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Siraj Syed reviews Beiimaan Love: Bed bet
It’s as old as the hills: rich brat leads a virtuous-but-sexy woman down the garden path, discards her like a soiled tissue, roles get reversed, hunter becomes prey, exploited heroine strikes back, lays out an elaborate game-plan, and ‘vengeance is mine’. Would you make a film on this theme with a former porn-star in the central role and her current husband as her comrade-in-arms? Not if you weighed the odds. Yes if you felt that tho...
Siraj Syed reviews Fuddu: Fuddy Duddy Cuddy in the Nuddy
You wouldn’t use this f word if you called yourself a gentleman. In their wisdom, the makers of this misbegotten enterprise have named it Fuddu. Heaven knows why. I cannot recall even one occasion in the film when the word as mouthed, probably because the locale is Mumbai and the characters are all from Varanasi, where the culture is anything but Punjabi. Some Punjabis, and maybe Delhi-ites, who revel in the use of colourful langu...
CommunicAsia 2016: Processing 5.2 Gb/sec--Huawei leads innovation
At the Asia ICT Innovation Forum 2016 organised by Singapore Exhibition Services, and Huawei, as the strategic partner, attended by over 500 regional ministerial representatives, internationally renowned economists and global industry thought leaders and professionals, Huawei outlined its roadmap to accelerate ICT transformation to enable more people in Asia Pacific to reap the benefits of ICT and move tow...
Imagine this: You decide to adapt an Israeli prisoner of war drama for Indian television audiences, and a few weeks before you are scheduled to go on air, there are serious engagements along the country’s border! What is a tragedy for the families of the soldiers killed in action may transform into large scale interest in the serial. POW (Bandi Yuddh Ke, in Hindi, a literal translation) is a STARPLUS production, based on the Israeli hit, Hatufim (literally ‘kidnapped’), writt...
Siraj Syed reviews Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: Ymbrynes and the Deadly Hollows
Bookish and Burtonish, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children scores on many counts: good casting, wide span, consistent allegorical references and even pace. In print, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children has sold millions of copies, been translated into 40 languages, and has spent more than two years on the New York Times best-seller list. It has also been named one of...
Siraj Syed reviews Tutak Tutak Tutiya: Horromedyance
What binds the Tutak Tutak Tutiya team is their south Indian connection. Most of the actors are either native to the lower regions of the country or got their breaks in films made there, before moving to their base to Mumbai. In addition, the story and direction are also credited to names that live there. It is a tri-lingual film though, milking the opportunity, and hoping to kill three birds with one stone. So, you have Devi in Tamil and A...
Siraj Syed reviews The Queen of Katwe: Chess champion comes from Ugandan slums
Madina Nalwanga, the Ugandan teenager who plays the titular role in The Queen of Katwe, was asked after the red carpet at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) what she would like to do next. She replied, “I want to go back to school. And I want to continue with acting and also dancing.” Madina’s native tongue is Luganda, and she had to work very hard to speak the English required for the...
Features, shorts and documentaries, all screenplays welcome; 5 prizes in each category: By Siraj Syed
Nil Production in New York opens a call for its second, top-level international screenwriting competition for feature films, short films and documentaries, in association with Albanian Film Week & Art for Human Rights. The theme of the screenplays should be about freedom and human rights.
It is the brainchild of Mrika Krasniqi, from Kosovo, who was honoured as the “Woman of...
Promise of high resolution and high storage at BroadcastAsia 2016
At BroadcastAsia2016 in Singapore, earlier this year, Promise Technology showcases its enhanced portfolio of products for professionals creating high resolution video and rich media content. It also demonstrated a range of solutions that bring blazing speed to the entire rich media workflow, from ingest and editing, to delivery and long term archiving.
Highlights of Promise’s display included new solutions built around t...
CommunicAsia 2016 exhibitor Lightware appoints Abhishek Bajpai RM Mumbai
Lightware recently announced the appointment of Abhishek Bajpai as Regional Manager, to oversee strategy and field sales operations in Western India Region. Abhishek will play a key role in maximising growth opportunities in West and oversee Lightware’s investments in Mumbai, deepen Lightware’s engagements on the Region, and scale Lightware’s work across different markets.
"Mumbai is a strategic mar...
Cobham showcased award-winning SAILOR 60 GX at CommunicAsia 2016
Cobham, a global organisation with a wide range of aerospace and defence capabilities, with more than 80 years in business, displayed a range of flexible solutions, both commercial off the shelf or niche/specialist products at CommunicAsia 2016, Singapore.
Cobham SATCOM division
· GX Offering – Cobham SATCOM’s established EXPLORER 5075GX terminal for land users and SAILOR 100 GX for ships, is joined by ...
UTEL’s innovative technologies for fibre & copper systems at CommunicAsia2016
UTEL, a leading research and development company for telecommunications systems, showcased its latest technology at CommunicAsia 2016, Singapore, earlier this year. It exhibits the Robo-Cab--an innovative, fully managed automatic direction finder system, designed for the management of copper networks--and its innovative fibre-testing technology, Fast Light.
As a complete copper network management system, ...
by Siraj Syed
If they care, they should reflect. Reflect hard. Empty halls, mismanaged shows and several films with far below par audio-visual quality, do not augur well for the Jagran Film Festival, now in its 7th edition, organised by a media giant, the Jagran Group. Jagran's Vision, as enunciated on its website: Just like the morning sun that dispels darkness and brings warmth to the world, the vision of Jagran is to transform lives through enlightening and enriching experiences. A ste...
by Siraj Syed
June through December is film festival season in India. G5A flagged it off, running though June and July, followed by Jagran in September. October is for MAMI and November for IFFI. The year will end with the Third Eye Asian Film Festival. Of course, these are in addition to many smaller festivals, organised by Consular missions and cultural organisations.
IFFI stands for the International Film Festival of India, the only state-sponsored event, held annually in Goa. Some years ...
by Siraj Syed
It was through the thoughtfulness of a WhatsApp group member that I came to know about a Press Conference being organised on the 29th of September by Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) to announce the 18th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. MAMI is a trust that was formed 19 years ago, and the trustees included Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Shyam Benegal, Amol Palekar and Sudhir Mishra. The reins are now held by Kiran Rao, who is also Mrs. Aamir Khan and Anupama Chopra (journalist, a...
Parched, Review by Siraj Syed: Rani & Lajjo & Bijli & Thelma & Louise’s Rihaee
Get this right. Parched is not a remake. It is a nod to the soul of the 1988 film, Rihaee (Liberation, directed by Aruna Rajé), and a tribute to one of the most discussed climaxes in cinematic history: Hollywood’s Thelma and Louise, a 1991 milestone by Ridley Scott. One film old director Leena Yadav sets her tale in Rajasthan, enlists a youngish cast and a predominantly foreign cr...
The Magnificent Seven, Review by Siraj Syed: Rogue Bogue’s Epilogue
You might say that The Magnificent Seven is not as iconic a Western as some others in the genre, like Stagecoach, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Last Train from Gun Hill, Annie Get Your Gun, Billy the Kid, Shane, the Sergio Leone trilogy, The Alamo, True Grit, MacKenna’s Gold or Cat Ballou. But it is not very far either. For one, it has spawned several remakes, sequels and bootleg versions (including a few Hindi fil...
Raaz Reboot: Exorcise in futility
When the best things in a horror/supernatural film are its songs, it does not augur well. A few days before the release of Raaz Reboot (they use that in the title? I thought ‘reboot’ was a word copyrighted to journalists and IT whiz kids!) the Bhatt threesome—brothers Mahesh and Mukesh and protege Vikram—announced that Raaz 4 (now, that sounds better) would be the last instalment in the series. Foresight for sure. Raaz (Hindi/Urdu for ...
It’s bright, it’s bubbly, it’s racy. It’s flippant, it’s contrived, it’s lengthy. Photocopy is a Marathi language Indian romantic comedy film, produced by singer and first time producer, Dr. Nehha Chandna Rajpal. She, her husband Akash, and Omkar Mangesh Datt, have reworked the Archie-Betty-Veronica fable three times over, to give it a new, contemporary look. What if Betty and Veronica were twins? What if Archie could not tell one from the other? What ...
Wah Taj, Trailer and Preview: Heritage fight
‘Wah’ is an Indian expression, roughly equivalent to the English ‘wow’ or ‘great’. The Taj in the title refers to Taj Mahal, India’s biggest tourist attraction, among the Official New 7 Wonders of the World. It was elected by more than 100 million votes, to represent global heritage, and announced at the Declaration Ceremony, on 07.07.07. Among the many brands the monument has spawned are the Taj group of i...
Golf is not very popular in India. Neither is ice hockey. Cricket is. So you cannot blame Sohail Khan for making these basic changes to the plot of the Adam Sandler film of yesteryear, Happy Gilmore (1996). Sandler was a failed ice-hockey player who gets holed big in golf. It’s 2016. Enter Nawazuddin Siddiqui, a failed male underwear street-vendor who can hit sixers at will, and carries over his tennis ball cricket prowess to the golf course. Freaky? What else? And yes, his name is Ali. ...
Don’t Breathe, Review: Wait Until Bark
“Just because he’s blind, it don’t mean he’s a saint,” says Money. Money is a nick-name, and he’s right about the blind guy. He’s no saint. He’s a Gulf War veteran who lost his eyes in combat. Back home, he’s recently lost his only child, a daughter, to in a car accident, and received $300,000 as settlement of his claim. So, does that deny him sainthood? Hardly! Instead, it makes him a ‘so...
Early on in Ruchika Oberoi’s Island City, an IT company Manager reminds his employees that its temporary tagline, the three words, all beginning with F, do not constitute the company’s ‘motto’. The latter consists of three words beginning with O. Three, just in case you missed the point. She goes on to mount three stories, tenuously linked, based in Mumbai, but not directly about the trials and tribulations of living in a city that once consisted ...
Vidnet 2016: Casting the content net far and vid--Bollywood, Hollywood, and..?
MUMBAI: Bollywood, Hollywood and sports content will certainly get you traction, but ultimately, well thought out differentiated content, partnerships with platforms and targeted audience will not only get the eyeballs, but also return on investment for content creators on OTT platforms.
This was the message that spr5ead itself like a canopy, taking content creators and OTT platform operators under its span, at the ...
CommumnicAsia 2016: Piddock’s Glisser; clients like Microsoft, AMEX, VISA, Bloomberg, UPS: looking for US Business Manager
Micahel 'Mike' Piddock inhabited the U.K. longe at CommunicAsia 2016, Marina Bay Sands Ehibition Centre.Glisser is a London event technology start-up, with a mission to increase engagement and collect more data whenever people come together. The Glisser platform lets users add polls, digital Q&A, analytics, and much more, to any presentation they are giv...
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About Siraj Syed
 Syed Siraj
(Siraj Associates)
Siraj Syed is a film-critic since 1970 and a Former President of the Freelance Film Journalists' Combine of India.
He is the India Correspondent of FilmFestivals.com and a member of FIPRESCI, the international Federation of Film Critics, Munich, Germany
Siraj Syed has contributed over 1,015 articles on cinema, international film festivals, conventions, exhibitions, etc., most recently, at IFFI (Goa), MIFF (Mumbai), MFF/MAMI (Mumbai) and CommunicAsia (Singapore). He often edits film festival daily bulletins.
He is also an actor and a dubbing artiste. Further, he has been teaching media, acting and dubbing at over 30 institutes in India and Singapore, since 1984.
Bandra West, Mumbai India View my profileSend me a message
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