Entertainment: Director’s cavalier attitude weakens Indu Sarkar

After many protest and controversies, Indu Sarkar, a political drama set against the backdrop of Emergency, hits theatres on Friday. Before release, Madhur Bhandarkar’s ambitious project promised of picturising realistically one of the darkest chapters of post-independent India. But Bhandarkar falls flat on his face as he failed to attract the audience due to lack of genuine creativity and a cavalier attitude to period details.

The movie presents an irregular account of the 19 months of Emergency in hurried montages. According to NDTV, the eponymous heroine - a woman with a stammer (Kirti Kulhari) - claims that the Emergency lasted 19 months. And that is only one of the many liberties that Indu Sarkar takes with factual accuracy under the guise of being a film that it is only fiction. It is pure Bollywood - peppered with ingredients that only draw attention away from the avowedly serious business at hand.

Indu Sarkar is an effective propaganda movie only to the extent that it knows its mission statement and knows whom to shame and whom to take in its stride. Most of the oppression stories are calculatedly heaped on the Muslims: the film has a message for the community. Bhandarkar tries to, but cannot get away from his tendency of veering toward exploitation: he is too charged by it. If there’s something Right-wing about him, it’s the incessant sensationalising, reported Rediff.com

Masoom actor Inder Kumar Passes away

Bollywood actor Inder Kumar is no more. He passed away on Friday at 2 am. The 45-year-old actor suffered a heart attack at his residence in Andheri’s Four Bungalows.

Inder has worked in more than 20 films. He was best known for playing supporting roles in Hindi films such as Wanted, Tumko Na Bhool Paayenge, Kahin Pyaar Na Ho Jaaye.

Bollywood actors took to Twitter to condole his death.

He was currently shooting for his next film Phati Padi Hai Yaar.

Kajol poses with the first lady of Malaysia

There is one more addition to the women’s club of Kajol, that too the first lady of Malaysia. The actress shared a new pic on her Twitter along with director Soundarya and Malaysia’s first lady Datin Paduka Rosmah Mansor.

Kajol is all set to woo her fans with VIP2, she is working in Tamil films after a long gap of 20 years. The film is a sequel to the 2014 film of the same name. Its release on Friday has been postponed due to ‘inevitable reasons’.

Diploma films of FTII’s alumni to be screened for public

The city-based Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) has decided to screen the diploma films made by its former students for the public. The alumni of the prestigious institute include several noted actors, filmmakers, cinematographers, editors and technical staff of the film industry.

“The first batch of FTII started in the 1960s, so we have diploma films of our past students since its inception. These diploma films, made by the students as a part of their final year project work, generally do not see the light of day. So we decided to screen them for the public at our premises once in a week as all these diploma films are like a gold mine,” said the institute’s director, Bhupendra Kainthola.

The public screening of the films is slated to begin on August 5. The inaugural event will be attended by FTII alumnus and veteran actor Shatrughan Sinha who, as the student of FTII, acted in his diploma film, titled Angry Young Man, Kainthola said.

Likewise, the diploma films of several celebrities and artistes, who once learnt the tricks of the trade at the institute during their student life, will be screened for the common people who can just walk in and watch these films for free. There are over 500 diploma films of the former students lying at the FTII and the process to restore them is underway.

Gajendra Chauhan, the former chairman of FTII, said it is a good initiative as people will get to see the works of their favourite artistes when they were students. A proposal to screen all these diploma films on Doordarshan is pending with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

With Inputs from PTI