Rahman in Oscar Race Again

- NDFS Desk

      Music maestro A R Rahman stands
a chance to win at the Oscars once again with his work on sports biopic "Pele: Birth of a Legend".
The Indian musician, who is already a double Oscar-winner for his work on "Slumdog Millionaire" in 2009, has found mention in both Best Original Score and Best Original Song long
list of 89th Academy Awards. 145 original scores are vying for the top award in February next year and Rahman is one of the names on the list as the composer for the Jeff Zimbalist and Michael Zimbalist -directed drama on Brazilian football legend Pele. 

Similarly, "Ginga", which Rahman composed to celebrate Pele's soccer legacy, is part of the 91 songs competing for nominations in the Original Song category, according to the list released by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Rahman, 49, will compete with titles like "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", "La La Land", "Moana" and "Florence Foster Jenkins".

Nominations for the Oscars will be announced on Tuesday, January 24, 2017 with the main ceremony scheduled for Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood.

‘Life of Pi’: An Oscar-nominated international film that’s a mostly international hit

 -Bryan Enk

"Life of Pi" has proven to be a modest hit in the States. But the fantastical adventure tale is truly enjoying the lucrative high "life" far from American shores.
Director Ang Lee's screen adaptation of Yann Martel's 2001 novel of the same name has certainly found something of a domestic audience, though with only a little over $91 million at the box office since its release on November 21, it's been considerably overshadowed by even more higher-profile holiday season offerings like "Les Miserables," "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" and "Skyfall." Fox 2000 probably isn't worried about the $120 million production not making its money back, though, as the film has grossed more than $300 million internationally, bringing its current worldwide gross to just under $400 million.

It's an appropriate fate ("Life of Pi" is big on that concept) that international success should be achieved by a rather international production. "Life of Pi" marks a creative collaboration among representatives from many different countries, both in front of and behind the camera. Suraj Sharma and Irrfan Khan, who play the lead character of Pi at different ages, are Indian actors. Gerard Depardieu, who has a (rather inexplicable) cameo as a cranky cook, is French, and Rafe Spall, who plays The Writer, is British. Cinematographer Claudio Miranda is from Chile and composer Mychael Danna is Canadian. And screenwriter David Magee was born in Flint, Michigan. Go Blue!

The production went through a few international directors before Taiwanese-born Ang Lee signed on. Indian-American director M. Night Shyamalan was first approached to direct, though he ultimately turned it down due to the novel's ending possibly clashing with his own reputation for final-act twists. The project was offered to Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, who turned it down for "Children of Men." French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet was also briefly attached.

Principal photography involved some rather formidable globe-hopping as well. Filming began in Pondicherry, India and other parts of the country before heading to Taiwan, where the crew shot for five and a half months in Taipei Zoo and Kenting National Park, located in Pingtung County where Lee was born. While in Taiwan, the ocean scenes were shot at a giant tank built in an abandoned airport (which came to be known as the world’s largest self-generating wave tank with a capacity of 1.7 million gallons). After photography was completed in Taiwan, the production moved back to India and wrapped in Montreal, Canada.

The complex visual effects for the film also brought together quite the international team. The lead effects company for the production was Rhythm & Hues Studios, based in El Segundo, California, though the 3D effects were created by artists from all of the R&H divisions, including locations in Mumbai and Hyderabad (India), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Vancouver (Canada) and Kaohsiung (Taiwan).

"Life of Pi" has been nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. It's an honor that is indeed being felt all over the world.

courtesy: Yahoo! Movies Oscars Blog

'Peepli Live' is India's entry at Oscars

- NDFS Desk

‘Peepli Live’, the Hindi film directed by debutant director Anusha Rizvi and produced by actor Aamir Khan, will be India's official entry to this year's Academy Awards (Oscar) in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Announcing this at a press meet here on Friday, selection committee chairman K.S. Sethumadhavan said: “Peepli Live is a reflection of India's culture and ethos, even as it highlights the burning problem-farmer suicides.” “During the selection process, Tamil movie Angadi Theru competed closely and we considered various criteria before selecting Peepli Live,” Film Federation of India president L. Suresh said. Calling Peepli Live a ‘social satire,' producer-director Ravi Kottarakara said it brought out the pain of poverty. The subtle humour, which runs throughout the film, sends across the message of social awareness in a far more effective way than a melancholic film would, he added.

The selection committee comprised 15 members, including directors S. Krishnaswamy, Jayaraj and Sekhar Das, sound recordist S.K. Srivastava, writers G. Neelakanta Reddy and C.G. Rajendra Babu, music director Gangai Amaran, and costume designer Anu Vishnu.
Five Tamil films- Singam, Madharasapattinam, Angadi Theru, Raavanan and Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya - were among the 27 films initially shortlisted. Paa, Raajneeti, My Name is Khan, 3 Idiots and Pazhassi Raja also made it to the list.

Peepli Live is about farmer suicides in the country and talks about how the media and politicians handle the issue. Anusha, the Director and Mahmood Farooqui, the film’s Co Director and Casting Director too, shared their feelings with new delhi film society blog, and wrote - “Its very nice that the film has been selected for the oscars from india, but there is a long way to go for the nomination yet. Of course its good that more people will see it now, but for us the most satisfactory thing was that people in india, especially in the hindi belt and in smaller towns enjoyed the film. No joy can be compared to that.”

'Kavi' story of an Indian slave boy makes it to Oscars

-NDFS Desk

NEW DELHI: There may be no Indian hopefuls in this year's Oscar race after AR Rahman's ouster, but India still figures in the competition with 'Kavi', a short film about a young Indian boy trapped by child labour, which has been nominated in the 'Short Film (Live Action)' category.

The 19-minute-long fictional film in Hindi by American debutante director Gregg Helvey is about a boy who wants to escape from the brick kiln where he is forced to work as a modern-day slave. Helvey who shot the film on a shoe string budget in and around Wai, near Mumbai, said that the goal of the film was to "motivate action through awareness". "What incredible support for Kavi. 30% of our DVD proceeds are going to anti-slavery orgs. Hope this gets eyes on Human Trafficking," wrote Helvey, a student of the University of South California, on his Twitter account. "My goal is to reach at least 50,000 people with 'Kavi' in the first year. The purpose is to motivate action through awareness," he added in a statement. Last year's Oscars were dominated by the Mumbai-based-potboiler 'Slumdog Millionaire' which won eight Oscars, including two for musician Rahman and one for sound artiste Resul Pokutty. 'Smile Pinki' a documentary by American director Megan Mylan about a young Indian girl stigmatised due to her cleft lip had also won the Academy Award in the 'Best Documentary Short Subject' category.