Latest news with #KeralaStateFilmDevelopmentCorporation
News18
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- News18
Jeo Baby's Malayalam Film Victoria Selected For Shanghai International Film Festival
The Malayalam film Victoria, directed by Sivaranjini J, is the only Indian film selected for the 27th Shanghai International Film Festival. Indian cinema is shining bright again. The Malayalam film Victoria, directed by first-time filmmaker Sivaranjini J, has been officially selected for the 27th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF). And guess what? It's the only Indian film at the festival this year! The film will be shown in the Asian New Talent section, which highlights new and exciting voices in cinema. The festival will take place from June 13 to June 22, 2025, and will also feature films from countries like Iran, Japan, China, Sri Lanka, and Turkey. Popular director Jeo Baby, known for Kaathal, shared the happy news online. He posted, 'Proud moments for Indian cinema. The one and only Indian movie @ 27th Shanghai international film festival. Congrts @ 🙌🏼 this movie produced by KSFDC." Victoria follows the story of a young woman named Victoria, a beautician working in a small town. Her quiet life takes a dramatic turn when she decides to run away with her Hindu boyfriend, going against her strict Catholic family. Things get even more confusing when a neighbour leaves a rooster with her for a religious offering! It's a story full of emotions, challenges, and unexpected moments. The movie stars Meenakshi Jayan, Sreeshma Chandran, Jolly Chirayath, Steeja Mary, Darsana Vikas, Jeena Rajeev, and Remadevi. It deals with important topics like religious pressure, women's freedom, and cultural identity. Victoria is backed by the Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC) and was funded through the Women Empowerment Grant, a special initiative to support women directors. The film had its world premiere at the International Film Festival of Kerala in 2024, where it won the FIPRESCI Award for Best Malayalam Film. That's not all, even Kiran Rao will also be part of the festival as a jury member. The main jury is headed by Giuseppe Tornatore, the famous director of Cinema Paradiso. The Shanghai International Film Festival is the largest film festival in Asia and China's longest-running international cinema event. The first festival was established in October 1993. It is the only Chinese festival accredited by the FIAPF. The festival is held over a ten-day period every June. SIFF is organized by China Film Administration, China Media Group, and the Shanghai government. First Published:
New Indian Express
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
Malayalam film Victoria selected for Shanghai International Film Festival
Victoria marks the directorial debut of Sivaranjini. Her maiden feature is produced by the Kerala State Film Development Corporation after receiving the Women Empowerment Grant from the Kerala State Government. The film premiered at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala last year, where it won the FIPRESCI Award for Best Malayalam Film. The film's official synopsis reads, "Victoria, a young beautician in a suburban beauty parlour, decides to elope with her Hindu boyfriend after a fierce clash with her conservative Catholic parents. Amidst the turmoil, a neighbour asks her to temporarily house an offering rooster destined for a festival at St. George church inside the parlour. Juggling the rooster's antics, unexpected clients, and her boyfriend's uncertainty, Victoria grapples with conflicting emotions leading to a day of intense personal and spiritual revelations." The film stars Meenakshi Jayan, Sreeshma Chandran, Jolly Chirayath, Steeja Mary, Darsana Vikas, Jeena Rajeev, and Remadevi. Meanwhile, the 27th SIFF is scheduled to be held from June 13-22. Indian filmmaker Kiran Rao, best known for her helming Dhobi Ghat and Laapata Ladies, is also part of the jury for the Main Competition section at the festival. She is part of the panel led by Oscar-winning Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore.
The Hindu
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Thrissur's Kairali-Sree theatres to offer word-class experience to moviegoers
The modernised Kairali-Sree theatre complex in Thrissur will be reopened on May 27. Minister for Cultural Affairs, Fisheries, and Youth Affairs Saji Cherian will inaugurate the renovated theatres. The theatre complex, functioning under the Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC), has been upgraded with cutting-edge features such as RGB laser projectors, Dolby Atmos 64-channel surround sound, 3D and silver screens, state-of-the-art seating, including couple seats, lift access, advanced fire safety systems, and a dedicated feeding room, to offer world-class cinema experience to moviegoers.
Gulf Today
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
A gentle auteur
Shaji N. Karun's standing as a Malayalam cinema doyen does not rest upon a huge body of work. Quality over quantity was what he strove for and achieved. The handful of narrative features that Shaji directed had a profound impact on cinema in Kerala. His films, marked by a unique sensibility and elevated by a delicate and distinctive visual palette, were not only rooted in specific cultural ethos but were also driven by a deeply humanist vision. Shaji also influenced cinema and its dissemination in his home state as the founder chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy. He was among those who were instrumental in giving shape to the International Film Festival of Kerala, which quickly evolved into the country's most-loved event of its kind. Later in his life, Shaji served as the Kerala State Film Development Corporation. His passing at the age of 73 at his home in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday has left a void that will be hard to fill. Shaji made only seven feature films in a career that began in the mid-1970s. His first three features – Piravi (1988), Swaham (1994) and Vanaprastham (1999), made over a period of a decade and a bit – were all selected for the Cannes Film Festival, a rare feat for an emerging filmmaker. In 1989, his debut film, Piravi (The Birth), about an aged father who waits in vain for his missing son to return home, won the Camera d'Or – Mention d'honneur at the Cannes Film Festival, besides a large number of other awards at festivals across the world. A still from the movie 'Piravi' by Shaji N Karun. In 1994, Swaham (My Own), about a boy who seeks an job to help his mother and sister tide over the family's financial troubles but loses his life in an incident at the military camp, competed for the Cannes Palme d'Or. Vanaprastham (The Last Dance), which revolves around a lower-caste Kathakali dancer who has an affair with an upper-caste woman, made it to the festival's Un Certain Regard section. Shaji's subsequent films may not have flown as high on the global stage, but every cinematic essay that he crafted, notably Kutty Srank, starring Mammootty, and Olu, his last feature, bore testimony to his exceptional technical and storytelling skills. His filmmaking style and artistic credo were firmly rooted in the land of his birth and the idiom he employed sprang from a creative space entirely his own. It is understandable why the soft-spoken, self-effacing Shaji would often lament the derivative methods that some of Kerala's younger filmmakers adopted. Shaji (right) with G Aravindan during a shoot. Shaji's own roots lay in the cinema of the iconic G. Aravindan, with whom he collaborated over a long period. Before he became a director, the Film and Television Institute of India alum worked as the cinematographer for eight of Aravindan's films, including Kanchana Sita (Golden Sita, 1977), Thampu (The Circus Tent, 1978), Esthappan (1980) and the absolutely exquisite Chidambaram (1985). One of the most remarkable collaborations between Aravindan and Shaji was Pokkuveyil (Twilight, 1982). Aravindan recorded the film's background score first with Hariprasad Chaurasia on the flute and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan disciple Rajeev Taranath on the sarod. He and Shaji then composed the visuals on the basis of the musical notations. A consummate master of his craft, Shaji also cranked the camera for films helmed by other noted Malayali filmmakers like K.G. George (Lekhayude Maranam Oru Flashback and Panchavadi Palam), MT Vasudevan Nair (Manju) and P. Padmarajan (Koodevide? and Arappatta Kettiya Gramathil), starring Mammootty and Suhasini in her Malayalam debut, and Lenin Rajendran (Meenamasathile Sooryan). Shaji went on to work with both actors after he turned director, with Mammootty heading the cast of Kutty Srank and Suhasini playing a key role in Vanaprastham, which starred Mohanlal as the male lead. Shaji also shot a couple of Hindi films, Ek Chadar Maili Si (1986) and Antim Nyay (1993), both directed by Sukhwant Dhadda, who subsequently produced the only Hindi film that Shaji directed, Nishad, starring Rajit Kapur and Archana. One of the most ambitious films of Shaji's career never got made due to budget constraints — Gaadha, an international co-production based on a T. Padmanabhan short story. The film was to star Mohanlal. In his director's statement for still-born Gaadha, Shaji wrote: 'Music is a miracle, where enchantments attain silence. Such mystery is also an important sensation to understand the beauty of human life. We miss such kind films in our time.' He added: 'For the first time in Indian film history, this film will explore Indian classical music intermingling with western opera and symphony.' Gaadha was in the works for several years before it was abandoned. It would have been his magnum opus, the crowning glory of an illustrious career that deserved another global breakthrough to round it off. That was not to be, but even if Shaji had not made anything after Vanaprastham, the benchmark he set with his first three films would have assured him immortality. The writer is an award-winning Indian film critic.
Indian Express
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
‘Flagbearer of new wave cinema' whose films made it to Cannes thrice – Kerala's Shaji N Karun dies at 73
Influential director Shaji N Karun, whose films garnered international acclaim, died in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday. He was 73. His first film, 'Piravi' (Birth), was a 1989 Malayalam film that won several national and international awards. The film marked the birth of a director who soon found a place in world cinema and grew to become one of the prominent Indian faces in the international film circuits. Karun, who was conferred a Padma Shri in 2010, had been serving as the chairman of the Kerala State Film Development Corporation. A former chairman of the state Chalachitra Academy, he was conferred the J.C. Daniel Award — Kerala government's most prestigious award in cinema – in 2023 and was one of the architects of the International Film Festival of Kerala, which was held for the first time in 1998. Karun had started his career as a cinematographer in 1974. After securing a diploma in cinematography from Pune 's Film and Television Institute of India, he had a short stint as a cameraman at ISRO and later worked as an assistant in the film industry. His first independent movie as a cinematographer was for G Aravindan's 'Kanchana Sita' in 1978, and eventually went on to work with Aravindan, a doyen of parallel films in Malayalam, on all his movies. Apart from Aravindan, he also wielded the camera for leading filmmakers of the 1980s such as K G George, Hariharan and M T Vasudevan Nair, working on as many as 40 films in Malayalam. His much-acclaimed 'Piravi', which tells the story of a father's endless wait for his missing son, won around 70 national and international awards at festivals — including Cannes. Its theme was compared to the case of Rajan, an engineering student who went missing during the Emergency, triggering political debate in Kerala. The recognitions for 'Piravi' included the Charlie Chaplin Award at Edinburgh, the Silver Leopard at Locarno, the Camera d'Or Special Mention at Cannes, the Silver Hugo at Chicago and the President of India's Gold Medal Award for the best film in the year 1989. Apart from 'Piravi', Karun made six other feature films. Throughout his career as a director, he has been known as a filmmaker who never compromised on the aesthetics of film. A cinematographer-turned-director, Karun has been known for delivering well-crafted frames. His second and third movies, 'Swaham' in 1994 and 'Vanaprasatham' in 1999, were also selected for Cannes. The 2010 movie 'Kutty Srank', with Mamootty playing the lead role, won the best film award at the National Film Awards 2010 and was screened in over 45 international film festivals, apart from getting a theatre release in Kerala. His last movie 'Olu' — a fantasy film — had been the inaugural film of Indian panorama in IIFI in 2018 and had been selected as the opening film in several other international festivals. In Kerala, Karun had been associated with Left movements. He had also served as the president of pro-Left Purogamana Kala Sahitya Sangham, a progressive movement of writers and artists. Offering his condolences, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the state had lost a unique filmmaker. 'He was a flagbearer of new wave cinema in Malayalam. He worked tirelessly for the progress of the film industry. His death is a great loss not only to the film industry but also to Kerala,' Vijayan said.
