A Kisna poster: Trying again Penelope Cruz: Hot as everAmitabh Bachchan: Talk time

n Penelope Cruz is not quite like the average Hollywood star. Yes, she?s been linked to many a hunk and lives the good life in Beverly Hills, but there?s more to this Spanish beauty than meets the eye. Take, for instance, her Calcutta connection. Although Cruz is no longer attached to the Calcutta-based NGO Sabera Foundation, she had sponsored two underprivileged girls from the NGO, even taking them to LA to visit her.

Cruz and fellow Hollywood star and friend Melanie Griffith had launched the American arm of Sabera. But her history with the city dates further back. In 2001, she did voluntary work with Mother Teresa?s home here. Cruz was recently quoted as saying how she wanted to adopt a child she ?fell in love with? during that time.

?When I was in India I tried to adopt because I saw a baby that I fell in love with. But they didn?t let me because I wasn?t married. Something very strange happened, it?s like we recognised each other,? she said. But the star of Captain Corelli?s Mandolin is determined to have a family by the time she?s 35, and is apparently keen to adopt again.

This comes after speculation of her relationship with actor Mathew McConaughey. The couple?s first on-screen pairing can be seen in the film Sahara, now released in the US. Among her upcoming projects is Pedro Almodovar?s next film Volver. The film is set to be shot in Madrid and La Mancha in July.

n Subhash Ghai doesn?t believe in giving up. Kisna couldn?t make an impression on the domestic audience but he still believes it can.

So the English version of the bi-lingual film directed by him and produced under his Mukta Arts banner is setting sail for the Cannes Film Festival and will be showcased in the market section on May 14 and 17. The length has been edited to 1 hour 35 minutes.

Ghai?s mission resurrection does not end with Kisna. He was also invited to the Chicago Film Festival with day-before-yesterday?s Aishwarya-starrer Taal. It was screened in the ?most overlooked films? section of the festival. Film critic Roger Ebert selects a total of 12 films that represent a cross-section of important cinematic works ?overlooked? by audiences, critics and distributors. Ebert brings the films? producers, writers, actors and directors to help showcase these films. This year Taal was chosen as one of the 12 films to be screened and shown on April 24. But Taal, released in 1999, was a hit and went on to celebrate its golden jubilee. So the audiences here certainly did not ?overlook? it. The screening was followed by a Q&A with Ghai and Ebert.

Ghai is also supposed to address about 400 students on the changing trends in Bollywood (the world?s largest film industry), and world cinema.

n Fancy an all-expenses-paid visit to the National Geographic Society in Washington DC? Till May 13, all visitors to the National Geographic Channel-Singapore Airlines microsite, www.ngcasia.com/singaporeair, stand to win a five-day trip to Washington DC. This includes a pair of return air tickets from any point on the Singapore Airlines? network to New York, connecting flights to Washington DC and four nights? hotel accommodation.

Highlights of the trip include the opportunity to take the airline?s record-breaking A340-500 non-stop flight between Singapore and New York, a visit to the headquarters of the National Geographic Society, and a meeting with famed National Geographic Channel photographer Jeff Hutchens. But you?ve got to answer six questions on the website first.

In fact, Jeff Hutchens flew Singapore Airlines to five cities ? Cape Town, Ho Chi Minh City, Melbourne, Shanghai and Zurich ? with Nat Geo?s film crew. The team?s challenge: to capture on camera everything each city had to offer within 24 hours. The result is a series of 120 and 60-second vignettes now showing on the channel in India, among other Asian countries.

The vignettes can also be viewed on the microsite. Visitors to the site can download photographs taken by Hutchens during his trip and send e-cards of the images.

n Talking Movies, BBC?s movie magazine, meets the Big B in the Big Apple this week. Amitabh Bachchan, who was recently in New York to receive a tribute to his career from the American Film Institute, speaks to Tom Brook in an in-depth interview.

?Indian cinema gets recognition overseas because of its unique content? I don?t see any necessity for loosening our morals just to accommodate a new territory,? Bachchan tells Brook in the programme.

Bachchan, who has served as a Member of Parliament, says he would not like to go back to politics. ?I don?t know politics, I just don?t know it... It was an emotional decision, and I (later) felt that emotion really has no place in politics.?

Besides Bachchan bytes, also on Talking Movies director Danny Leiner discusses the emotional impact of September 11 in the drama The Great New Wonderful. Catch it on May 5, 10 pm.

n Black hat, stick in hand and a gait that can only be his ? Charles Spencer Chaplin. The Tramp was the subject of painter Asit Mondal?s sketches that were exhibited at Nandan II, from May 18 to 23. A bunch of around 200 sketches, in pen and ink and colour, revealed Chaplin in several moods from the likes of Modern Times, The Great Dictator and Gold Rush.

?Though children are hugely amused when they see Charlie Chaplin on TV, they know scarce little about him or his films,? says Mondal, who teaches drawing in junior classes at Julien Day School.

Mondal is currently busy drawing Modern Times, The Great Dictator and Gold Rush in entirety so that the works can be compiled as cartoon books.

?I watched DVDs of Chaplins films start to finish, pausing at particular junctures several times to study the different moods,? explains Mondal, who has spent the past two years researching films and books available on Chaplin.