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| Come together: Neel Dutt, Amyt Dutta, Bikram Ghosh and Anjan Dutt record a song for The Bong Connection at Studio Vibrations on Wednesday. Picture by Aranya Sen |
Anjan Dutt wants to make his new film The Bong Connection the first crossover Bengali film. And so he is making sure that the music of his movie is able to bridge the gap between age-old Bangla gaan and the new set of contemporary sounds.
Composed by son Neel Dutt, Anjan plans to use an entire ensemble of music forms for his film starring Shayan Munshi, Raima Sen and Parambrata Chatterjee. So if it will have a lounge version of a Rabindrasangeet sung by Nachiketa, it will also have a jamming jig between Bikram Ghosh and Amyt Dutta.
?There are five songs in the film and they are as different as they get,? explains Neel. ?I don?t think something like this has ever been tried in Bengali film music before.?
The songs, mostly in English, have been written by the father-son duo. Other singers performing on the soundtrack include Shaan and Shreya Ghoshal. The recording got underway on Tuesday at Studio Vibrations on CIT Road. The film shoot will begin from the last week of January.
If there?s one man taking the lead to bring professionalism into Bollywood, it has to be Aamir Khan. Known for his unusual ways of getting into his characters, Aamir is now rubbing off his perfectionism on his co-stars too.
For his latest release Rang De Basanti, Aamir and the rest of the main cast including Soha Ali Khan, Sharman Joshi, Atul Kulkarni, Siddharth and Madhavan actually rehearsed the whole film for an entire month before going on the floors.
The Hollywood film which tried something on these lines was M. Night Shyamalan?s The Village, where the Pondicherry-born director made his entire cast stay in conditions of a 19th century village, without power supply or phones, to get them into their roles.
And now, Aamir and company have done the same for Rakeysh Mehra?s second film after Aks.
Only time will tell whether the film will be able to live up to all the expectations and all this effort.
It all started with a channel war between STAR Plus and Sony. And now it has branched out into another mini battle between STAR Gold and SET MAX, the two movie channels. While STAR Gold claims that it is the most watched film channel in the country, SET MAX has another story to tell.
?You can?t call yourself number one on the basis of one week,? Albert Almeida, executive vice-president and business head of MAX, tells Metro.
So, while STAR has come up with new schemes like triple premiere and super sixer, MAX has its own set of new programmes. Every Sunday, at 1 pm, the channel will be beaming the best blockbusters from its library.
?In 2005, we noticed that the afternoon slot is one time zone which was largely untapped and our percentages grew every month. Our Sunday Houseful has always been popular. So, blending the two, we have come up with this new Sunday afternoon slot,? reveals Almeida.
MAX has also acquired some great blockbusters like Mangal Pandey ? The Rising, Parineeta, Veer-Zaara, and Kaal. It is even set to premiere Iqbal, Dus, Waqt, Tango Charlie and Rakht.
The channel has tied up with the Stardust Awards, thus making it the MAX Stardust Awards, scheduled for later in January.
?It?s going to be one of the biggest and starriest nights of movie and magic,? says Almeida. ?Omung Kumar, the set designer of Black, has chalked out the entire design where the stage will be transformed into Paris?s Moulin Rouge.?
Also taking the MAX brand closer to its viewers, brand ambassador Mandira Bedi will continue visiting different cities and spending time with viewers and their friends and family.
Having already made a splash at many an international film festival, Jahar Kanungo?s Nisshabd is now being invited to bigger festivals across the world. First up is the Palm Springs International Festival followed by the Vesoul International Film Fest in France in the first week of January.
But the big one, according to Kanungo is the Bangkok International Film Festival in mid-February. ?That is the place where Wong Kar Wai was discovered,? he tells Metro.
?I am really excited that Nisshabd has been selected for the competition section there. I am also looking forward to the commercial release of the movie in Bengal sometime before March.?
