Over the last decade the Indian film industry has reinvented itself. Do film critics need to do that too?
'When I met him, I was a behaving like a 16 year old!' 'He is incredible, very casual and chilled out.' 'He told me he would watch Gully Boy and then he said a dialogue from Gully Boy, 'Bahut hard!'.'
'2015 gave us a set of Hindi films that brought to light, the true uncorrupted joys of filmmaking even in their roughness.' 'Films which told us why we loved films in the first place. Films that were less ashamed of revealing their weakness and ones that took chances with audience expectations.'
The 68th Cannes film festival may have concluded but the BEST of it is just coming your way!
'At the end of the day, stars are actors.' 'They love performing. And the more challenges I feel that you end up giving stars on the sets, the happier they are.'
'Are we seeing the beginning of the communalising of one of the most iconic film industries in the world?' asks Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
'Mulk questions the very principle, of good-Muslim exceptionalism.' 'That, of course, we adore Abdul Hamid, A P J Abdul Kalam and Bismillah Khan and if only more Muslims were like them.' 'Anubhav Sinha sticks his neck out to say that these are no exceptions.' 'Most Muslims are like them. It is the terrorists who are exceptions,' says Shekhar Gupta.
Beginning a fascinating new series where film folk reveal what their movies taught them...
Zubaan emerges, sadly, like one of those ads where you can half-hum the song but you forget what it was for, feels Raja Sen.
A clutch of professional talent management firms is changing the balance of demand and supply in India's entertainment industry, writes Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
'According to legal advice provided to me then, I was told we had very limited options.' 'Now in hindsight and after taking stock of things myself, I can quite see how I was ill-advised.'
'Good luck, Chaitanya Tamhane. May the jury system prove better for you than the bench trial did for your protagonist.'
'A lot of people in the West think that India has a very conservative culture, so we don't show much intimacy and sex in movies here. But I always say that, without sex, India won't have a population of over 1.2 billion people.'
'In 2015 I watched films in so many places. I attended several film festivals around the world -- Berlin, Tribeca (New York), Telluride, Toronto, Zurich, Mumbai, Dharamsala and Goa,' says Aseem Chhabra, author of a forthcoming book on Shashi Kapoor.
The vote was tied 7-7 until... Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com reveals how Court was chosen as India's nominee for the Academy Awards.
Anurag Kashyap has a lot of talent, says Aseem Chhabra. He just needs to stop making films that are very similar.
'There is no way you can view the movie from a distance, from a moral high ground, and get to its core.' 'To truly appreciate what Anurag Kashyap is trying to do here, you may have to lose a part of yourself to it, first,' says Sreehari Nair.
'I loved doing Bunty Aur Babli. I love working with Rohit Shetty. I just shot for Dilwale. Kuch bhi karva leta hain mujhse (he makes me do anything)!' I worked in Jolly LLB for free. It was just a night's work. We laughed till we died during the shooting. It was such a cute character!' Meet Bollywood's busiest actor, Sanjay Mishra.
'To jump from Madras Cafe to Piku to PINK to October, it takes time...'
'What we think is being patriotic is quite opposite to what actually is patriotism.' 'You have to do things for your country.' 'You have to add value and participate in actions that are not beneficial only to you.' 'That's when I decided to do a lot as an individual and as an artiste, who has 'x' number of followers on Instagram.' 'What is the point of having so many followers if I cannot use my voice for some good?'
More Indians are watching films across screens, TV, online and other platforms than ever before. Whether it is by tackling costs, processes or revenues, the trick is to find a way of making money from all of them, says Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
Jyoti Punwani examines the relevance of the Sairat, the hit Marathi film everyone is talking about, in today's times.
'On her birthday, I decided to meet her and dressed up for it.' 'Then I saw her walking towards me with a boy. I thought it could be her brother.' 'But when she came close, she asked, "Have you met my boyfriend?"' 'That day I realised the value of sad songs in India.' 'That was the first time I was heartbroken.'
'Anu Malik has great respect for lyrics and lyrics writers. He has worked with big important people through the '80s and the '90s -- everyone from Gulzar and Majrooh Sultanpuri. He treated me with great respect.' 'I don't think the AIB controversy will affect any comedian who can think right and straight, who is clear about his comedy and politics.'
'Sanjay Dutt is a survivor, and I have seen his spirit adjusting to that. He writes letters. From the tone of the letters, you can sense whether he is depressed on that day or if he's better,' Rajkumar Hirani tells Patcy N/ Rediff.com
Onir blasts Bollywood for being regressive.
Raam Reddy gets candid about Thithi, his film journey so far and his next project.
'I am the undiscovered Julia Roberts of India. They haven't figured it out yet.' Kalki Koechlin gets talking.
Aseem Chhabra tell us how he watched 302 films in 365 days on airplanes, on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Google, Hulu, DVDs and even on YouTube.
'I still fight with my sister.' 'I still get scolded by my mom.' 'I still travel by autos sometimes.'
'2016 was the age of convenience for Hindi movies; of down pat effrontery and planned feeling triumphing over attempts to discern something complexly beautiful,' says Sreehari Nair.
'She isn't the same Aishwarya, who walks the red carpet at Cannes. She doesn't look like that at all in the film. That is half the battle won from my side.' Sarbjit director Omung Kumar tells us why he likes transforming his actors.
'Peddlers isn't a movie of grand cinematic achievements, but one of small yet startlingly original victories.'
'The starting point of the Udta Punjab casting was that we didn't think stars would do a film like this, so we'd take non-stars. As the names kept rolling in and we had Kareena Kapoor and Shahid and Alia Bhatt, I was like yaar yeh ho kya raha hai?'
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