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A leading voice among China’s post-1990s generation of filmmakers, Wei Shujun has made four thematically diverse features in as many years — with three premiering at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. This week, he’s in Japan to present his critically lauded latest, Mostly Sunny, at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

The new film, which premiered at the Shanghai Film Festival in June, stars Huang Xiaoming in a transformative performance as a cheerful but mentally challenged man who lives with his nearly 70-year-old mother (Hsiao-Fen Lu). Just as the man has begun to find community and joy with a mysterious organization called Sunshine Club — led by a vaguely cult-like figure played with considerable charisma by leading Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke — his mother falls gravely ill. The man and his brother, a medical doctor, then embark on drastically different missions to cure their mother, the elder relying on medical science...

The 37th Tokyo International Film Festival began its 10-day run on October 28 with a colorful Red Carpet event featuring Japanese and international cinema luminaries, ahead of the TIFF Opening Ceremony.

The Red Carpet festivities got underway with brief stage appearances by over 200 filmmakers, actors and luminaries from across sections of the festival, as well as the TIFF juries. They then moved along the 162-meter serpentine walk, stopping for multiple autographs and selfies with fans from far and wide before arriving at the elegant staircase leading into the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater. The theater was built in the style of yesteryear’s grand movie houses, providing the perfect backdrop for TIFF’s Opening Ceremony.

Among the international luminaries making the stroll were Chinese actor Zhao Liying and director Midi Z (at TIFF with the film The Unseen Sister); Hong Kong actor Michael Hui (The Last Dance); Taiwanese director Huang Xi and Hong...

What did five of the most critically acclaimed Asian movies that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival have in common? They all were edited by rising Taiwanese studio Cutting Edge Films.

Formally established only in 2022, the company comprises a small group of film professionals who have worked together for over a decade. They are co-led by French editor Matthieu Laclau (Touch of Sin), known for his long-running collaboration with Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke, and Taiwanese producer Justine O. (The Chinese Mayor, Black Dog), whose work has nabbed a succession of festival prizes in recent years. The company says its recent successes point to the maturity and expanding reach of Taipei’s post-production sector, which has been buoyed by steady government support and a growing reputation for high-quality work at globally competitive prices.

“Taipei’s post-production scene is definitely having a moment,” says Laclau. “For VFX, editing or color grading,...

The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival came to a glitzy conclusion Saturday as Kazakh film The Divorce, directed by Daniyar Salamat, took home the top Golden Goblet award for best feature at a star-studded closing ceremony in the Chinese commercial capital.

A period drama set in the 1920s during the establishment of Soviet authority on the Kazakh steppe, the film explores the convergence of marriage, religion and women’s rights through the story of a typical couple wrestling with the prospect of divorce.

Salamat was presented onstage with his trophy by the Oscar-nominated Vietnamese-French director Tran Anh Hung (Scent of Green Papaya, The Taste of Things), who served as Shanghai’s competition jury president this year. Hung and his fellow jurors praised the “sophisticated form” of The Divorce‘s story, “which mixes comedy, farce and tragedy,” and they hailed Salamat’s “ability to create the feeling of innocence, which radiates...

Motherhood"I do believe in neighbourhood safety groups for our children," said Sunny, whose real name is Karenjit Kaur Vohra.IANSNatalia Ningthoujam Actor Sunny Leone took everyone by surprise when she announced that she and her husband Daniel Weber had adopted girl child Nisha in 2017. Another surprise unfolded in March 2018, when she shared that they had extended their family by including two more children -- sons Noah and Asher -- via surrogacy. But the Actor says she always wanted to have three children. "I always pictured three children in my head but as time went by and no children... I would have been happy with one but God had different plans and made my dreams come true of a big family," Sunny told Ians in an email interview. She will turn a year older on May 13 -- the same day as Mother's Day. "It's pretty cool that both are on the same day. I am not sure about my birthday but I'm looking forward to Mother's Day," said the Actor, popular for her "Baby doll" image. She is new to motherhood and is absolutely enjoying it. "I am the same person but now I have more love to spread to my kids. I'm so happy about being a mother," she said. But what's it like to be a mother in the 21st century when crimes against children, especially girls, are increasing? "I don't think they have increased. I believe that the news is highlighting what has been happening for a long time already," she said. She just hopes "swift and harsh punishments follow these acts by the perpetrators". Her focus is on her children's safety first. "I do believe in neighbourhood safety groups for our children," said Sunny, whose real name is Karenjit Kaur Vohra. Her little ones keep her on her toes but work hasn't taken a backseat. She is excited about ZEE5's show "Karenjit Kaur - The Untold Story Of Sunny Leone". "Initially, my answer (to make a show on her life) was that I wasn't sure. But once I started hearing about what the director and the production house wanted, I started having an interest in it," said the Indo-Canadian talent. The former adult film Actor shot to fame in India when she entered the Bigg Boss house as a contestant. After the controversial reality show "Bigg Boss", she made her Bollywood debut with "Jism 2" in 2012. What should the audience expect from the show? "The unexpected. This is a part of my life story and not necessarily the journey you are expecting to see," she said. There was also a Canadian documentary called "Mostly Sunny". Why does she feel the need to tell her story to the world? "Many people are curious (about her choices and journey) and want to know; so, I believe that if I'm going to tell it then it should be in my words and from my eyes. That wasn't the case with the documentary," said the Actor, who has also made appearances in Kannada, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu and Tamil films. "What we have made is better than a film because it gets into many details that a film will never be able to explain. For a film, the team will pick and choose what they want to show in 100-120 minutes. This ('Karenjit Kaur...') is showing two seasons and 20 episodes of my story. It's only the tip of the iceberg," she added. (Natalia Ningthoujam can be contacted at natalia.n@ians.in)...

“I don’t know what my legacy will be,” says porn star turned Bollywood starlet Sunny Leone near the end of Dilip Mehta’s documentary Mostly Sunny. Leone acknowledges that her greatest strength isn’t acting, isn’t dancing – it is, as she bluntly puts it, the ability to “turn a quarter into a dollar.”

Leone is a subject that seems perfectly tailor-made for a documentary about her transition and acceptance – even if that acceptance is frequently grudging – by the Bollywood film fraternity.

Leone’s public persona is documented and well-known. Mehta sets the facts out for us, facts that pretty much anyone with a passing familiarity with Leone knows: that she’s the most searched Indian personality on YouTube; that Osama bin Laden was obsessed with her. “Who doesn’t know Sunny Leone?”, giggles taxi driver Gurpeet Singh Bawa in the films opening moments.

The frustration, of course, is...

Filmmaker Dilip Mehta’s documentary Mostly Sunny is the unbelievable but true story of Sunny Leone — a small town Ontario girl who ran away to Hollywood, became a leading porn star and then morphed that notoriety into a major career as a Bollywood actress. As a result, Leone is the most Googled celebrity in India. It was a remarkable double reinvention for a tiny powerhouse born Karenjit Kaur Vohra in a conservative Sikh Punjabi home in Sarnia, Ontario. We spoke with Mehta in Toronto about what happened after the film was made, the pains of reinvention and his experiences working...read more...

Adult film actress Sunny Leone, a.k.a Karenjit Kaur Vohra, has more than 100 million fans, over 20 million followers on social media, and is India’s most Googled celebrity. But the new documentary “Mostly Sunny” chronicles Leone’s journey from a Canadian-born, American bred adult film actress into one of Bollywood’s biggest stars. The film exposes the conflict between traditional cultural values held by immigrant parents and the lifestyle choices made by their children within the influence of Western society. Determined to succeed as a mainstream actress, Sunny is unapologetic as she challenges the modern notions of independence, celebrity and feminism while forcing India to confront its paradoxical relationship with sex. Watch an exclusive clip from the film below.

Read More: The 2016 IndieWire Tiff Bible: Every Review, Interview and News Item Posted During the Festival

The film is directed by internationally known photographer Dilip Mehta. He previously directed the 2008 documentary “The Forgotten Woman,...

Like it or not, the Sunny Leone documentary Mostly Sunny directed by photographer-filmmaker Dilip Mehta will soon release in India. Sources say Sunny and her husband Daniel Weber did “everything within their power” to stop the film from being played in India. It isn’t very clear what the couple’s objection to the documentary is (theyRead More

The post Sunny Leone’s documentary that she has disowned, to be shown in India appeared first on Bollywood Hungama.

The Jio Mami Mumbai Film Festival with Star is less than a month away from offering the city a movie extravaganza unlike any other. In its 18th edition, the festival announced its stellar line-up for the year at its annual press conference held on Thursday, 29th September in Mumbai. The festival is set to kick off on 20th October. The press conference began with the announcement of the festival’s new brand identity.

Jio Mami with Star, Festival Co-Chairperson, Kiran Rao said, “It’s been a very exciting year for the Academy. Firstly, we are now a year around presence. We launched the Mami Film Club in May with a conversation between Sir Ian McKellen and Aamir. We’ve followed that up with India premieres of films such as Brahman Naman and India in a Day. The Academy is committed to bringing you great film content and conversations not just...

Sunny Leone's boycott of the premiere of the documentary on her life 'Mostly Sunny' has triggered of a 'pain' reaction for the docu's director Dilip Mehta.

Belying Sunny's husband Daniel Weber's claim that they couldn't make it to Toronto for the premier on account of a family function in New York, Mehta claims Sunny refused to attend the premiere after Dilip refused to cut some shots from the documentary on her request.

Says Dilip, "The final cut is the director's cut and that's how the film will remain. There's no compelling reason to compromise the film. The changes they are asking for, will weaken not only my vision but also the truthfulness of the documentary."

When asked to elaborate on the cuts that Sunny and her husband wanted, Dilip says, "It's just that now she appears to be self-conscious of certain partial frontal nudity scenes! And, that's...

<img class="size-full wp-image-656254 aligncenter" src="http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1151790252.jpg" alt="1151790252" width="500" height="277" /> Sunny Leone's boycott of the premiere of the documentary on her life 'Mostly Sunny' has triggered of a 'pain' reaction for the docu's director Dilip Mehta. Belying Sunny's husband Daniel Weber's claim that they couldn't make it to Toronto for the premier on account of a family function in New York, Mehta claims Sunny refused to attend the premiere after Dilip refused to cut some shots from the documentary on her request. Says Dilip, "The final cut is the director's cut and that's how the film will remain. There's no compelling reason to compromise the film. The changes they are asking for, will weaken not only my vision but also the truthfulness of the documentary." When asked to elaborate on the cuts that Sunny and her husband wanted, Dilip says, "It's just that now she appears to be self-conscious of certain partial frontal nudity scenes! And, that's...

<img class="size-full wp-image-656254 aligncenter" src="http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1151790252.jpg" alt="1151790252" width="500" height="277" /> Sunny Leone's boycott of the premiere of the documentary on her life 'Mostly Sunny' has triggered of a 'pain' reaction for the docu's director Dilip Mehta. Belying Sunny's husband Daniel Weber's claim that they couldn't make it to Toronto for the premier on account of a family function in New York, Mehta claims Sunny refused to attend the premiere after Dilip refused to cut some shots from the documentary on her request. Says Dilip, "The final cut is the director's cut and that's how the film will remain. There's no compelling reason to compromise the film. The changes they are asking for, will weaken not only my vision but also the truthfulness of the documentary." When asked to elaborate on the cuts that Sunny and her husband wanted, Dilip says, "It's just that now she appears to be self-conscious of certain partial frontal nudity scenes! And, that's...

Deepa Mehta came quietly to Delhi, shot her film Anatomy Of Violence on the gruesome gang rape in a moving bus in 2012 on the streets and went back to Toronto. The film is being premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. Deepa's take on the gruesome crime that shook our nation's conscience attempts to look at the crime from the other side. The film examines the antecedents of the rapists, their family life and their upbringing which engendered such brutality. Significantly the heinous crime is not shown on screen at all. The whole idea behind this tormenting take on the crime against humanity is to explore the psychology that results in such barbaric deeds. Anatomy Of Violence has been made almost entirely with theatre actors from Delhi in the cast. The only known face in the film is that of Seema Biswas who has been seen to brilliant...

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-655581 " src="http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anatomy-Of-Violence.jpg" alt="Anatomy Of Violence" width="502" height="761" /> Deepa Mehta came quietly to Delhi, shot her film <i>Anatomy Of Violence</i> on the gruesome gang rape in a moving bus in 2012 on the streets and went back to Toronto. The film is being premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. Deepa's take on the gruesome crime that shook our nation's conscience attempts to look at the crime from the other side. The film examines the antecedents of the rapists, their family life and their upbringing which engendered such brutality. Significantly the heinous crime is not shown on screen at all. The whole idea behind this tormenting take on the crime against humanity is to explore the psychology that results in such barbaric deeds. <i>Anatomy Of Violence</i> has been made almost entirely with theatre actors from Delhi in the cast. The only known face in the film is that of Seema Biswas who has been seen to brilliant...

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-655581 " src="http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Anatomy-Of-Violence.jpg" alt="Anatomy Of Violence" width="502" height="761" /> Deepa Mehta came quietly to Delhi, shot her film <i>Anatomy Of Violence</i> on the gruesome gang rape in a moving bus in 2012 on the streets and went back to Toronto. The film is being premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. Deepa's take on the gruesome crime that shook our nation's conscience attempts to look at the crime from the other side. The film examines the antecedents of the rapists, their family life and their upbringing which engendered such brutality. Significantly the heinous crime is not shown on screen at all. The whole idea behind this tormenting take on the crime against humanity is to explore the psychology that results in such barbaric deeds. <i>Anatomy Of Violence</i> has been made almost entirely with theatre actors from Delhi in the cast. The only known face in the film is that of Seema Biswas who has been seen to brilliant...

Sunny Leone failed to keep her appointment with what was perhaps the most glorious chapter of her career in the entertainment business: the premiere of the documentary Mostly Sunny on her rise from an adult-content star to Bollywood actress at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff). The 2-hour documentary directed by ace-photographer Dilip Mehta was apparently done with the full approval and participation of Sunny and her husband Daniel Weber. But now the documentary seems to have caused some amount of heartburn in the Leone camp. Says a source from Toronto, "The premiere of the Sunny Leone documentary was to be held on Sunday night at the Tiff at 10.30 pm. Dilip Mehta and his sister Deepa Mehta had even organized a lunch in honour of Sunny Leone which she was to attend along with her husband. But she didn't turn up for the lunch or the premiere in the evening.

Dilip Mehta's extensively researched documentary on Sunny Leone premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival. Says Mehta excitedly, "My film Mostly Sunny celebrates Sunny Leone's extraordinary journey from porn to dizzy heights of Bollywood. The World Premiere of which is on September 11, at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival." Dilip was approached by a Canadian production house for the documentary on Sunny Leone whom he admits he knew little about. "My knowledge of her, and her antecedents were sketchy at best, I knew the storyline was riveting .It was a story that was compelling and one that had to be told." Dilip met Sunny about two years ago. "I had already said yes to the Producer and to size each other up Sunny, her husband Daniel and I met at the Juhu Marriott in Mumbai. Our lunch meeting was a prolonged one where Sunny and I both vented...

A selection of films from the 2016 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival has been unveiled, with films by Jim Jarmusch, Maren Ade, Tom Ford, Paul Verhoeven, Damien Chazelle, and many more.Opening NIGHTThe Magnificent Seven (Antoine Fuqua)GALASDeepwater HorizonArrival (Denis Villeneuve)Deepwater Horizon (Peter Berg)The Headhunter's Calling (Mark Williams)The Journey Is the Destination (Bronwen Hughes)Jt + The Tennessee Kids (Jonathan Demme)Lbj (Rob Reiner)Lion (Garth Davis)Loving (Jeff Nichols)A Monster Calls (J.A. Bayona)Planetarium (Rebecca Zlotowski)Queen of Katwe (Mira Nair)The Rolling Stones of Olé Olé Olé!: A Trip Across Latin America (Paul Dugdale)The Secret Scripture (Jim Sheridan)Snowden (Oliver Stone)Strange Weather (Katherine Dieckmann)Their Finest (Lone Scherfig)A United Kingdom (Amma Astante)Special PRESENTATIONSLa La LandThe Age of Shadows (Kim Jee-woon)All I See Is You (Marc Forster)American Honey (Andrea Arnold)American Pastoral (Ewan McGregor)Asura: The City of...

The third cascade of world premieres in 15 days flowed from the headquarters of the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday as programmers revealed their Midnight Madness, Tiff Docs, Vanguard, Tiff Cinematheque and Short Cuts selections.

This week’s offering includes Ben Wheatley’s all-star gangster thriller Free Fire, which opens Midnight Madness one year after the premiere of the British auteur’s High-Rise; fast-rising Chadwick Boseman in revenge thriller Message From The King in Vanguard and a Tiff Docs strand that features climate change documentary The Turning Point, featuring and produced by Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio.

The 41st Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8 to 18.

Wp = world premiere, IP = international premiere, Nap = North American premiere, Cp = Canadian premiere, Tp = Toronto premiere.

Midnight Madness

Ben Wheatley’s all-star gunfight Free Fire starring Brie Larson, Armie Hammer and Cillian Murphy will open the section, which includes Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Rats, Adam Wingard’s Blair Witch, André Øvredal’s [link...

The Toronto International Film Festival has nearly completed its slate announcement this year — expect a few stragglers to be announced in the coming days, but this is about the size of it — rounding out its lineup with today’s announcement of its Docs, Midnight Madness, Vanguard and Tiff Cinematheque picks. And what a group this is, including plenty of returning favorites and some very exciting new names.

Tiff’s Docs section features a collection of works from award-winning directors including Steve James, Raoul Peck, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog. Leonardo DiCaprio even pops up for a “rousing call to action on climate change” in “The Turning Point,” made in collaboration with Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens and already picked up by National Geographic.

Read More: Tiff Reveals First Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Magnificent Seven,’ ‘American Honey,’ ‘La La Land’ and ‘Birth of A Nation’

The beloved Midnight Madness section offers...