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Projects Produced by Alia Bhatt, Payal Kapadia & Kani Kusruti In Busan's APM 2025 Line-up

Projects Produced by Alia Bhatt, Payal Kapadia & Kani Kusruti In Busan's APM 2025 Line-up

Yahoo7 days ago
Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) has annouced the 30 projects selected for this year's Asian Project Market, including two projects produced by high-profile Indian actresses.
The line-up includes Difficult Daughters, directed by Soni Razdan, which is being produced by Alia Bhatt and her sister Shaheen Bhatt, along with veteran Indian indie producer Alan McAlex (Santosh).
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Kani Kusruti, who starred in Cannes Palme d'Or winning film All We Imagine As Light, is teaming with the director of that film, Payal Kapadia, to produce The Last Of Them Plagues, directed by Kunjila Mascillamani. Kusruti attended BIFF last year as a jury member for the New Currents competition.
Elsewhere, the line-up includes several other filmmakers with ties to BIFF, including Indian director Pradip Kurbah, recipient of the 2019 Jiseok Award, with new project Moon; Bangladeshi filmmaker Biplob Sarkar, previously invited to BIFF New Currents and returning with LGBTQ+-themed The Magical Men; and Malaysia's Lau Kok Rui from the BIFF 2022 Asian Film Academy, who is presenting Wake Me up When the Mourning Ends, with Soi Cheang, Stefano Centini and Wong Kew Soon on board as producers.
The line-up also features five Chinese-language projects, with three from Taiwan focusing on female protagonists. Japan is represented by three projects from established directors Shiraishi Kazuya, Fujita Naoya and Zhang Yaoyuan, with stories revolving around the realities of foreign laborers, a reclusive woman's struggle for identity, and a multifaceted view of what Japanese youth face today.
Seven Korean projects have also been selected from both emerging and mid-career directors, including Gilddong from Park Riwoong, who won the New Currents Award at BIFF 2024 for The Land Of Morning Calm; Arrival Of Water from Jo Heeyoung; Dance Dance Revolution by director Choi Hana (More Than Family); and The Descent by director Kim Hyoeun following her BIFF 2024 invitation for Tango At Dawn.
Asian Project Market (APM) will be held for four days from September 20-23 during the 20th edition of the Asian Contents & Film Market at BEXCO.
ASIAN PROJECT MARKET 2025:
*Supported by ACF Script Development Fund
Arrival Of Water (Korea, Japan)Dir: Jo HeeyoungProd: Park Sejin Black Star Angel* (Armenia, US)Dir: Christine HaroutounianProd: Maxwell Schwartz, Christine Haroutounian Bodoi (Japan)Dir: Shiraishi KazuyaProd: Kii Muneyuki Buy My Car (Japan, China)Dir: Zhang YaoyuanProd: Ichiyama Shozo, Kunizane Mizue, Mo Zhulin Churching Of Women (Jordan)Dir: Darin SallamProd: Deema Azar, Ayah Jardaneh Dance Dance Revolution (Korea)Dir: Choi HanaProd: An Boyoung The Daughter (Hong Kong, China)Dir: Guan TianProd: Vivian Bao, Ding Ningyuan The Descent (Korea)Dir: Kim HyoeunProd: Park Hyunsuk Difficult Daughters (India)Dir: Soni RazdanProd: Alia Bhatt, Shaheen Bhatt, Alan Mcalex, Grishma Shah Disorder (Iraq, Germany)Dir: Shawkat Amin KorkiProd: Mehmet Aktas, Shohreh Golparian, Shawkat Amin Korki Flying Cows (Vietnam)Dir: Nguyen Pham Thanh DatProd: Nguyen Huu Thi Tuong Vi The Funeral March (Japan, China)Dir: Fujita NaoyaProd: Fujita Kanako, Shiina Yasushi, Zou Aiken, Zou Lin Gilddong (Korea, China)Dir: Park RiwoongProd: Yoon Minyoung Gochi (Korea)Dir: Yoon EunkyoungProd: Stanley Kwak Heaven Help Us!* (Philippines)Dir: Eve BaswelProd: John Torres, Jules Katanyag Lanka (The Fire) (India)Dir: Saurav RaiProd: Sudeepta Sadhukhan, Viraj Selot, Ankita Purkayastha The Last Of Them Plagues (India)Dir: Kunjila MascillamaniProd: Payal Kapadia, Jeo Baby, Kani Kusruti Lost And Cow (Thailand)Dir: Thapanee LoosuwanProd: Chonlasit Upanigkit, Somprasong Srikrajang The Magical Men (Bangladesh, Singapore, France, India)Dir: Biplob SarkarProd: Biplob Sarkar, Fran Borgia, Francois d'Artemare, Sankhajit Biswas Moon (India)Dir: Pradip KurbahProd: Pradip Kurbah New Life* (China)Dir: Li YingtongProd: Annie Song No Country For Old Men (Taiwan)Dir: An BonProd: Chen Pao-Ying Paradis Karaoke (Korea)Dir: Byun SungbinProd: Bong Suji Sama (Canada, Afghanistan)Dir: Brishkay AhmedProd: Brishkay Ahmed, Bonnie Do Silence Of The Looms (Bangladesh)Dir: Mirza Shabnam FerdousiProd: Rajib Mohajan Silent Cry (Korea)Dir: Jero YunProd: Jero Yun The Skull Oracle (Taiwan)Dir: Laha MebowProd: Eric Liang Zara Lin, Chen Yi Chen Snake In The Dreamscapes (Taiwan)Dir: Lou Yi-AnProd: Chen Wen Wen, Kao Chun Ting, Hsu Guo-Lun Stuck Like Babies (Kyrgyzstan)Dir: Dastan Zhapar RyskeldiProd: Veronica Rhyme, Aktan Ryskeldiev, Fernanda Renno Wake Me Up When The Mourning Ends (Malaysia, Hong Kong, Italy, Taiwan)Dir: Lau Kok RuiProd: Soi Cheang, Stefano Centini, Wong Kew Soon
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A Designer Was Ready for India's Fashion Moment
A Designer Was Ready for India's Fashion Moment

New York Times

time13 hours ago

  • New York Times

A Designer Was Ready for India's Fashion Moment

In June, Kartik Kumra was confronted, for the first time in his life, with a scrum of reporters. His brand, Kartik Research, had just made its runway debut at Paris Fashion Week, showcasing a collection of soft-edged clothing infused with the visual language of India. A pair of beige hand-spun pleated linen pants were spruced up with floral embroidery swirling around the ankle of one leg. And a black blazer was transformed with a flash of gold Banarasi silk peeking through the lapel. It just so happened that Mr. Kumra's show had taken place in the middle of a season in which India seemed to be on the mood board of the luxury fashion world. Prada sent models down its men's wear runway in footwear that closely resembled Kolhapuri sandals. A few days later, at the Louis Vuitton men's wear show, the brand's creative director, Pharrell Williams, recreated the ancient Indian game of Snakes and Ladders as a set for his show. After Mr. Kumra's show ended, the assembled reporters peppered him with questions. 'What did you think of the L.V. show?' he recalled them asking during a recent interview. 'What about the Prada show?' It became abundantly clear to Mr. Kumra, 25, that India's sartorial choices were being repackaged as trendy. And that his brand had found itself at the center of that moment. Even having a presence at Fashion Week, alongside what he called 'the big guys,' was once unthinkable for Mr. Kumra, who started his brand four years ago in his college dorm room as he studied economics at the University of Pennsylvania. At that time, he had no experience in fashion or design. But his brand's ability to reframe Indian crafts in the context of Western fashion has attracted a loyal — or, as Mr. Kumra described it, 'sticky' — following and prepared him for the mainstream spotlight. His work has been seen on Kendrick Lamar, Stephen Curry, Brad Pitt, Riz Ahmed, Lewis Hamilton and Paul Mescal. When the brand released a limited run of embroidered Converse sneakers in May, the shoes sold out almost immediately. In 2023, Mr. Kumra's brand was a semifinalist for the coveted L.V.M.H. Prize for Young Fashion Designers. Kartik Research is now stocked in 70 locations around the world, including Mr Porter and Selfridges. Next spring, it will arrive at Harrods in London. Mr. Kumra will also introduce a line of women's wear at Bergdorf Goodman in March. 'Next season, India is not going to be the reference for them,' he said, referring to companies like Prada and Louis Vuitton. 'But this is our thing. We built a business on it and we're going to keep doing it.' A few weeks after his show in Paris, at the brand's new brick-and-mortar store in the busy Dimes Square neighborhood in downtown Manhattan, Mr. Kumra was manning the floor. In one corner stood a classic Indian straw daybed. On the wall, there was a painting of Hindu mythology. A live cricket match — India versus England — was streaming on his laptop. A single rack of clothes ran the length of the store. Each garment had made its way through an 'independent universe of small makers,' Mr. Kumra said. 'The real experts — the master embroiderers, weavers, printers.' Their work isn't scalable, nor can you find their phone numbers online. To work with them requires building on-the-ground relationships. A white shirt on the rack, for example, was handmade by a man in the state of Gujarat, using what is known as bhujodi weaving. That weaver noticed, during one of Mr. Kumra's visits to his workshop, that Mr. Kumra was wearing handloom denim pants. 'He was like, 'Oh, let me connect you to my handloom denim guys,'' Mr. Kumra said. 'And I went and visited them — they were a couple hours away — and now they make our denim pants.' Piece by piece, Mr. Kumra has built a network of artisans who aren't easily accessible. 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Through college and high school, he would resell sneakers. He admired the work of Dries Van Noten, and he was, like so many teenagers, a Supreme enthusiast. He also enjoyed sketching and doodling. When Covid shuttered universities in 2020, Mr. Kumra, who had an internship in finance lined up, decided instead to spend his free time in New Delhi putting together a business plan. His mother shuttled him around the country to meet with artisans. Some of the money he earned from reselling sneakers — roughly $5,000 — became the start-up capital for what was then Karu MFG — 'karu' is the Sanskrit word for 'artisan,' and 'MFG' is short for 'manufacturing.' He cold-called factories and found one, on the brink of closing as a result of the pandemic, that agreed to create 22 garments for him. 'The look book cost 1,000 bucks — a friend shot it, and we got models for 200 bucks,' he said. 'The location was free, it was 10 minutes away from my house.' Mr. Kumra then jumped into the Discord channel of 'Throwing Fits,' a podcast for men's wear enthusiasts, to share his designs and solicit feedback. 'I was just really blown away — this young guy was a fan of us, but when we saw his work we were becoming a fan of him,' said one of the podcast's hosts, Lawrence Schlossman. 'I actually remember my first piece of feedback was just like drop the MFG.' By the time Mr. Kumra returned to Philadelphia to finish his degree in 2022, he was running a full-blown business. A stylist messaged him one night about one of his cardigans: 'Yo, Kendrick's wearing it.' As in the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper. That was the first time, in Mr. Kumra's recollection, that his friends realized he wasn't lying about having started a brand. As he builds Kartik Research, Mr. Kumra is not taking a salary. His mother still helps out, working on the finance and accounting side. It was just in the last year that Mr. Kumra hired two designers. In a cheeky acknowledgment of the heightened interest and momentum around Indian fashion, Mr. Kumra's own inspirations, and how, he said, work from there could one day be considered 'globally aspirational,' the Kartik Research show in Paris in June was accompanied with a look book. Its title? 'How to Make It in India.'

Film festival returns with global cinema line-up
Film festival returns with global cinema line-up

Yahoo

time16 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Film festival returns with global cinema line-up

Warwickshire's Big Picture Film Festival returns to Stratford-upon-Avon this summer for a weekend of international cinema. Organised by Live & Local, this year's festival takes place from 28-31 August with the theme of connection and disruption. The festival, which is supported by Stratford Town Trust, will open with a screening of David Attenborough's latest documentary, Ocean with David Attenborough, after organisers partnered with local environmental groups Stratford Net Zero and River Hope. Live & Local said the line-up included an array of cinema, from classics to modern independents, from live music scores to documentaries and animated works. This year, the festival will be based at The Bear Pit Theatre every day, with additional events taking place at Holy Trinity Parish Centre and Stratford Youth Hub, as well as several fringe events in Warwickshire yet to be announced. What's being shown during the festival? The varied line-up includes a screening of the oldest surviving animated feature film in the world, Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), which will be accompanied by a band playing the original music for the film. Another classic being shown is Toshio Matsumoto's debut feature Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), hailed by the British Film Institute as a "landmark of Japanese queer cinema". Stratford-based refugee charity Welcome Here is partnering with Stratford Amnesty International Group to present a screening of the Iranian/Scottish co-production, Winners (2022) - a film set in a small Iranian town as two children find a lost academy award. Also on the line-up is Thelma (2024), featuring 94-year-old June Squibb playing a woman seeking vengeance after being scammed out of $10,000. Local groups Stratford Net Zero, Welcome Here, River Hope and Stratford Amnesty are also presenting a screening of the 2024 Oscar-winning animated film Flow, which follows a black cat in a flooded world, joining other displaced animals on a journey of survival and co-operation. Are other events taking place? Several Q&A sessions will also take place as part of the festival. Stratford-based Bafta winning duo The Brothers McLeod will lead a discussion about the life and death of ideas, called False Starts and Surprises. The festival also welcomes Bafta breakthrough filmmaker Ella Glendining and international award-winning director Gordon Main for Q&A screenings of their documentaries. Ella Glendining's Is There Anybody Out There? (2023) presents a first-hand account of living with disability. Gordon Main's London Recruits (2024), tells the story of the undercover anti-racism missions carried out by ordinary Londoners during the South African apartheid. Screenwriter Geoff Thompson, director Michael B. Clifford and producer Natasha Carlish - all from Warwickshire - will also do a Q&A event about their trilogy of three short films, filmed across two decades, including Bouncer, which starred Ray Winstone and Paddy Considine, and Brown Paper Bag, which won a Bafta. Alongside the main festival, there will also be an awards ceremony and Q&A screening of this year's short film competition winners. How much do tickets cost? The festival has maintained its pay-as-you-feel box office, with organisers saying this meant there was "no financial barrier to attend". Chris Davis from Live & Local said: "We are extremely grateful for the support of Stratford Town Trust, which has allowed us to bring our film festival back to the town and also helps to make the festival more accessible to audiences. "We have some great events lined up and we encourage audiences to come along and enjoy, whatever their budget." Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram. Related internet links Live & Local Big Picture Film Festival

India bans streaming apps you've never heard of — but millions watch
India bans streaming apps you've never heard of — but millions watch

Yahoo

time2 days ago

  • Yahoo

India bans streaming apps you've never heard of — but millions watch

India has ordered the blocking of 25 streaming services — many with millions of viewers and even paying subscribers — for allegedly promoting 'obscene' content, in one of the South Asian nation's biggest digital crackdowns yet. The order affects lesser-known, but wildly popular services like Ullu and ALTT that cater to the country's mass-market appetite for adult and edgy entertainment. This week, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued directives to block access to websites and apps linked to 25 streaming services, citing provisions of the Information Technology Act of 2000 and the IT Rules of 2021, TechCrunch learned. The order came months after the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and a Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology raised concerns about mature content being streamed on these platforms without adequate safeguards. The Indian government contacted internet service providers and app stores, including Google Play and the Apple App Store, earlier this week to restrict these streaming services, a source privy to the matter told TechCrunch. Some of these services, especially the major ones with millions of subscribers, remained live at the time of filing this article. Google and Apple did not respond to requests for comment. The information and broadcasting minister also did not respond to an email sent Friday. Of the 25 streaming services, 10 offered in-app purchases through their apps on Google Play and the App Store, generating a cumulative $5.7 million since launch with nearly 105 million downloads, per the Appfigures data exclusively shared with TechCrunch. The wide gap between in-app purchases and downloads is primarily due to their low subscription costs — significantly lower than Netflix and other global platforms in India. Notably, some of these streaming services were either never listed on traditional app stores or had been removed earlier, and instead offered their apps as direct APK downloads. As of publication, some of these APK files were still accessible through their websites or third-party platforms. Earlier this month, Indian production company Balaji Telefilms, the parent of ALTT, disclosed that its streaming app generated ₹202.6 million ($2.3 million) in revenue by adding 1.06 million subscribers in 2025. ALTT's content was watched for more than 5.8 million hours, garnering 160 million annual views, the company said. ALTT's app was no longer available for download through Google Play and the App Store in India, and its website was inaccessible on most Indian ISPs at the time of filing this article. Balaji Telefilms did not respond to a request for comment on the ban. Ullu, another relatively prominent streaming service named by the Indian government, remained available via its app on the Indian Play Store, and its website was accessible as well. The service's iOS app, however, was not available for download from the Indian App Store. Ullu Digital, the parent company of Ullu, reported a net profit of ₹212.3 million ($2.5 million) for the financial year 2024, per its regulatory filing reviewed by TechCrunch. The company posted a revenue of ₹931.4 million ($11 million) and declared a net worth of ₹2.08 billion ($24 million). Ullu Digital did not respond to requests for comment. Alongside millions of dollars in subscription revenue, these streaming services were also attracting millions of global visits to their websites. Ullu saw nearly 10% year-over-year growth in worldwide traffic, reaching 1.9 million visits in June, while ALTT recorded over 130% growth to 776,400, per Similarweb. In India, Ullu recorded 18.9% year-over-year growth, reaching 1.8 million visits, while ALTT saw a 157.8% increase to 696,200 visits, Similarweb data shows. Importantly, this is not the first time the streaming business has seen a crackdown in India. Global platforms, including Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, often face instances of censorship by the Indian government. However, even stricter actions are seen in cases of obscenity despite a lack of clarity on regulations, as watching explicit content featuring fully consensual interactions between adult actors in a private space is not a crime. In 2023, the then Indian information broadcasting minister warned streaming platforms not to serve abusive and obscene content. New Delhi has also blocked thousands of websites streaming pornographic content. On a plea to regulate sexually explicit content in April this year, India's Supreme Court also issued notices to streaming platforms and the Indian government. That said, curbing obscene content remains a challenge even for the Indian government. Smaller streaming services — like those targeted in this crackdown — often reappear under new names, apps, and domains. It is equally difficult for intermediaries like Google, Apple, and internet providers to fully block access, as these platforms often spread through alternative channels and use social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube to attract viewers.

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