Ismail Merchant the most internationally acclaimed Indian filmmaker. Born and brought up in Mumbai he went to NewYork for higher studies. In 1961 He founded a production house Merchant Ivory Productions in association with director James Ivory. Together they made close to 40 films and their films won six Oscar award and several other prestigious award. They also had close friendship with Novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala who has written most of their films.

His films “A Room with a View” , “Howards End” “The Remains of the Day” and “The Creation of Woman” were nominated for Oscars. His subjects were thoroughly researched showing a detailed frame and his movie sets reflected the luxury.

“Mahatma and the Mad boy” as director, “Shakespeare Wallah” and “Bombay Talkie” as producer were his other famous work. He also wrote couple of books on food and cooking like “Ismail Merchant’s Indian Cuisine”, “Ismail Merchant’s Passionate Meals” and “Ismail Merchant’s Paris: Filming and Feasting in France.

He also wrote books on making of his film. His last book My Passage From India: A Filmmaker’s Journey from Bombay to Hollywood and Beyond gave us insight about how an Asian with strong determination and passion went onto become one of the successful filmmaker in Hollywood and World cinema.

In 2002, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. He died in 2005 at the age of 68 in London and was buried in Mumbai.

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He use to earn Rs. 80 /month working as a junior visualiser and then in 1992 he earned a Honorary award for Lifetime Achievement from Oscar Academy. His book “Our films their films” which came in 1976 was a classic literary work highlighting the difference between Indian and Hollywood cinema and other International filmmakers.He is regarded as one of the greatest auteurs of 20th century cinema.

This time we’re talking about Satyajit Ray,born in Kolkata in 1921 was one of the greatest filmmakers who bought most international honours to our country for his contribution to parallel and realistic cinema.

He started his film career as a director with his  first film, Pather Panchali (1955) which won eleven international prizes, including Best Human Document at the Cannes film festival followed by making of  Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959), the three films form The Apu Trilogy.Though he faced many financial hurdles while making Apu Triology, he never compromised with the script and his way of filmmaking.

Ray directed thirty-seven films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts.

One film that influenced him deep inside was “Bicycle Thieves” which attracted him towards independent filmmaking. He was also greatly influenced by Rabindra Nath Tagore and made a documentary on him.

His work revolved mainly around poverty, children and apathy in a women’s life . In 1962, Ray directed Kanchenjungha, which was his first original screenplay and colour film.

He won 32 Indian National Film Awards.He was one of only three filmmakers to win Golden Silver Bear more than once .Ray is the second film personality after Chaplin to have been awarded honorary doctorates by Oxford University.He was awarded Bharat Ratna shortly before his death in 1992. He also got the Akira Kurosawa Award for Lifetime Achievement in Direction at San Francisco International Film Festival after his death.

Year after year he was included in the list of greatest filmmakers of all time by several magazines.In 1992, the Sight & Sound Critics’ Top Ten Poll ranked Ray at no.7 in its list of “Top 10 Directors” of all time, making him the highest-ranking Asian filmmaker in the poll.In 2002, the Sight & Sound critics’ and directors’ poll ranked Ray at no.22 in its list of all-time greatest directors thus making him the 4th highest-ranking Asian filmmaker in the poll.In 1996, Entertainment Weekly magazine ranked Ray at no.25 in its “50 Greatest Directors” list.In 2007, Total Film magazine included Ray in its “100 Greatest Film Directors Ever” list.

Akira Kurosawa, once said, “Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.”

He has worked as a choreographer and Actor at one time.His first movie introduced a new technical concept in Indian cinema ,Close up shots with 100mm lens which later was referred on his name in filmmaking.British film magazine Sight & Sound poll ranked him at 73 in its list of all-time greatest directors, thus making him the Eighth highest-ranking Asian filmmaker in the poll.

Guru Dutt credited with several cult movies in Indian cinema was the legendary filmmaker behind movies like Sahab,Biwi aur Gulam and Chaudhvin Ka Chand.

Pyaasa and Kaagaz ke Phool are included in all time 100 best movies.Theatres in  Germany,France and Japan were full packed when they screened any of Guru Dutt’s movies.In the initial stage of his career he worked with Prabhat Film company,Pune for 3yrs till 1947. After coming to Mumbai he assisted two directors.In 1951 his first film as director, Baazi was released.This movies was produced under the banner of Dev Anand’s company Navketan. His second film Jaal was also a super hit flick.He also introduced Waheeda Rehman to Hindi cinema under his production in C.I.D starring Dev Anand. He and Dev anand were very close friends for many years.His film Sahab,Biwi aur Gulam won the filmfare award in Best film category directed by Abrar Alvi.

Though his movies could not earn enough money at box office he earned the status of a legendary filmmaker making cult movies one after the other. He acted in 16 films and Picnic was his last film in 1964.He died the same year after consuming alcohol and sleeping pills at night.

Once Dev Anand quoted Guru Dutt as “My only true friend in the film industry. We got close to each other while working for Prabhat Film company.

On failure of Kaagaz Ke Phool and success of Chaudhvin Ka Chand he said “What is there in life, friend? There are only two things – success and failure. There is nothing in between.”

In recent time Bollywood has witnessed more of failure and less of success.With more than 300 movies producing every year alone in Hindi cinema,not even 50 films gets audience appreciation. Very few directors now make cult films irrespective of their fate at box office.

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Written-directed and produced by Gregg Helvey, it has been selected in “Short Film” (Live Action) category of 82nd Academy Awards.

It will compete with “The Door“(Juanita Wilson, James Flynn), “Instead of Abracadabra” (Patrik Eklund, Mathias Fjellstrom), “Miracle Fish” (Luke Doolan, Drew Bailey), and “The New Tenants” (Joachim Back, Tivi Magnusson).

Gregg Helvey made this film as his thesis project and completed in 8days with just Rs. 14lakhs .The 82nd Academy Awards presentation will take place on 7th Mar in Hollywood.

This is another effort by a foreign filmmaker to show the adversity and poverty surrounding poor class in India.Though “Harishchandra factory” was sent as an official entry to Oscars from India, it failed to get nominated in any category.

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He spend the first few years of his career in Advertising agencies in Bombay.Till 1974 he made hundreds of ad films and documentaries and then best thing that brought him in limelight among the industry and media, Ankur,his first feature film about economic and sexual exploitation from his home state Andhra Pradesh.A year after he made Nishant which won the National film award in best feature film category. Year after year he kept on making cult films. Manthan,Bhumika,Junoon,Arohan and the list goes on when we talk about the great movies in 70’s and 80’s era which were also nominated at several International film awards.

He also directed a television serial “Bharat Ek Khoj” based on Jawaharlal Nehru’s book, Discovery of India for Indian Railways .In 1982 he made a movie based on the life of legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray which won the National award for Best biographical film.

Though he is considered as one of the best directors of parallel cinema he also tried his hands in mainstream cinema with making of Zubeidaa which again bagged the National film Award for best feature film in the year 2001.

In 2008 when “Welcome to Sajjanpur” was released an Indiatimes review said, “Shyam Benegal has always been accredited as a mesmerizing storyteller known for making ‘meaningful’ cinema. This time he also caters to commercial consumers, coming up with his most ‘entertaining’ attempt, by far”. Though it couldn’t perform well at box office it was much critically acclaimed by media houses .Now the maverick filmmaker is ready with his new project “Well Done Abba” which is currently being screened at some of the prestigious film festival across the world will  be released very soon.

At the age of 75 and with more than 70 films to his credit he is still the same man who believes in his own style of filmmaking , no matter it earns money or not but at the end it earns applause from all savvy segments.

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G8 or UN summit or Presidents and environmentalist at a round table conference. Newspapers reporting about the blame game between States and Asian countries and others making statements. Everyone is busy talking about it and very few in actually doing something in the direction of reducing it. Cinema being one of the most influential way tried and delivered some of best films from time to time which not only worried Big Bosses but common man too. Have a look at some of the best cinematic work on the issue of global warming.

Water world,1995 is a movie showcasing most of Earth is underwater as polar ice caps have melted and very little land is remaining, causing some humans to mutate into growing fins and gills, to adapt to their new environment.

The day after tomorrow,2004 which indicated how the world would look like if the greenhouse effect and global warming continued winning BAFTA film award for special visual effects and MTV movie award.

An inconvenient truth,2006 ,a documentary on Al Gore’s campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide,which won 2 Oscars.

11^th hour 2007 a documentary written by Leonardo DiCaprio talking about the global environment problems and the visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet’s ecosystems.

2012 ,2009 which recently came out is an epic adventure by Roland Emmerich

is about a global disaster that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.

A must watch for all those who care about our planet and wants to make it a better place for the next coming generations.

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This time beauties from 84 countries are participating and 15 semi-finalist would be contesting for the glorious crown.  Nexus has organized a exciting contest and anyone can participate in it except citizens from few countries.You’ll be asked to choose a crown among the three crowns which represents 3 different characteristic ,i.e, Hope, Peace and Unity .The contest is open for everyone and you can write away enter in the contest. If you have voted for the crown which leads among the three and the one you choose is the winning crown you could win a 3 day 2 night trip for 2 to meet the next Miss Universe at a VIP event in New York city.The winner will also be awarded 2 tickets to a Braoadway show which is considered as the highest level of commercial theater in the English-speaking world and a 5000$ shopping spree with diamond Nexus lab.

Just one week is left for the D-day and you really need to hurry up if you really dream of sitting beside the crowning lady in New York.Let’s see who is that lucky fellow who will win the race of luck.Click here to participate.

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Though major collection was made by Hindi cinema ,other cinemas which contributed significantly were Telugu and Tamil films producing 21% and 13% of the total films produced in 2008.

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It was evident that being the highest populated country of World , theater admission would be more as compared to other countries but as high as 3.29 bn

which is equivalent to combined figure of other top 9 producing countries of World reflects the interest of Indians towards cinema.Though Bollywood has been misapprehended as Indian cinema for a long time, it accounts for 22% of the total films followed by Telugu and Tamil films accounting for 21% and 13% respectively. Growth in multiplex screens which now accounts for 65% -70 % of the total Indian box office boosted the revenue graph which increased by 12% compared to last year revenues.In 2008 Indian box office reached $ 1.8 bn with average ticket price as low as 25 INR on the other hand another Asian country  Japan  with an average ticket price as high as 600 INR reached $1.9bn mark.Unites states on the other hand generated revenues close to $9.7bn with theater admission of 1.3 bn approximately.Average ticket price in United states is $7.Similarly United kingdom touched a whopping figure of $8.5bn with only 164 million people going to theaters in 2008.Thus Indian cinema beats other countries when it comes to no. of movies produced and theatre admission whereas lags behind in box office collection.

Every year Indian film industry bears loss close to $ 1 bn due to piracy which is eating a big portion of revenue generated every year.Film fraternity is trying hard to curb such practices and the day it’ll be eradicated ,Indian cinema will give tough competition to  other countries in terms of net box office revenues.

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Pather Panchali (1955)

is a Bengali feature film directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of  West Bengal in 1955.The first film of The Apu Trilogy, it depicts the childhood of the protagonist Apu in the rural countryside of Bengal in the 1920s.It was made with

just $3000 Pather Panchali won “Best Human Document” at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival,establishing Satyajit Ray as a major international filmmaker.

Pyaasa(1957)

Made in  1957 Pyaasa was  produced and directed by Guru Dutt. The film tells the story of struggling poet, Vijay (Guru Dutt), trying to make his works known in post-independence India in her first major leading role in Hindi cinema, a prostitute with a heart of gold eventually helps him get his poems published.In 2005, Pyaasa was rated as one of the 100 best films of all time by Time Magazine.

Mother India(1957)

Mother India is a 1957 Bollywood film directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Nargis and Sunil Dutt .The film is about the struggle of a widow lady who brought up 2 son coping with poverty and ill-fate and paying debt to  moneylender  and kills her own younger son to keep her promise with villagers at the end of the film.The film ranked #3 in the list of all-time box office hits.The film was India’s first submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1958 but lost to Nights of Cabiria by a single vote.

Mughal-e- Azam(1960)

Set in the 16th century AD,the movie is about the doomed love affair between the Mughal Crown Prince Saleem and the beautiful, ill-fated court dancer,Anarkali whose fervor and intensity perpetrates a war between the prince and his father the great Mughal Emperor Akbar.It took  9 yrs for director K. Asif to finish this film. The film broke box office records in India when released and held the record for the highest grossing film ever until the 1975 film Sholay broke its record.A colored version was also created in 2004.This is  arguably one of the biggest box office hit movie in Indian cinema.The movie’s net revenue would put it on top of all Bollywood movies released until March 31, 2009.

Sholay(1975)

Sholay is an Indian “Curry Western” film directed by Ramesh Sippy. It is the biggest hit in the history of Bollywood.It is a story of a  Police Officer, whose family was killed by a bandit named Gabbar Singh and he decides to fight fire with fire and recruits two convicts, Jai(Amitabh Bachchan) and Veeru(Dharmendra)who tries to capture the ruthless dacoit . It is the highest grossing film of all time in Indian cinema. It has earned $ 160 million, after adjusting for inflation.In 1999, BBC India declared it the “Film of the Millennium” and was also awarded the trophy of Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.

Salaam Bombay(1988)

directed by Mira Nair, The film narrates the day-to-day life of children living on the streets of Mumbai(formerly known as Bombay). It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, the National Board of Review Award for Top Foreign Film, the Golden Camera and Audience Awards at the Cannes Film Festival, and three awards at the Montréal World Film Festival. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.It is a superb film that gives the viewer a bird’s eye view into the plight of India’s urban street children.

Lagaan(2001)

Directed by Ashutosh Gowariker and produced by Aamir Khan, who also played the lead role the movie is set in the Victorian period of the British Raj and revolves around the peasants from a barren village who are oppressed by high taxes imposed by the British.It shows peasants beating Britishers in the game of cricket and showing them exit.The film received critical acclaim and awards at various international film festivals, as well as many Indian film awards. It also became the third Hindi-language film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Rang de Basanti(2006)

Written and directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Aamir Khan plays the protagonist.A British documentary filmmaker who is determined to make a film on Indian freedom fighters based on diary entries by her grandfather, a former officer of the British Army in India.In the film both the 1930’s British India and the India Today run parallel and intersect with each other at crucial points.It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2006 BAFTA Awards.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai(2006)

Directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra where a Mumbai underworld don,who begins to see the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi. Through his interactions with the image of Gandhi,don begins to practice what he calls Gandhigiri (Satyagraha, non-violence, and truth) to help ordinary people solve their problems.It received many awards including four National Film Awards and was the first Hindi film to be shown at the United Nations.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Though it’s not an Indian movie and many Indians still don’t feel proud as it shows the poor and darker side of country but somewhere down the line  this British film by Danny Boyle made on Indian soil casting children from Mumbai slums and other Indian actors has put Indian cinema and its artist(A.R. Rehman and Resul Pookutty) on  global map.Written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan it is an adaptation of the novel Q & A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup.The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards in 2009 and won eight, the most for any film of 2008, including Best Picture,Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also won seven BAFTA Awards (including Best Film), five Critics’ Choice Awards, and four Golden Globes.

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