale title “Eeb Allay Ooo!” editor Tanushree Das and Rotterdam title “Nasir” cinematographer Saumyananda Sahi make their directorial debuts with Bengali-language “Baksho Bondi” (aka “How Long Is Tomorrow?”), produced by Naren Chandavarkar (Rotterdam Fipresci winner “The Bangle Seller”); Tamil-language “Bommainayagi” (aka “Queen Doll”) by debutant Shanawaz Nizamudeen, produced by Pa. Ranjith, director of Rajinikanth...

Line-up includes new projects from Onir, Anjali Menon, Shyam Bora and Haobam Paban Kumar.

Film Bazaar, organised by India’s National Film Development Corp (Nfdc), has announced the 21 projects selected for the Co-production Market (Cpm) of its 2020 edition, which will take place online next month after being postponed from its usual November slot.

The line-up includes projects in 17 South Asian languages originating in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, as well as co-productions with Canada, China, Netherlands and France.

International collaborations include Onir’s We Are, co-produced by India’s Anticlock Films and Canada’s Fae Pictures; India-Netherlands collaboration Dengue,...

Film FestivalA special package by editor Bina Paul, master classes by directors Anjali Menon and Dibakar Banerjee are included in the festival.Tnm StaffBina Paul / Photo courtesy - idsffk.inThe seventh edition of the Urban Lens Film Festival will be held online, from December 1 to 6. The international film festival that brings together filmmakers, academics and urban practitioners for conversations on cinema and the urban experience, is held in association with The Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan and the Danish Cultural Institute. The festival is curated by Indian Institute for Human Settlements (Iihs) Media Lab. In six years, it has presented films from 35 countries and 30 languages. This year, the festival will feature films from 17 countries in 18 languages. There will be a special package called ‘Works of Art are Landscapes of the Mind’, curated by renowned editor and vice chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, Bina Paul. The films from around the...

The Indian Film Festival Los Angeles will kick off not with a new film, but what is billed as An Evening With Imtiaz Ali, the writer-director of such films as “Jab We Met” and “Rockstar.” He will be joined for an onstage conversation with filmmaker Anurag Kashyap. A screening of Ali’s 2014 film “Highway” will then unspool. The opening night gala presentation takes place April 1 at ArcLight Hollywood.

“The MisEducation of Bindu,” directed by Prarthana Mohan and produced by Mark and Jay Duplass, will close the festival on April 5. In between, a bevy of international film festival hits from Tribeca and SXSW to Venice and Toronto will screen including Bhaskar Hazarika’s “Aamis,” Arati Kadav’s “Cargo,” Alankrita Shrivastava’s “Dolly Kitty and Those Twinkling Stars,” Gitanjali Rao’s animated “Bombay Rose” and Geetu Mohandas’ Malayalam-language “Moothoon.”

There will also be an array of documentaries and shorts playing during the festival,...

Pushpendra Singh’s ’The Shepherdess And The Seven Songs’ won the Vkaao Wip Lab Award.

Natesh Hegde’s Pedro and Ajitpal Singh’s Swizerland were presented with the Prasad Lab Di Award and Moviebuff Appreciation Award at the close of Film Bazaar, organised by India’s National Film Development Corporation (Nfdc), on Sunday night.

The two projects were selected from the five that participated in Film Bazaar’s Work-in-Progress (Wip) Lab. Prasad Lab Di and Moviebuff Appreciation Awards were also presented to one incomplete project in the Film Bazaar Recommends section – Where Is Pinki?, from Prithvi Konanur.

The awards include...

It is in the fitness of things in this bizarre but persuasive exposition on flesh-eating obsessions, that the search for love, or for a 'meet', merges into a growing obsession with meat that finally culminates in a horrific crime that is repugnant and in many ways, deeply offensive.

"Aamis" is not what it initially seems to be. A sweet love story set in a strangely stress-free Gauwhati, between a wide-eyes innocent young man Sumon (Arghdeep Baruah) and a slightly older married doctor and mother Nirmali (Lima Das), whose husband is frequently out of town?too frequently , for things to remain as equanimous as they seem.

Writer-director Bhaskar Hazarika is unusually adept at capturing the sounds, sights and smells of workaday existence? the rhythms of normalcy are captured in all their stripped-down fidelity by a camera and sound design that know their way around the characters. Hazarika constructs a case for a budding beautiful,...

The first trailer for Assamese director Bhaskar Hazarika's genre-defying Aamis (Ravening) has appeared online and it teases a love stoy unlike any you've ever seen. A young graduate student, played by newcomer Arghadeep Baruah, in the northeastern Indian state of Assam falls in love with an older married doctor (Lima Das), but their passion remains chaste apart from a series of increasingly intimate meals. When the young man comes up with a uniquely disquieting way of getting the kind of closeness he craves but cannot have, their forbidden romance takes a gruesome turn. Following its critically acclaimed world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this spring, Aamis has played at numerous festivals around the world, recently having its official Indian premiere at this year's Mami...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

by Shounak Majumdar

During my stint in Mami, I met the curated India Gold section which pulsated in a new lease of energy that came out from the suffocated mainstream. India Gold focuses on the newer trends of Independent cinema across India. It portrays how the line between fiction and non-fiction is gradually blurring. From private financers to co-production market, India Gold curation was the manifestation of the changing ways of production in Indian Independent Cinema. Curated thoughtfully by veteran Deepti DCunha, professor Ratheesh Radhakrishnan and film critic Aswathy Gopalaskrishnan, India Gold presents us a tour of India where industrial power centres are slowly dissolving to the periphery.

Here is a collection of reviews of the ten films that I have seen in India Gold, Mami.

Aamis: Meet the ‘meat film’ of the year

Director Bhaskar Hazarika presents us with a very familiar milieu yet with a very unusual story concerning desire.

There are different types of love theories and in the Assamese (Indian) movie “Aamis”, director Bhaskar Hazarika deals with the mix of “Ludus” or playful love and “Mania”- the obsessive love in an unusual narrative. The narrative starts as a normal soft love story but with time changes to a weird but interesting plot which is masterly handled by the director.

Nirmali (Lima Das), a middle aged lady, a doctor by profession meets young PhD student Sumon (Arghadeep Baruah). Nirmali is married but her husband is inattentive and always busy with his assignments. Attracted by the youthful presence of Sumon, Nirmali falls in his love and the narrative turns towards an extramarital relationship. Sumon is a researcher of meat eating (Non-vegetarian) masses and Nirmali gets more close to him for her fascination towards different types of meat. But with time, Nirmali engrosses into the taste of meat and she...

A strong selection of Indian films is among the highlights of the 21st Mumbai Film Festival. The festival, which runs Oct. 17-24, announced its lineup on Thursday.

The festival’s Spotlight strand boasts of five world premieres, including Arati Kadav’s much awaited sci-film “Cargo,” actor Seema Bhargava Pahwa’s directorial debut, the family drama “Ram Prasad Ki Tehrvi,” Deepti Gupta’s document of a female artist’s fight for equality in modern India “Shut Up Sona,” Kamal Swaroop’s portrayal of a theatre troupe staging a mythological play “Samudra Manthan” and R.V. Ramani’s “Oh That’s Bhanu.” The strand also includes Goutam Ghose’s “The Wayfarers” that has its world premiere at the Busan International Film Festival.

The Mumbai festival’s India Gold competition features further Busan titles, Gurvinder Singh’s “Bitter Chestnut” and Kislay’s “Just Like That,” and Gitanjali Rao’s hand drawn animation festival favourite...

Media Luna New Films has sold South Korean rights for comedy-drama “522. A Cat, a Chinese Guy and My Father” to Laon-i at Cannes.

The film tells the story of George, an agoraphobic young woman who can’t walk more than 522 steps from her home. One day, her cat forces her to embark on a trip from Spain to her native Portugal. Along the way, George’s whole world starts to open up.

The film is directed by Paco R. Baños and was produced by Angel Tirado for Tarkemoto in Spain, and co-produced by Pandora da Cunha for Ukbar Films in Portugal. It stars Natalia de Molina.

In the run-up to Cannes, Media Luna closed a deal for “Likemeback” with Alamode for the German-speaking territories. The Locarno premiered Italian film was directed by Leonardo Guerra Seràgnoli and produced by Ines Vasiljevic for Nightswim, and co-produced by Indiana Production.

Recent additions to...

Though Indian cinema drew a blank at the Cannes official selections and sidebars, the country has a sizable presence at the Market, with more than 40 films in various stages of progress represented, and many more via the India Pavilion.

Saurav Rai, whose short “Gudh” (Nest) was a selection at the Cinefondation section in 2016, returns to Cannes with his debut feature “Nimtoh” (Invitation). Part of the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum Goes to Cannes program, the film follows a boy and his grandmother who are excited about an upcoming wedding in their remote mountain village.

Fresh off its world premiere at Tribeca, Bhaskar Hazarika’s tale of forbidden passions “Aamis” (Ravening) is represented at the Market by German sales outfit Media Luna.

The Maharashtra Film, Stage and Cultural Development Corp. is a regular presence at the Market and this year it is showcasing three films: veteran Sumitra Bhave’s “Dithee” (Seeing...

Indian horror films never used to make it to festivals and their fans seemed destined to be local. But a few hardy pioneers like director Bhaskar Hazarika have cleverly pushed the genre limits into art house territory. His first feature, the finely made and imaginatively conceived Kothanodi, was a collection of horrific folk tales centered on women. Ravening (Aamis) makes an intense follow-up in its exploration of female desires and appetites, though its realistic approach is quite disconcerting and the third act is guaranteed to turn many viewers into vegetarians. This cautionary tale about the horrible places amour fou can lead adventurously ...

Indian horror films never used to make it to festivals and their fans seemed destined to be local. But a few hardy pioneers like director Bhaskar Hazarika have cleverly pushed the genre limits into art house territory. His first feature, the finely made and imaginatively conceived Kothanodi, was a collection of horrific folk tales centered on women. Ravening (Aamis) makes an intense follow-up in its exploration of female desires and appetites, though its realistic approach is quite disconcerting and the third act is guaranteed to turn many viewers into vegetarians. This cautionary tale about the horrible places amour fou can lead adventurously ...

Set in the far northeastern Indian state of Assam, Bhaskar Hazarika's sophomore feature Aamis (Ravening) is a film unlike anything you've ever seen. A forbidden love story between a man and a woman separated by perhaps a dozen years, several class strata, and a provincial conservative native culture, Aamis takes that pressure to conform and harnesses it into an exotic gem that is one of the most entrancing amour fou stories in recent memory. Sumon (Arghadeep Baruah) is a PhD candidate who has taken a passion for fine, exotic foods and used it to design a thesis based on the meat-eating habits of the natives of the northeast of India. One day he stumbles into the path of the beautiful Nirmali (Lima Das), a married local pediatrician...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

One of the most exciting world premieres taking place at this year's Tribeca Film Festival in New York is Assamese director Bhaskar Hazarika's sophomore feature, Aamis (Ravening). Hazarika previously made a huge impression with his folk horror anthology Kothanodi (River of Fables), which premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2015, and he returns with another dark tale, but this time it's a very different kind of film, but perhaps even more disturbing. Even India's godfather of indie cinema, Anurag Kashyap has weighed in on Aamis — Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap72) April 19, 2019 Aamis is a story of star-crossed lovers carrying on a physically chaste, but emotional intimate affair in the northeastern Indian state of Assam. While they dare not cross the line to...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Peter Strickland’s In Fabric among inaugural Tribeca Critics’ Week sidebar.

New work from Werner Herzog, the directorial debut of Christoph Waltz and a documentary about the late Inxs front man Michael Hutchence are among the line-up at the 18th Tribeca Film Festival presented by At&T, which includes the inaugural Tribeca Critics Week.

Unveiling the programme on Tuesday (5), festival brass noted that female directors account for half of the three competition strands. The feature programme includes 103 films from 124 filmmakers, of whom 42 are first-timers, and 19 return to Tribeca.

Some 40% of the feature films have one or more women directors, 29% are directed by people of color,...

Bhaskar Hazarika’s “Ravening” (“Aamis”) won the Facebook award for the project with the most buzz at the Film Bazaar Recommends strand at the annual Film Bazaar in Goa, India. The award is calculated on audience votes and number of visits to the film at the Bazaar’s viewing room. The project gets $10,000 worth of advertising on Facebook.

“Aamis” previously featured in the 2017 Asian Project Market at Busan. Hazarika’s debut “The River of Fables” had considerable festival play in 2015, including Busan, London and Gothenburg.

Prateek Vats’ “Eeb Allay Ooo!” won the Facebook award for best film at the Bazaar’s work in progress lab. The lab also features awards from Prasad Labs that offers free digital intermediate process for winning films, free mastering of Dci compliant DCPs from Moviebuff, and $3000 worth of trailer promotion in 300 Qube cinemas. Saurav Rai’s “Nimtoh” (“Invitation”) and Jadab Mahanta’s “Rukuni Koina” (“The Holy Bride”) won these awards.

Strange Old Lady, Ravening and Eeb Allay Ooo! also picks up awards from Prasad, Qube and Facebook.

Saurav Rai’s Invitation and Jadab Mahanta’s The Holy Bride were both presented with Prasad Post-Production & Moviebuff Appreciation Awards in the Works-in-Progress Lab at this year’s edition of Film Bazaar.

Invitation (Nimtoh), a Nepalese-language drama, tells the story of a ten-year-old village boy who upsets his grandmother by trying to get invited to a wedding within a wealthy family. Assamese-language The Holy Bride (Rukuni Koina) revolves around a girl who suffers social stigma due to a disease that prevents her from entering puberty.

Selection includes films from Siddiq Barmak, Yoon Gaeun and Min Bahadur Bham.

In South Korea, the Busan International Film Festival (Biff)’s Asian Project Market (Apm) has announced 28 titles from 17 countries for this year.

The 20th Apm’s selection includes projects from Golden Globe best foreign language film award winner Siddiq Barmak (Osama) and Berlinale Generation director Yoon Gaeun (The World Of Us).

Afghan filmmaker Barmak’s Georgia-France co-production The Pass is a wartime drama about two soldiers from opposite sides who are forced to cooperate in order to cross a dangerous mountain pass alongside refugees.

Korean director Yoon’s Sora is a drama about a middle school girl who finds out a secret about the new kid in the neighborhood.

According to organizers, the number of projects submitted to Apm this year went up “almost 25%” from the previous year to reach 317. In the 19 previous years, “a total of 499 projects have been selected with more than 220 of...

Far from the hustle and bustle of India's big film industries in Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad is the western state of Assam. This state borders China to the north, and stretches almost all the way to Myanmar in the west. Running all the way through Assam is the holy Brahmaputra river, one of largest in the world, and a source of culture, legend, and fable for hundreds of years. This river connects this far flung region to the bustling metropoli of Dhaka in Bangladesh where it intersects with the holy Ganges. In Bhaskar Hazarika's Kothanodi, this is the River of Fables, and it provides the backdrop for a quartet of dark tales that existed from time immemorial. It is worth noting that Assam is not...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

The New York Indian Film Festival (Nyiff) announced the full lineup last night for their 16th year of celebrating independent, art house, alternate, and diaspora films from/about/connected to the Indian subcontinent (May 7 – May 14). Dedicated to bringing these films to a New York audience, the festival will feature 40 screenings (35 narrative, 5 documentary) –all seen for the first time in New York City. In addition, the festival will also feature five programs of short films.

The festival highlights various cinemas of India’s different regions. All the films are subtitled in English and some of the languages this year include Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telegu, Assamese, Haryanavi and Urdu. This year’s festival will feature a couple of sidebars –Nfdc restored first films of filmmakers and a three-generations sidebar, films of Bimal Roy, Basu Bhattacharya and Aditya Bhattacharya.

The festival’s film lineup includes 2016 National Award winners A Far Afternoon,...

Mumbai, Oct 22: Mumbai Film Mart (Mfm) has earned appreciation for providing a platform to aspiring filmmakers to present their under-production or completed films to international buyers and festival programmers, but it also poses challenges to independent filmmakers.

Bhaskar Hazarika, currently working on an under-production Assamese supernatural thriller, said Mff logically makes sense.

"I think it's a logical idea because somebody is looking to sell something and somebody has come all the way from China to buy it," Bhaskar said.

He, however, says there are few challenges as well.

"While dealing with.