News

Indian streamer SonyLIV has unveiled a slate of more than 20 new and returning shows for 2024 and is expanding its content focus.

2023 saw several hits bow on the service including “Scam 2003,” “Chamak,” Agatha Christie adaptation “Charlie Chopra & The Mystery Of Solang Valley” and “Fauda” remake “Tanaav,” which has been renewed for a second season, besides Season 2 of Emmy-nominated series “Rocket Boys.”

2024 will see shows in the Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi and Marathi languages, in addition to Hindi. “We wanted to go with a very robust multi-language content lineup,” Danish Khan, executive VP and business head, SonyLIV and StudioNext at Sony Pictures Networks India, told Variety.

The Hindi-language lineup includes renowned filmmaker Sooraj Barjatya (“Uunchai”) making his streaming debut with “Badaa Naam Karenge,” a family drama that is due to premiere during the Diwali holiday frame in November. “That’s a big one for us,” Khan says. Sudhir Mishra directs...

Indian streamer SonyLIV has revealed a robust 35-strong series slate, including some returning hits, with a further expansion into South Indian languages in addition to its Hindi-language slate.

Headquartered in Mumbai, the streamer now has three content offices in South India, in Kochi, Hyderabad and Chennai. SonyLIV also now has 24 million paid subscribers, SonyLIV head of content Saugata Mukherjee told Variety.

In the Tamil language, after the success of “Tamil Rockerz” in 2022 and “The Story of Things” earlier this year, SonyLIV has saga “Journey,” headlined by R. Sarathkumar with Cheran Pandian (“Autograph”) serving as showrunner; and “The Madras Murder,” set against the backdrop of the Tamil film industry in the 1950s and 1960s, with A.L. Vijay (“Kireedam”) as showrunner.

The streamer’s push into the Telugu language continues with a raft of commissions. These include detective show “Brinda,” starring Trisha Krishnan (“Ponniyin Selvan: 1”), directed by debutant Surya Manoj Vangala; and “Kanyasulkam,...

Kochi, March 18 (Ians) “Blindfold”, the ground-breaking Malayalam movie that takes viewers on a journey through the perspective of a blind person has made its way to record books as it has become the country’s first-ever audio cinema.

Directed by creative designer Binoy Karamen and produced by Klum, a luxury apparel brand, and Intellectual Monkey Productions has not only created a new genre in Indian cinema but also set a benchmark in the world of filmmaking.

By using sound as the primary storytelling tool, Blindfold has created a deeply immersive cinematic experience that pushes the boundaries of traditional filmmaking.

The movie follows the events in the life of a blind man, who becomes a witness in a murder case.

This exciting story of a murder investigation is narrated with no visuals and puts the audience in the shoes of a blind man, with only sounds to guide them.

“The medium of cinema is visual.

Click here to read the full article.

The Toronto Film Festival will rally in solidarity with Ukrainian film producers amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war by holding two industry panels at the Canadian festival’s 47th edition.

The first Sept. 12 panel will feature six Ukrainian filmmakers behind recent festival circuit hits, including Butterfly Vision producer Darya Bassel, whose film was the only Ukrainian feature in Cannes’ official selection this year; Luxembourg, Luxembourg producer Volodymyr Yatsenko, whose film will screen in Toronto after bowing in Venice; and Ihor Savychenko, who produced the 2019 film The Painted Bird, Vaclav Marhoul’s grim Holocaust drama adapted from Jerzy Kosinski’s novel.

Also in Toronto on the panel to discuss current and future film projects is Valeria Sochyvets, producer of the 2020 film Blindfold, and Egor Olesov, who produced the 2019 Ukrainian film Mr. Jones.

The second Sept. 13 panel will discuss possible co-production opportunities for Ukrainian productions and...

Welcome to this week’s Major League Wrestling: Fusion, right here on Nerdly. I’m Nathan Favel and we have Gumby damn it! I smoke a cigar! I smoke a cigar! You can’t stop me from smoking the cigar, because I’m Gumby damn it…and secretly Dr. Manhattan in disguise. Low Ki is here to kick Davey Boy Smith Jr.’s ass, so don’t go any-where…and Merry Fuggin Christmas, because I’m Gumby damn it!

Match #1: Jimmy Havoc def. Mance Warner – Prince of Darkness Match The following is courtesy of mlw.com:

“The Man of 14 Stone” first steps into the ring for what is guaranteed to be a match of darkness as both men will be blindfolded, but The Southern Psycho comes out with the Queens crowd fully behind him. The two make certain to put the hoods on simultaneously as they literally feel the ring out.

Modovan comedy project ‘Carbon’ was the big winner.

Moldovan comedy Carbon has won the best pitch award at the Connecting Cottbus (coco) East-West Co-production Market held in Germany this week.

It is being produced by Sergiu Cumatrenco Jr and Ion Bors and will mark Bors’ feature directorial debut. The award includes a cash prize of €1,500 and free accreditation to the Producers Network at the Marche du Film in Cannes 2020.

The absurdist road movie, set during the armed conflict in Transnistria in the early 1990s, had been selected after winning the Transilvania Pitch Stop coco Award in Cluj in June.

It...

This fall semester I started taking an Italian language class two evenings a week with my daughter, and Thursday night I was looking to decompress after our first big quiz. (Scores haven’t been revealed yet, but I think we did just fine.) So I started rummaging through my shelves and came across the Warner Archives DVD of Francesco Maselli’s A Fine Pair (1968), an ostensibly breezy romantic caper comedy which reteams Rock Hudson and Claudia Cardinale, a pairing their public was presumably clamoring for after their previous outing together in Blindfold (1965), a Universal programmer written and directed by Phillip Dunne, the screenwriter of, among many other notable movies, How Green Was My Valley. I’ve had a mad crush on Claudia ever since I first saw her in Circus World (1964) with John Wayne when I was but a youngster, and I always welcome the chance to visit movies of...

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

In 2010 Liam Neeson suddenly found himself in the upper reaches of the action hero map as Taken, the streamlined, laser-focussed, one man assault on the modern day slave trade, reaped a not insubstantial $145 million at the Us box office, and some $226 million worldwide. Luc Besson’s mile-a-minute, euro-pudding, action fiestas (see The Transporter series) had finally hit paydirt.

With Neeson’s growled delivery of ‘I will find you, and I will kill you’ entering the pop-culture lexicon it was inevitable that this guilty pleasure would be given the sequel green light. Unfortunately the result, Taken 2, is a cynical cash-cow; a lazy, bloodless rehash with levels of ridiculousness that storytelling fleet-footedness and hyper-active camera-work just can’t hide. Although in this case laying the paucity of thrill or sense at the audience’s feet doesn’t seem to have raised many concerns with the film-makers as...