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Indian Express
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
The West has a frozen and false idea of India
As Indian delegations tell the world about Operation Sindoor, it is worth noting the concern many have expressed that while India was militarily successful, the 'narrative' battle was lost. India needs to have a global channel like the BBC, CNN, or Al Jazeera. In 2016, I was invited by Prasar Bharati to be on an expert advisory committee to start an independent global digital news platform. There were two brief meetings that summer, but nothing came of them. Almost 10 years have passed. India lives through one story, but the world sees something else altogether. The cornerstone of the global media's narrative on terrorism today is that it cannot be considered terrorism. It is instead a survival struggle of the oppressed. And the oppressor is a Hindu, from cow protectors to gurus and quiz-show hosts. Movies like Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Hotel Mumbai (2018) and Monkey Man (2024) have hammered home that message. Millions around the world have seen Hindu lynch mobs in their theatres and homes. The news headlines have echoed the pattern, crying 'Hindu nationalism' even after terror attacks by Islamist groups. The Pahalgam massacre, too, was obfuscated in the press. They called it a case of 'indiscriminate firing'. It wasn't. There are several ideas going around in response. One is that India should ignore the Western press and frustrate them. Their credibility is low anyway, some add. This has its merits, but also its risks. Even if readers are sceptical about the US media, they still tend to believe lies when it comes to some issues, like India. This is a case of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. Another issue is the gap between popular and elite opinion. When delegations visit, they meet officials, but the real storytelling needs to happen with the public, in schools, colleges, and so on. Another key limitation is that India's version of its story is only 'world famous in India' or in weekend gatherings of the Indian diaspora. The mainstream mind of millions of Americans is being churned by billions of dollars of investment in media and higher education made by foreign governments and interests, shaping narratives inside the US in their favour. As The Free Press puts it, Qatar has 'bought' America. But the key factor here is not just money. Its officials also learned exactly how to 'push the buttons' and win the hearts and minds of even the most progressive college students. India's image, on the other hand, is still largely what it has been since the 1920s and the Anglo-American intelligence project known to us as Katherine Mayo's Mother India (1927). Its tropes have survived the Civil Rights movement, the hippy era, the Cold War, and the Y2K boom. No one has really sought to change it at a foundational level. Perhaps, the assumption is that it doesn't have consequences for us as individuals. But there is a cost to living in an ecology of false narratives. Some in the diaspora blindly accept the local media narratives about India. Others cope creatively, citing stories like how Obama kept a Hanuman figurine in his pocket. But for the most part, there is uneasiness about the reality of being held in a narrative hostage situation. A topic like racism or Hinduphobia often leaves heads hanging in Indian social gatherings. India simply has no narrative abroad, nothing that sticks in the American public like, 'This is what we stand for.' This absence is not just due to a leadership lag. It is also cultural. Historically, we don't have stories that drive us to impose them on others. We just produce enough at a micro-level to cope, while others try to do that to us. The West's narrative dominance must be seen not only in terms of technology but also in relation to its cultural roots in propagated religion. In Biblical movies like The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), or the heartwarming 1970s comedy Oh God!, one finds attention to not just the duty, but also to the joys of spreading one's message, of communicating. And today, even if religion has declined among American youth, the zeal to believe in a cause is as strong as ever – be it for Palestine or LGBTQ rights or climate change. This passion doesn't just occur naturally. There are well-organised institutions built around expertise and experience that help students here channel their expressive power from a young age into lifelong careers in media, arts, journalism, activism, teaching, and so on. Whether it's a prophet of doom or a herald of hope, the tropes about the messenger are very much around here. In India, on the other hand, even the sage Narada has been caricatured and denigrated from a revered status to a TV show jester in just a few decades. The world's biggest battleground today is for attention. India has already been fixed as a target on this battlefield. Its symptoms are showing up more and more in the West. After the Pulwama attack, Trevor Noah laughed and sang 'Time for you to die!' in a clumsy effort to urge peace between India and Pakistan. This time around, Jimmy Dore sneered over a clip of Arnab Goswami talking about the pain we felt about Pahalgam and imitated his accent, something usually considered racist in America. Not just decency, but even facts fly out of the window these days on American TV. After the 2024 elections, Bill Maher smugly claimed that Narendra Modi had lost the elections. In an isolated, premodern world, none of this might have mattered. But today, we have to choose whether to be the Pied Piper or the mice. The writer is professor of Media Studies, University of San Francisco
Business Insider
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
How to see A.R. Rahman in concert: Tickets, prices, and dates compared
For the first time since 2022, A.R. Rahman is returning to the US and Canada for the Wonderment Tour, bringing his Bollywood and South Indian film compositions to North America. The concert tour will see the composer cover two stops in Canada and 14 stops in major cities across the US this summer. While the Wonderment Tour is in high demand, there are still options for how to buy tickets to Rahman's 2025 concert tour. Allah Rakha Rahman, better known as A.R. Rahman, is best known for composing the soundtrack for Slumdog Millionaire in 2008. He is also a record producer, singer, songwriter, and musician. Over the course of his career, Rahman has received six National Film Awards, two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award. Since his last appearance in the US, Rahman has composed 13 additional film soundtracks, so we don't know what the composer has in store for his US tour. A.R. Rahman's concerts historically have featured a fusion of music, cinematic visuals, and orchestral arrangements. If you're looking for how to get tickets to see A.R. Rahman, then we've got you covered. Here's our breakdown of the Wonderment Tour schedule, purchasing details, and price comparisons between resale and original tickets. You can also browse concert and ticket specifics at your convenience on StubHub and Vivid Seats. A.R. Rahman's 2025 tour schedule The Wonderment Tour is scheduled to start July 18, 2025, in Vancouver and comes to a close with the final show in Boston on August 17. Date City StubHub prices Vivid Seats prices July 18, 3035 Vancouver, Canada $95 N/A July 20, 2025 Tacoma, WA $60 $66 July 25, 2025 Oakland, CA $108 $106 July 26, 2025 Los Angeles, CA $96 $94 July 29, 2025 Sugar Land, TX $63 $63 July 30, 2025 Grand Prairie, TX $77 $76 August 2, 2025 Raleigh, NC $105 $98 August 3, 2025 Fairfax, VA $82 $109 August 5, 2025 Duluth, GA $74 $75 August 7, 2025 Hollywood, FL $59 $59 August 8, 2025 Tampa, FL $73 $75 August 10, 2025 Nashville, TN $96 $98 August 12, 2025 Toronto, Canada $96 $113 August 14, 2025 Hoffman Estates, IL $62 $65 August 16, 2025 Newark, NJ $111 $97 August 17, 2025 Boston, MA $145 $135 Follow our WhatsApp channel for more deals and buying guides. How to buy tickets for A.R. Rahman's 2025 concert tour You can buy standard original tickets for A.R. Rahman's Wonderment Tour on Ticketmaster. However, some venues have already sold out, and seat availability is low for many of the concert dates. Tickets to Rahman's 2025 concert tour can also be purchased through verified resale ticket vendors like StubHub and Vivid Seats. For tour dates with a more limited inventory of original tickets, you may find better luck with seating variety and availability on these sites. How much are A.R. Rahman tickets? Ticket prices for the Wonderment Tour dates vary depending on the date, location, and demand for each show. The lowest prices for original tickets available on Ticketmaster range from $59 for the July 20 concert in Tacoma to $201 for the Boston concert on August 17. However, most shows stay below $200. Verified resale sites like StubHub and Vivid Seats offer similar prices. The lowest-cost tickets to Rahman's 2025 concerts on StubHub range from $59 for the August 7 concert in Hollywood, Florida, to $145 for the final concert of the tour in Boston on August 17. Vivid Seats offers similar prices of $59 and $135 for the same dates. There are also several VIP packages available for A.R. Rahman's Wonder Tour. The packages available are the Diamond VIP Meet and Greet Experience, Ruby VIP Experience, Emerald VIP Experience, and Sapphire VIP Experience. The details on what each package includes can be found on the Ticketmaster page for VIP packages. Please be aware that VIP packages and package contents are non-transferable, so VIP passes acquired via reseller sites would not be valid and may not be accepted at the door. Who is opening for A.R. Rahman's tour? As of this writing, there are no confirmed openers for A.R. Rahman's Wonderment Tour. Since A.R. Rahman's concerts have not historically had openers, we do not expect any openers to be announced for the 2025 tour. Will there be international tour dates? There are no international tour dates scheduled besides the two shows scheduled for Canada, the July 18 concert in Vancouver and the August 12 concert in Toronto.
Hamilton Spectator
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
TIFF to celebrate 50 years of risk and discovery with summer screening series
TORONTO - The head of the Toronto International Film Festival says risk-taking has been central to the organization's legacy, a spirit captured in a series of summer screenings that celebrate its 50th anniversary. Titled 'the TIFF Story in 50 Films,' the series will showcase films that have defined the festival's evolution. Screenings will run June 13 to Aug. 27 at the Lightbox in Toronto. Curated by TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey and a team of past and present programmers, the collection spans five decades, featuring global breakthroughs including Danny Boyle's 2008 rags-to-riches drama 'Slumdog Millionaire' and Canadian classics such as Atom Egoyan's 1984 directorial debut 'Next of Kin.' Bailey says the lineup reflects TIFF's own narrative, which he describes as a 'love story' between curators, audiences and filmmakers. He points out that several selections are films TIFF championed early on — titles that connected with Toronto audiences before going on to achieve global success. For instance, he says Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 thriller 'Diva' flopped at the French box office but found new life — and cult status — after resonating with audiences at TIFF. 'As you go through the whole list, there's a little bit of a story either about how the festival and the Toronto audience helped launch that film into world, or how that film helped define what our festival was,' says Bailey. Several screenings will include appearances by talent from the films, including a special presentation of 1994's 'The Shawshank Redemption,' followed by a Q&A with cinematographer Roger Deakins and his wife and creative partner, James Deakins. One film that stands out for Bailey is 'Dead Ringers,' David Cronenberg's 1988 horror thriller that opened TIFF that year. He remembers being in the audience, struck by the power of its première. 'It was quite visceral in many ways. Not what you would call an easy watch. Our team at the time decided that that was an important film to open the festival with, to send a signal that this is the highest achievement in Canadian cinema that year,' he says. 'It's a tough movie, but we think you're up for it, right? And we respect the Toronto audience enough to show them movies that can be challenging. That's part of the story we want to tell as well.' As for the story Bailey wants to tell in the next 50 years of TIFF? 'I have no crystal ball. I can't tell you what technology is going to do to transform the film world,' he says. 'But what I know is that the creative talent is still going to be critical for this. And so what I think about when I think about the next 50 years with TIFF is making sure that we keep tracking down and elevating talent.' He highlights TIFF's Next Wave program — which allows Toronto high school students to program films — along with the festival's several talent development initiatives, including the Directors' Studio and Series Accelerator, as examples. Bailey also wants TIFF to continue being a platform where stars can emerge, noting that Florence Pugh — now fronting Marvel's latest film 'Thunderbolts*' — was discovered in North America largely through 2016's 'Lady Macbeth,' which premièred at TIFF and is also featured in its 50th-anniversary list. 'We've shown that we can discover films and filmmakers who will become globally significant year after year. That's what I want us to keep doing.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2025.
Winnipeg Free Press
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
TIFF to celebrate 50 years of risk and discovery with summer screening series
TORONTO – The head of the Toronto International Film Festival says risk-taking has been central to the organization's legacy, a spirit captured in a series of summer screenings that celebrate its 50th anniversary. Titled 'the TIFF Story in 50 Films,' the series will showcase films that have defined the festival's evolution. Screenings will run June 13 to Aug. 27 at the Lightbox in Toronto. Curated by TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey and a team of past and present programmers, the collection spans five decades, featuring global breakthroughs including Danny Boyle's 2008 rags-to-riches drama 'Slumdog Millionaire' and Canadian classics such as Atom Egoyan's 1984 directorial debut 'Next of Kin.' Cameron Bailey walks towards the stage at the Legacy Awards in Toronto, on Sunday, September 29, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paige Taylor White Bailey says the lineup reflects TIFF's own narrative, which he describes as a 'love story' between curators, audiences and filmmakers. He points out that several selections are films TIFF championed early on — titles that connected with Toronto audiences before going on to achieve global success. For instance, he says Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 thriller 'Diva' flopped at the French box office but found new life — and cult status — after resonating with audiences at TIFF. 'As you go through the whole list, there's a little bit of a story either about how the festival and the Toronto audience helped launch that film into world, or how that film helped define what our festival was,' says Bailey. Several screenings will include appearances by talent from the films, including a special presentation of 1994's 'The Shawshank Redemption,' followed by a Q&A with cinematographer Roger Deakins and his wife and creative partner, James Deakins. One film that stands out for Bailey is 'Dead Ringers,' David Cronenberg's 1988 horror thriller that opened TIFF that year. He remembers being in the audience, struck by the power of its première. 'It was quite visceral in many ways. Not what you would call an easy watch. Our team at the time decided that that was an important film to open the festival with, to send a signal that this is the highest achievement in Canadian cinema that year,' he says. 'It's a tough movie, but we think you're up for it, right? And we respect the Toronto audience enough to show them movies that can be challenging. That's part of the story we want to tell as well.' As for the story Bailey wants to tell in the next 50 years of TIFF? 'I have no crystal ball. I can't tell you what technology is going to do to transform the film world,' he says. Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. Sign up for The Warm-Up 'But what I know is that the creative talent is still going to be critical for this. And so what I think about when I think about the next 50 years with TIFF is making sure that we keep tracking down and elevating talent.' He highlights TIFF's Next Wave program — which allows Toronto high school students to program films — along with the festival's several talent development initiatives, including the Directors' Studio and Series Accelerator, as examples. Bailey also wants TIFF to continue being a platform where stars can emerge, noting that Florence Pugh — now fronting Marvel's latest film 'Thunderbolts*' — was discovered in North America largely through 2016's 'Lady Macbeth,' which premièred at TIFF and is also featured in its 50th-anniversary list. 'We've shown that we can discover films and filmmakers who will become globally significant year after year. That's what I want us to keep doing.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2025.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump's movie tariff threat alarms India's film makers
By Haripriya Suresh, Saurabh Sharma and Rishika Sadam BENGALURU/NEW DELHI/HYDERABAD (Reuters) -India's film industry, which earns roughly 40% of its overseas revenue from the United States, sounded the alarm this week about higher costs after President Donald Trump threatened a tariff of 100% on all movies produced beyond American soil. Film makers, producers and distributors in one of the world's largest film industries by output struggled to weigh the likely impact of such a tariff as Trump provided scant details, stirring more questions than answers. "The real question is how the term 'foreign produced' will be defined, and until that's clear, it's hard to say anything," said film maker Anubhav Sinha, known for his Netflix streaming series, "IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack". "It's not yet clear whether services like post-production will be affected." India's film industry employs 272,000 people, with overseas box office takings of about 20 billion rupees ($237 million) in fiscal 2024, or a tenth of total earnings, Deloitte and studio grouping the Motion Picture Association said in a report. Key Hollywood films with India scenes are Oscar-winners such as the rags-to-riches tale "Slumdog Millionaire", and the Osama bin Laden manhunt thriller, "Zero Dark Thirty", along with rom-com "Eat, Pray Love", and Batman outing "The Dark Knight Rises". In the absence of details on the planned levy, film producers worry it could double the cost of exporting their films to the United States, where people of Indian descent are estimated to number 5.2 million. "The United States is one of the most important overseas markets for Indian cinema, largely due to the substantial diaspora," said producer Madhu Bhojwani, reponsible for hits such as "Airlift", on workers evacuated from Kuwait during the Gulf War. "Any increase in ticket prices resulting from these tariffs would directly affect audience turnout, compounding the challenges posed by evolving consumer behaviour and broader industry headwinds." The cost-effective South Asian nation has also grown in stature as Hollywood's preferred hub for on-ground production and post-production services, especially in visual effects, since it offers a skilled talent pool. "Almost 10 to 15 (foreign) movies are shot in India every year, and our movie industry will be impacted very badly," said film trade analyst Komal Nahta. LIKELY HIT TO REVENUE Prominent Indian actor and producer Prakash Raj called Trump's move "tariff terrorism". If the tariff covers post-production services, the consequences will be bigger, added Bhojwani, the co-founder of Emmay Entertainment and Motion Pictures. "We can expect a potential decline in outsourced work from U.S. studios to Indian vendors, which could have notable implications for the Indian media services sector," she said. "If revenue from the U.S. drops, it could affect budget planning and profitability for Indian production houses," said Pradeep Dwivedi, chief executive of Eros International Media. "Big-budget films counting on overseas revenue could be restructured or scaled back." The move will also hurt smaller releases in the United States. "Even a 30% drop in revenue for such mid-scale movies would be a significant dent," said Raj Kandukuri, producer of a well-regarded film, "Pelli Choopulu", in India's southern language of Telugu. "There are a sizeable number of students in the United States who watch movies, they will not spend high on ticket prices." The planned levy might also drive a broader shift to digital platforms. "U.S. distributors might be less inclined to pick up Indian titles due to the increased cost," Dwivedi said. "This could result in fewer screens, smaller releases, and a shift toward digital platforms instead of theatrical. The tariff would likely accelerate a move toward direct-to-digital releases on platforms like ErosNow, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu." ($1=84.2560 rupees) (Reporting by Haripriya Suresh in Bengaluru, Saurabh Sharma in New Delhi, and Rishika Sadam in Hyderabad; Editing by Dhanya Skariachan and Clarence Fernandez)
