Latest news with #India-set
India Gazette
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- India Gazette
Teaser of Uttera Singh's feature debut 'Pinch' unveiled
ANI 29 May 2025, 23:54 GMT+10 New Delhi [India], May 29 (ANI): The teaser of Uttera Singh's feature directorial debut 'Pinch' has been uneviled. The India-set mother-daughter dramedy, which Singh wrote, directed, produced and stars in, is all set to be screened at Tribeca Festival under Tribeca's International Narrative Competition. Interestingly, 'Pinch' has become the first Indian film to compete in the section in three years. In the film, Singh plays 'Maitri, a travel vlogger living with her traditional mother Shobha (Geeta Agrawal) in a tight-knit apartment complex. When an incident during a community pilgrimage gets swept under the rug, the mother-daughter duo must confront the emotional aftermath in a claustrophobic reckoning with truth, tradition, and the price of silence.' Speaking about the project, Singh said, 'In telling this story, I wanted to make a big deal out of what society often dismisses as 'small. There's a darker version of this film, but I leaned into comedy and energy to spark conversation - and to reflect the absurdity of silence around assault. 'Pinch' doesn't pretend to have answers. It insists on the questions.' Sunita Rajwar, Sapna Sand, Badri Chavan, Rajiv Neema, Jahnvi Marathe and Nitish Pandey are also a part of the film. (ANI)
See - Sada Elbalad
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- See - Sada Elbalad
"Citadel" Spinoffs "Honey Bunny" & "Diana" Canceled, Will Be Woven Into Season 2 of Mothership Series
Yara Sameh 'Citadel' spinoffs 'Honey Bunny' and 'Diana' will not be moving forward as individual series at Prime Video. Instead, their storylines will be woven into the second season of the mothership series 'Citadel,' which is set to premiere next year. The India-set 'Honey Bunny' and Italian series 'Diana,' both executive produced by the Russo Brothers, followed different sects of the powerful Citadel spy agency for which the show is named. 'While these successful and widely enjoyed international chapters will not continue as individual series, Season 2 of 'Citadel' will be our most exhilarating yet,' Amazon MGM Studios head of television Vernon Sanders said in a statement. 'With high-stakes storytelling, new additions to our amazing cast and bold, cinematic ambition, the new season will deepen the emotional journeys of Nadia, Mason and Orlick against the relentless force that is Manticore. We're excited to share what's next when 'Citadel' Season 2 premieres globally in Q2 of 2026.' The logline for 'Citadel' Season 2 reads: 'One month after the events of the first season, we find our Citadel spies underground, as they're being hunted by Manticore agents around the world. They're pulled out of hiding to join forces with a new team of unconventional spies when Manticore's Brazilian billionaire Paulo Braga threatens to unleash a cataclysmic piece of technology, built by Citadel's own Bernard Orlick, into the world.' 'Citadel' stars Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Stanley Tucci, and Lesley Manville among its main cast. The cancellations come despite reported success for both of the spinoffs, with 'Honey Bunny' becoming Prime Video's most-watched series worldwide during its first weekend of release in November and 'Diana' debuting as the streamer's best-launching Italian original in October. They also follow the departure of Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke, who shepherded the idea for the series and its global expansion. 'Citadel' not becoming the pop culture phenomenon Amazon expected could have contributed to her exit. read more New Tourism Route To Launch in Old Cairo Ahmed El Sakka-Led Play 'Sayidati Al Jamila' to Be Staged in KSA on Dec. 6 Mandy Moore Joins Season 2 of "Dr. Death" Anthology Series Don't Miss These Movies at 44th Cairo Int'l Film Festival Today Amr Diab to Headline KSA's MDLBEAST Soundstorm 2022 Festival Arts & Culture Mai Omar Stuns in Latest Instagram Photos Arts & Culture "The Flash" to End with Season 9 Arts & Culture Ministry of Culture Organizes four day Children's Film Festival Arts & Culture Canadian PM wishes Muslims Eid-al-Adha News Egypt confirms denial of airspace access to US B-52 bombers News Ayat Khaddoura's Final Video Captures Bombardment of Beit Lahia Lifestyle Pistachio and Raspberry Cheesecake Domes Recipe News Australia Fines Telegram $600,000 Over Terrorism, Child Abuse Content Arts & Culture Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban's $4.7M LA Home Burglarized Videos & Features Bouchra Dahlab Crowned Miss Arab World 2025 .. Reem Ganzoury Wins Miss Arab Africa Title (VIDEO) Sports Neymar Announced for Brazil's Preliminary List for 2026 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers News Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly Inaugurates Two Indian Companies Arts & Culture New Archaeological Discovery from 26th Dynasty Uncovered in Karnak Temple Arts & Culture Arwa Gouda Gets Married (Photos)
The Guardian
16-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Sister Midnight review – deliciously macabre Mumbai marriage-gone-wrong black comedy
This chewy, macabre, deliciously odd feature from British director Karan Kandhari is quite the palate cleanser. A UK-financed, India-set comedy that's as sticky and dark as congealed blood, Sister Midnight is a bold, defiantly feral and immensely entertaining portrait of a newlywed bride who finds herself singularly ill-suited to her arranged marriage. The central character, Uma, is brought to angular, abrasive life by a sublime turn from Radhika Apte, a star in mainstream Bollywood cinema who co-starred with Dev Patel in Michael Winterbottom's The Wedding Guest (2018). Sister Midnight is a movie with a big personality; film-making that doesn't just break the rules, it seems blissfully oblivious to the fact that there even are any. I have no idea how it got through the meat-grinder, low-budget production process that generally seems designed to smooth down the edges and remove any interesting gristle from a finished film, but I couldn't be happier that it did. Not all of the big swings and risks pay off, but there's not a moment here that feels safe or creatively compromised. Every deranged frame is to be cherished. Former music video director Kandhari's background feeds into his idiosyncratic vision and broad influences for the film, which premiered to acclaim in Cannes last year and was nominated for four British Independent Film awards (Bifa) and the Bafta for outstanding British debut (it lost out to Kneecap). Born in Kuwait – his family left after the outbreak of the Gulf war – and shaped by wide-ranging cinematic tastes, Kandhari has a magpie eye that brings fresh blood (lots of it) to Hindi-language independent cinema. Emphatically carved into distinct vignettes, Sister Midnight has a punchy energy that's driven by assertive editing, the score (more of which later) and Uma's simmering fury. A skilled physical comedian, Apte gives a performance that is an endlessly expressive marvel. Long before a single line is spoken we get into the skin of this rattled, shell-shocked young woman, newly arrived in the buffeting scrum of Mumbai from her provincial village. Kandhari chooses to focus on visual storytelling rather than relying on the spoken word. This succeeds on several levels. The sparse dialogue – the first 10 or so minutes are pretty much silent, the conversations between husband and wife rarely more than cursory – emphasises Uma's sense of isolation and otherness in her new life. It also gives Apte the space to showcase her remarkable, almost Keatonesque ability to mine the comedy in even the most insignificant gesture. She holds her body awkwardly, arms rigid in their shackle-like ceremonial wedding bangles, shoulders coat-hanger tense. It's as though the unfamiliarity of her status as a married woman has seeped into her physicality, and she's ill at ease in her own body. Later, when she gains confidence and starts to walk around the city, each furious, stomping footstep feels like a reproach to her drunken, disappointing husband. The full extent of Uma's aversion to married life becomes clear after an audacious swing in tone and plot. Let's just say that the only pleasures of the flesh that hold any appeal to her come courtesy of the live creatures – an assortment of birds, some larger animals – she chomps and drains of their blood, like feathered juice boxes. That her victims have a tendency to come back to life – rendered through appealing, glitchy stop-motion animation – adds further grisly eccentricity to the story. There's a passing similarity with Ana Lily Amirpour's Iranian vampire movie A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, but Sister Midnight is weirder, wilder, funnier and ultimately more optimistic. This is a portrait of a woman who is rejected and pilloried for her inability to fit into society's expectations of submission and passivity (the vampiric tendencies don't help matters either), but who eventually finds friends and supporters in fellow outcasts, such as the Hijra sex workers who haunt the city streets at night, plus a herd of animated zombie goats. The film's influences are far-reaching. There's a droll, deadpan aspect to the humour and a precision to the framing that has a kinship with the absurdist work of Roy Andersson (Songs from the Second Floor). The use of colour is sumptuously rich and saturated. Shot on 35mm film, Sister Midnight is exquisitely lit: this is not the kind of picture that allows its mise en scène to lurk in the murk. But perhaps not unexpectedly, given Kandhari's background in music videos, the film's score, by Interpol frontman Paul Banks, and soundtrack are sensational. Eclectic needle drops range from Howling Wolf to Motörhead, Buddy Holly to Blind Willie Johnson, lushly romantic vintage Cambodian soundtrack ballads to Iggy Pop and the Stooges. The last holds a particular significance for Kandhari: the film's title comes from the 1977 collaboration between Iggy Pop and David Bowie. And Kandhari is currently developing his next project, A Heart Full of Napalm, named after a line in the Stooges' Search and Destroy. It can't come soon enough. In UK and Irish cinemas
