Anshuman Jha

X

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 2015 06:31:21 +0000

X – The Film is an upcoming Indian experimental film directed by a team of eleven filmmakers including Abhinav Shiv Tiwari, Anu Menon, Nalan Kumarasamy, Hemant Gaba, Pratim D. Gupta, Q, Raja Sen, Rajshree Ojha, Sandeep Mohan, Sudhish Kamath and Suparn Verma.[2] It will feature Huma Qureshi, Rajat Kapoor and Anshuman Jha in the lead.[3][4] X is not an anthology,[5] but one whole story with the eleven directors making sections of it.[6] The film, which is in production, is being produced by Manish Mundra.

Fugly

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 08:49:30 +0000

The fun-filled and carefree life of four college friends comes to an abrupt end when they cross paths with a corrupt police officer.

Dev, Devi, Gaurav & Aditya are close friends. Gaurav is son of CM of Haryana, while rest of his friends are commoners. Gaurav is isolated from the politics his family is into and is the only educated person in his family. Gaurav is nice hearted, but always high on adrenaline because of his influential father. He has a knack of getting into trouble with police because of this attitude, but the police always ignores his pranks. A local grocer or Nunu has a evil eye on Devi and one fine day gropes her in his shop. The four of them decide to teach him a lesson. At night they break into his shop and trash him warning him not to see her again. Although outnumbered & in bad state Nunu challenges them to leave Devi behind for him. Dev is very angry and decides to teach him a lesson. They put him in their car’s trunk and drive him to an isolated location. They are intercepted Inspector R.S. Chautala who is patrolling the highway. Gaurav as usual tries to act smart and gets involved in a scuffle with Chautala. This enrages him and he suspects foul play. When he checks the car he discovers Nunu inside the trunk. Chautala kills Nunu in order to frame them in his murder case. In the morning after severe threat he puts up a demand of Rs. 61 lakhs of ransom money, which they have to arrange in 24 hours. Gaurav is afraid to tell his father about the incident because he was actually involved in kidnapping of Nunu, since this would cost his father his CM chair. Somehow everyone is able to arrange 24 lakhs.

Chautala further blackmails them by recording them handing over the money to him, as an evidence of attempting to bribe a policeman. He gives them 3 more days to arrange for the money with additional Rs. 10 lakhs as penalty. The four of them are further forced to arrange a rave party with a drug dealer, which is again raided by Chautala. He forces them into drug dealing as well to extract more juice out of them. The four of them decide that they had enough and want to expose him in a sting operation. They almost succeed in extracting confession out of him on camera, but are busted and Chautala also kidnaps Devi. Chautala outsmarts them on every step & four of slip deep into trouble with every step they try. Finally the are arrested on false charges and meanwhile out on bail.

Dev in the end decides that he has to sacrifice his life to expose truth. The next scene we see Dev in hospital and his narration is interrupted by Chautala once again. He clears up the ICU room of everyone to have a private moment with Dev. Dev tricks him by cutting off his own life support and getting into a scuffle with Chautala. As the medics & reporters rush into the room, they find Dev dead & it appears as if Chautala has killed him. This is telecast live on the news. Next we see Chautala meets Gaurav’s father in an isolated region. Chautala true to his colour again attempting to blackmail the CM and he shot dead by his colleague.

Yeh Hai Bakrapur

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 08:46:05 +0000

Yeh Hai Bakrapur is a social satire set against the backdrop of rural India. A multi-layered film, it is based on the complex belief systems that prevail in Indian society and the conflicts that ensue thereon.

The film’s story revolves around the family of the Qureshis and their pet animal goat. Circumstances result in the goat acquiring rock star status in his village and beyond. Soon enough, people are fighting for a piece of the live goat,named shaik asif. A rollicking climax ensues that provides the perfect finale to the mayhem that preceded it.

Cast: Anshuman Jha, Asif Basra, Suruchi Aulakh, Faiz Khan, Yoshika Verma, Shameem Khan, Amit Sial ( Cameo ), Utkarsh Majumdar ( Cameo ), Vinay Varma
Director, Screenwriter: Janaki Vishwanathan
Producers: SRamesh S Arunachalam

Chauranga

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2015 08:23:59 +0000

The last time Indian cinema dealt seriously with the shame of its much-abused caste system was in Nagraj Manjule’s furious, extraordinary Fandry, a call to revolution against the prejudice still leveled at the Hindi Dalit caste, a.k.a the untouchables. This anger is transformed into sorrowful, shocking tragedy in Chauranga (Four Colors) which depicts the horrifying treatment given to two bright young brothers and their mother who are scorned and humiliated in their village because of their lowly birth. The setting may be timeless but the drama is all too contemporary; in fact it’s based on a true story that happened in Bihar in 2008, here relocated to Bengal where first time director Bikas Ranjan Mishra grew up. The film took home the Best Film prize at its premiere in Mumbai’s India Gold section, forecasting a healthy festival life and the chance of some art house pick-ups.

While India’s ancient caste system originally referred to interlocking professions working for the good of society, it is now an inherited system of social exclusion based on birth. At its worst, as shown here, it is conveniently used to isolate a group of people as miserably underpaid servants, forced to do the dirtiest work and forbidden even to set foot in the temple because they are “unclean”. When the mayor is short on food for a festivity, he simply cuts off the bottom-rungers. There’s an eerie parallel to slavery in the American South when the local landowner claims sexual rights over his untouchable, unmarried and apparently compliant maid-servant Dhaniya (Tannishtah Chatterjee). Their dangerous, secret rolls in the hayloft have likely begotten two sons.

The rebellious Santu (Soham Maitra) is 14 and wants to go to school, but he refuses to humbly touch the feet of his mother’s benefactor Dhaval, played with controlled arrogance by actor-producer Sanjay Suri (My Brother…Nikhil.) However, Santu’s slightly older brother Bajrangi (Riddhi Sen) does kowtow to this powerful figure, and goes to school.

The brothers have a touching relationship of mutual protection and together they confront a pair older bullies who turn out to be Dhaval’s legitimate heirs. In a generally nuanced film, these are ugly characters, mean and totally evil. Taking their cue from their elders, they express their sadistic impulses on the more malleable Bajrangi, while little Santu defies them. Every day he climbs a tree to spy on Dhaval’s daughter returning home from school on her scooter, and his innocent crush will trigger the tragedy that ends the film on a dark, anguishing note.

Some of the tension is dispelled in the film’s last half hour as the focus shifts from one character to another and tragedy piles onto tragedy. Ranjan Mishra’s screenplay clearly feels the need to follow the real events that inspired it, but in this case real life is practically unbelievable. Above all, it reinforces an image of the Dalits as victims, without that final fist in the camera that electrified Fandry.

Both young actors are naturals horsing around on camera. Chaterjee, a pro who has worked in British films like Brick Lane, cuts a figure as the saucy but resourceful mother, whose her grief over the cruel death of her pregnant pet pig foreshadows events to come.

The film’s title comes from a four-colored pen, a symbol of the four Hindi castes, which don’t even include the Dalits.

Cast:Sanjay Suri, Tannishtah Chatterjee, Riddhi Sen, Soham Maitra, Arpita Chatterjee, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Swatilekha Sengupta, Ena Saha, Anshuman Jha, Delzad Hiwale
Director, Screenwriter: Bikas Ranjan Mishra
Producers: Sanjay Suri, Onir, Mohan T. Mulani