Motivate Val Morgan is the official representative of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in the UAE.
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has released the names of the first 2018 Jury Presidents. The selected group of industry leaders are tasked with judging the best work in the world to win Lions, alongside their jury teams.
Jose Papa, Managing Director of Cannes Lions, said, “With all the changes we’ve introduced to the awards architecture, this year’s Jury Presidents have joined at an exciting time of renewal for the Festival. Every one of our Presidents is a leader in their field and I’m sure that the 2018 juries will be ably directed under their expert guidance.”
Jury Presidents for Lions within the Communications, Good, Entertainment, Health and Impact tracks are confirmed as follows:
COMMUNICATIONS – The big creative idea, where campaigns are brought to life through brilliant partnerships, people and storytelling.
GOOD – Going beyond brand purpose to use creative communications to shift culture, create change and positively impact the world.
ENTERTAINMENT – Celebrating creativity that goes beyond branded communications to create authentic entertainment that engages consumers and impacts culture.
HEALTH – Celebrating creativity in branded communications in this highly innovative but fiercely regulated sector with the unique power to truly change lives.
IMPACT – Celebrating commercial creative effectiveness and the techniques used to measure and impact branded communications.
The Festival opened for entries on 18 January with a final deadline of 20 April. The 2018 edition of Cannes Lions runs 18-22 June. Visit the Cannes Lions website for more information.
Source: Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
This year’s movie slate suggests a sudden industry interest in female-driven blockbusters.
After #MeToo and allegations of predatory behaviour by powerful men in Hollywood, it feels good for the soul that the year in film kicked off with news that women rule the box office. Last year, the three most popular films in the US had female leads, with Star Wars: The Last Jedi at No 1, followed by Beauty and the Beast and Wonder Woman in third place. Hollywood is still waking up to its masculinity problem, but 2018 looks as if it could be the year powerful women roar on screen in female-driven sci-fi, action blockbusters and super-sleuth thrillers.
Natalie Portman stars as a biologist in Annihilation
First up, in February, Ex Machina director Alex Garland’s eco-sci-fi, Annihilation, looks like Ghostbusters with a degree in biology; Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh star as scientists in boiler suits leading an all-woman expedition to the site of an alien invasion.
Jennifer Lawrence stars as a ballerina turned Russian spy in Red Sparrow
In March, Jennifer Lawrence finds her inner Jason Bourne in the cold war thriller Red Sparrow, playing a Russian ballerina turned spy, while Alicia Vikander will shoot her way to international superstardom as Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot.
Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider reboot. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros
And forget boring boys in tights with superpowers, summer’s hottest film is Ocean’s 8. The all-female crime caper spin-off is slated for released in June. If the trailer is anything to go by, sunglasses will be necessary to shield against the combined star-wattage of Cate Blanchett, Sandra Bullock, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Anne Hathaway, Sarah Paulson and Awkwafina playing an ‘octet of crims’ pulling off a $150m diamond necklace heist at the Met Ball.
Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Rihanna, Mindy Kaling, Awkwafina, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway and Sarah Paulson in Ocean’s 8. Photograph: Allstar/Warner Bros
In October, Claire Foy, star of Netflix’s The Crown, clearly over the tweeds and tiaras – steps into Rooney Mara’s skintight leathers as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl in the Spider’s Web.
Claire Foy stars as Lisbeth Salander in The Girl in the Sider’s Web
Female stars in high-adrenaline blockbusters are nothing new. (Top of mind: Sigourney Weaver in the Alien franchise, Linda Hamilton in The Terminator series, Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft and Salt, Milla Jovovich in Resident Evil and Scarlett Johansson in Lucy). But statistics reveal how few opportunities there are. In 2016, while 29% of the top-100 grossing films had female leads, the figure for action movies scraped in at just 3 per cent.
It would be pleasing to think that a new age of empowered women on screen is dawning in reaction to the #MeToo campaign. But 2018’s films with lead roles played by women would have been greenlit long before the last year’s upsetting revelations. So what’s going on? Is Hollywood finally getting into the swing of the Bechdel test?
In part, we have Hermione Granger and Katniss Everdeen to thank for the rise of the women-centred blockbusters, says Dr Shelley Cobb, associate professor of film at the University of Southampton. “I think Harry Potter and The Hunger Games were the turning point. You had these younger characters appealing to a millennial audience that grew older with them. Now that audience is an adult audience – young women and men who are interested in action heroes and heroines.”
Kate Muir, the screenwriter and former critic, says that the industry’s sudden interest in female-driven blockbusters boils down to hard cash. “I think it’s about economics, which is what Hollywood always pays most attention to. Over the past 10 years, people have realized that a woman can hold the box office in a big, big way.” She adds that the small screen has blazed a trail with its portrayal of “powerful, conflicted and complex” female heroes. “We’ve seen these fantastic women detectives over the past 10 years. We’ve seen these incredibly weird and wonderful female characters on our TV screen, but never in a cinema. There’s a real appetite for them and the executives are aware of that appetite.”
The industry found out exactly how hungry audiences are for female action stars last year when Wonder Woman stormed cinemas (kicking that smug smile off the face of Ben Affleck’s lumbering Batman). A lightning bolt movie, praised by Hillary Clinton as “inspiring”, it arrived with perfect timing, speaking to the feminist zeitgeist (not that all feminists agree it is feminist). Perhaps most significantly, as the year’s most successful comic book movie, Wonder Woman has also put an end to the false narratives that the Hollywood boy’s club has been pedalling for years (sample: “men don’t watch films about women”, “a female star isn’t bankable as the lead in a blockbuster”). And it has been reported that director Patty Jenkins has negotiated a record pay cheque for a woman of between $7m and $9m to make the sequel. “It matters,” says Muir. “Little girls wore Wonder Woman Halloween costumes last year and will wear Lara Croft this year,’” she says. “That’s really percolated the culture and changed the way girls are growing up.”
Melissa Silverstein, the founder and editor of website Women and Hollywood, makes the sharp observation that women’s stories have been ignored for so long, that they now look shiny and new. “Honestly, the thing about female content now is that it’s fresh content, because it’s been neglected for so long. You look at these women who have always been the sidekicks in the movies. What we’re saying now is let’s make them centre of the action.”
Taraji P Henson stars as a hitwoman in Proud Mary. Photograph: Allstar/Screen Gems
A film that she has got eye on in 2018 is the action thriller Proud Mary, featuring Hidden Figures star Taraji P Henson as a hitwoman with a gun collection that would make John Wick green with envy (it is out in March). “I’ll be interested to see how it does,” says Silverstein. “We need more leads who are not white and also not young [Henson is 47 and African American]. That’s exciting for me, how we branch out from the thing that became the norm: young white girls.”
Elsewhere, two of 2018’s most anticipated movies have female actors of colour – front and centre. Ava DuVernay has cast 12 Years a Slave’s Storm Reid as Meg Murry, the teenage girl saving the world in her adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Chadwick Boseman is technically star of Marvel’s Black Panther, but watch the trailer and it is tempting to think that Wakanda’s female warriors (Lupita Nyong’o, Angela Bassett, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright) will steal the show.
“The white action heroine has a longer history,” says Cobb. She believes that we may be beginning to see the first shoots of Hollywood’s attempt to tackle the lack of diversity in film: “That’s not to suggest that this is a radical change that fixes everything forever, but I think you can relate these [films] to #OscarsSoWhite.”
The disappointing fact however, is that just one of 2018’s female-centred movies is directed by a woman: Ava DuVernay’s A Wrinkle in Time.
Patty Jenkins made Warner Bros $413m at the box office with Wonder Woman, but Hollywood still can’t shake the feeling that women can’t be trusted with a tentpole movie.
Lupita Nyong’o, Chadwick Boseman and Danai Gurira in Black Panther. Photograph: AP
“Women directors are perceived as a risk,” says Alice Lowe, who made the horror-thriller Prevenge. “Having said that, I do think women for whatever reason, societal, nature or nurture, can doubt their own abilities.”
Lowe also talks about the industry’s rigid thinking about the kinds of films women should be directing. “What I have experienced is being asked to direct ‘women films’. As if ‘women’ are a type of niche! By this I mean a film that has a female lead and maybe themes that are seen as exclusively ‘female’: motherhood, romance, emotions. Sometimes these scripts might be great. But does that mean I’m being excluded from others?”
Nevertheless, 2018 will see more and more people attuned to women in Hollywood as a result of a number of female action heroes making an appearance throughout the year. Don’t miss out on catching them on the big screen!
Sources: Guardian News & Media Ltd and Gulf news (Tabloid)
The Dubai Lynx Festival programme is now online, brining you original thinking and jaw-dropping ideas from around the globe.
Register by 25 January and enjoy the early bird delegate rate. And book your table for the Dubai Lynx Awards to secure your place at the industry’s premier event on 14 March 2018.
Here are some of the world-leading creatives you’ll hear from at Dubai Lynx 2018 from 11-13 March:
Chaka Sobhani
Chief Creative Officer
Leo Burnett London
An award-winning director, writer and creative director, Chaka set up UK broadcaster ITV’s first in-house creative agency, production company and design studio. She then worked at leading independent agency Mother before joining Leo Burnett.
Hussein Dajani
General Manager – Digital Marketing-
Africa, Middle East, Turkey and India
Nissan
Hussein was voted one of the top ten people who are changing MENA’s marcomm landscape by the Huffington Post and was included in Gulf Marketing Review’s list of the Middle East’s brightest marketing professionals under the age of 40.
Fernando Machado
Global Chief Marketing Officer
Burger King
With a gift for infusing brands with purpose, Fernando was behind some of the most iconic Dove campaigns from Unilever and is also the driving force behind the pioneering comms that led to Burger King being crowned Cannes Lions 2017 Creative Marketer of the Year.
Hatoon Kadi
Script writer and Host –
Noon Alniswa Show
UTURN Entertainment
Included on the BBC’s 100 Women list in 2014, Dr. Hatoon Kadi, writer and host of the critically acclaimed UTURN show Noon Alniswa, has been praised for her clever use of humour and sarcasm to tackle sensitive social issues from a female perspective.
Mariam Farag
Head of CSR
MBC
A champion of female entrepreneurship, Mariam leads the CSR program at MBC Group and has 18 years of experience working in the fields of social development, humanitarian relief, communication, corporate and social change in the MENA region, and globally with UNDP, UNHCR and education and governmental sectors.
Ali Mumtaz
Regional Creative Director –
Middle East and Pakistan
BBDO
Ranked amongst the Top Ten creatives in the world by The Big Won Report, Ali Rez has collected more than 150 international awards in his career. He has also exhibited art at the Tate UK, and has spoken at TedX and Oxford University.
Ilkay Gurpinar
Chief Creative Officer
TBWA\Istanbul
Ilkay was named one of the World’s Most Influential Female Creative Directors by ADWOMEN. She was also voted the Advertising Person of the Year for Turkey by Advertising Age/Mediacat. She is the founding member and creative director of an international bi-annual arts and culture magazine, 212.
John Mescall
Global Executive Creative Director
McCann Worldgroup
The brains behind the viral hit Dumb Ways To Die, John has won over 60 Cannes Lions including six Grands Prix. He was ranked the eighth most creative person in advertising worldwide by Business Insider and was also named on Adweek’s Creativity 50, listing of the world’s 50 most influential creative thinkers and doers.
Browse dubailynx.com for the latest updates
Source: Dubai Lynx
The controversial period romance, starring Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh, will hit the big screen on January 25, 2018.
The long wait is almost over. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s controversial period romance Padmaavat will now release across cinemas in UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain on January 25, 2018.
Padmaavat has been in the eye of a storm due to its plot line. It’s a tale of a Hindu Rajput Queen and the Muslim invader Alauddin Khilji. However, several Rajput and right-wing groups in India found the portrayal of the Hindu queen offensive.
The period romance – featuring Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor and Ranveer Singh in lead roles, was earlier schedule for release on December 1, 2017.
The film has now been cleared by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which asked its makers to change the movie Title from Padmavati to Padmaavat and also suggested other modifications to be made to the film.
Two Bollywood films at war
With the release date of Padmaavat now moved to January 25, the film will clash with the release date of R. Balki’s biography drama Pad Man – featuring Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte and Sonam Kapoor in lead roles.
Pad Man is a biopic drama on Arunachalam Muruganantham – the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad making machine in India, whose role will be played by Indian National Award-winning actor Akshay Kumar.
The next question is: will the clash of these two Bollywood blockbusters affect box office collections of Pad Man?
When asked about his reaction on the clash of the two films, Akshay Kumar said, “It is not about competition, it is a very big day, a big week, so all films can come. Both the films can release on that day as every film has the right to release whenever they (makers) want, and I am happy for them.”
Considering the star-studded cast featured in both films, the weekend of January 25 will be a crowd puller across cinemas in UAE, Oman, Qatar and Bahrain, and both Bollywood blockbusters are guaranteed to do well in the region.
Don’t miss out on advertising your brand alongside these blockbusters. Contact a member of our sales team for information on cinema advertising opportunities.
Source: Gulf news (Tabloid)
The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) will host a number of gala screenings featuring acclaimed films during the festival, which begins on December 6 at the Madinat Arena. Following the opening night, December 7 will see British director Dominic Cooke’s, On Chesil Beach, based on the 2007 Booker Prize-nominated novel by Ian McEwan. A second gala screening will follow, which will be Orchestra Class, a tale of new beginnings for a struggling violinist and the power of music from French actor and director Rachid Hami.
On Friday, December 8, it will be a triple-bill starting with the Children’s Gala with the animated film Ferdinand from legendary Brazilian director, Carlos Saldanha. The adventure-comedy centres around a fighting bull with an identity crisis, voiced by John Cena. Second on the roster is the critically appraised, The Death of Stalin, from Scottish-Italian filmmaker Armando Iannucci, who brings Soviet-era satire about one of the world’s most ruthless leaders. The evening will end with Australian director Warwick Thornton’s period-western Sweet Country, inspired by true events, boasting a stellar cast of Michael Palin, Steve Buscemi, Jason Isaacs and Jeffrey Tambor.
December 9 will also feature three galas, starting in the afternoon with Academy Award-nominated actor, writer, producer and director Rob Reiner’s Shock and Awe. It will take a real-life look at a group of journalists who uncovered the unsubstantiated claims by President George W. Bush’s administration that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This will be followed by family adventure Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, featuring a superstar cast that includes Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black, and is directed by American television director Jake Kasdan. The final film of the night will be Hollywood hotshot James Franco’s, with the much celebrated The Disaster Artist, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room from 2003 — an undoubtedly awful film — that has become one of the most treasured cult classic of all time.
On December 10, it will be Mexican Director Guillermo Del Toro’s romantic fantasy The Shape of Water. The highly anticipated feature and winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival features the likes of Academy Award nominees Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon and Richard Jenkins, and Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer.
The gala on Monday, December 11, is acclaimed TV and film writer Khaled Diab’s latest feature, Induced Labor. After tireless attempts to obtain legitimate entry to the US fail, an Egyptian couple believes that storming the US embassy in Cairo and birthing their twins there will grant them citizenship, however not everything goes to plan in this raucous comedy. That will be followed by Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, from Academy Award winning British Filmmaker, Martin McDonagh. The Oscar front-runner starring Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, and Sam Rockwell and has snowballed on the festival circuit winning Best Screenplay Award at the Venice Film Festival, the People’s Choice Award at TIFF, and a further 11 nominations for British Independent Film Awards.
Tuesday, December 12, will start with Bafta Award winning director Lynne Ramsay and her thriller, You Were Never Really Here. Picking up awards for Best Actor and Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival, the feature received a phenomenal reception and standing ovation from audiences. Matt Damon is the pick of the bunch in Alexander Payne’s Academy Award winning satirical sci-fi piece, Downsizing. Centred on a man who chooses to shrink himself (literally) to simplify his life, the film will conclude the screenings in the arena, with help from Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz, Laura Dern, Jason Sudeikis, Alec Baldwin, and Neil Patrick Harris.
Don’t miss it!
DIFF runs from December 6 to 13. Red carpet gala tickets start at Dh100. Tickets to other screenings will go on sale from December 5, 2017 on the DIFF website.
Sources: DIFF and Gulf News
As the official representative of Dubai Lynx in the UAE, Motivate Val Morgan strives to bring you the latest news from the desks of the Festival.
Get ready for three unmissable days of expert talks, unrivalled networking opportunities and infinite inspiration at the Dubai Lynx International Festival of Creativity from 11 – 13 March 2018. Then join the celebration of MENA’s finest creative work at the Dubai Lynx Awards ceremony on 14 March 2018.
Save the dates and take a look at some of the new initiatives happening in 2018…
A new award for Healthcare will celebrate brave and innovative ideas within health, wellness and pharmaceutical communications.
A programme of health-focused talks from leaders in the field will complement the new awards.
Find out more.
In response to industry demand, we’ve added ‘Use of Data’ plus a new ‘Excellence in Media’ section, which aims to recognise media agencies and the craft behind the best work. ‘Use of Mobile’ has also been added to our channels categories.
A new award for Media Network of the Year will replace the Media Agency of the Year award.
Find out more.
To reflect the ever-evolving creative communications landscape we are introducing a raft of new categories, providing more opportunities to enter your work into the Dubai Lynx Awards.
View the new categories.
The Student Awards are open for entry! And they’re a superb platform for new talent to shine: competitions for Print and Integrated offer students the chance to tackle a live brief from a leading philanthropic organisation. The entry deadline is 15 December 2017 and the winners get a trip to Dubai Lynx.
Find out more.
Dubai Lynx is now open for Festival pass and Awards table bookings.
Work can be entered into the Dubai Lynx Awards from 24 November 2017.
Visit Dubai Lynx for more information, and stay tuned for more updates from us!
The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) has announced the first seven films shortlisted for the highly anticipated Muhr Awards, displaying the latest and greatest in regional cinema. Taking place over the course of the Festival, from 6 – 13 December, the esteemed ‘Muhr Short’ category will showcase short films from emerging talent and seasoned filmmakers alike.
Since its launch in 2006, the prestigious Muhr Awards take pride in providing a platform to unearth the best in Arab cinema and help discover and nurture burgeoning talent from the region. In addition to showcasing cultural intricacies and growing talent to a global audience, the ‘Muhr Short’ category provides the opportunity of a lifetime with the winning short film qualifying for consideration for an Academy Award 2019 nomination.
Starting off the line-up is critically acclaimed Palestinian-Danish filmmaker Mahdi Fleifel, who returns to the Festival with his latest short ‘A Drowning Man’. The film follows Fatah as he arrives in modern day Athens, evading predators and finding his way through the strange new world. Along his journey, the audience wonders if he will gain wisdom or succumb to desperation in his surroundings, as he struggles to define his new existence in exile.
Tunisian actress, author and filmmaker Nidhal Guiga has enjoyed critical acclaim across a variety of mediums. She now returns to DIFF for her first foray into short film with the world premiere of ‘Astra’, a journey that relishes in the unexpected. A man named Dali takes care of his daughter, Douja, who has Down syndrome. Against his wife’s wishes, he takes Douja to an amusement park called Astra. Once there, they realize that nothing could have prepared them for the bizarre world that they encounter.
Born in Palestine and raised in Jordan, Rakan Mayasi is known for his issue-tackling short films. Mayasi heads to DIFF with his latest short ‘Bonboné’, which explores one of many issues facing Palestinians held in Israeli jails. With the husband serving time in an Israeli jail, where physical interaction is prohibited, a couple devises a bold plan for their dreams of a family. However, as a series of obstacles threaten their plan, will they be able to succeed?
Joining Mayasi is multi-talented filmmaker Fadi (The Fdz) Baki, founder of the Lebanese animation film festival, Beirut Animated. Baki makes his international premiere at DIFF with his short, ‘The Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow’, which tells the story of a young filmmaker who uncovers the mystery of a forgotten automaton, Manivelle, gifted to Beirut in 1945. While investigating the history of this wonder of art and science, the filmmaker drags the automaton out of its abandoned mansion into the modern day city, where Manivelle is forced to face the distance between his own memories and the reality as recounted by those that knew him.
Tunisian filmmaker Abdelhamid Bouchnak makes his DIFF premiere with the release of his short, ‘Le Bonbon’. As a young recent graduate, Mehdi is incredibly ambitious and optimistic. With the support of his loving mother, he prepares for his first day of work as a bailiff. However, he is shocked when things do not go as expected. Finding himself bullied by his boss, ignored by his colleagues and mistreated by his company, Mehdi realizes he must harden to survive. In the process, he loses his naivety and purity until one day, when everything changes.
Jordanian-Palestinian director Yassmina Karajah brings new talent and unique storytelling to the 14th Festival with her latest short, ‘Rupture’. Introducing a cast of first time actors, the international premiere is character-driven and intimate, as it follows four Arab teens who search for a public pool in their new city one sunny summer day. The journey soon allows the group to channel their personal experience of loss and new beginnings as survivors of war.
Lebanese filmmaker Marwan Khneisser’s ‘The Servants’ makes it worldwide premiere at this year’s DIFF. In a tale that takes a twist, Nabil, the guardian of an old villa near the sea, finds his day ruined when Sayed from the mafia comes to spend a day of debauchery with his friends in tow. To leave behind the chaos, Nabil’s son Wissam and Sayed’s son Fadi escape to bathe. Little do they know that escaping is not an option, as the past will tragically disrupt the day.
Masoud Amralla, DIFF’s Artistic Director, commented: “The Muhr Short category strives to be a catalyst for the growth of the regional film industry. The unique medium of short films naturally encourages the inventive mind, as short filmmakers must bring beautiful stories to life that are riveting and to the point. We encourage audiences to come and experience the best of short film at DIFF 17, this year really will showcase a powerful and diverse selection of beautifully made and compelling short films.”
DIFF’s programmer, Salah Sermini, added: “The filmmakers in this year’s line-up bring a new level of cultural depth and understanding to DIFF. The variety, sensitivity and creativity of their work will ensure that this year’s ‘Muhr Short’ category captivates the audience like never before.”
The Festival returns this year from 6 – 13 December 2017. Registration is now open for the 14th edition.
Source: DIFF
The makers of Bollywood period-drama film Padmavati unveiled the first look in which actress Deepika Padukone looked every inch a reigning empress.
The first poster of the film shows Padukone in a red lehnga and choli by designer duo Rimple and Harpreet, paired with elaborate Rajasthani jewellery by Tanishq. Some 200 craftsmen worked for 600 days to create some of the jewellery that will be showcased in the movie. Each piece of jewellery in the movie plays a significant role, said a statement.
The poster shows a group of women in veils standing behind Padukone, who can be seen standing with folded hands. The actress plays Rani Padmavati of Chittore in the film.
A second poster shows the actress, who is sporting a unibrow for the first time, standing inside what seems like a temple.
Padmavati – directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (known for grand period dramas), is the story of Chittor’s Rani Padmini, who performed juahar with several Rajput women after Alaudin Khilji invaded the fort of Chittor. Ranveer Singh plays the role of Alaudin Khilji and Shahid Kapoor plays Deepika’s onscreen husband Ratan Singh in the film.
The movie is slated for release in December 2017.
Stay tuned for more updates on this Bollywood Blockbuster and contact a member of our Sales Team for more information on cinema advertising opportunities alongside this movie.
Sources: Gulf News and NDTV
“This is not about defecation,” says the hero of Toilet: Ek Prem Katha, which translates as Toilet: A Love Story. “It is about our whole way of thinking!” What makes this startling line all the more surprising is that it is delivered by Akshay Kumar, an actor straight out of the Bollywood A-list.
The film, as the second half of its title suggests, has no shortage of such Bollywood staples as romance and love songs. But the main subject matter is one that no Hindi film has ever tackled before: open defecation.
This is a singularly Indian problem. Various studies estimate that 60 per cent of India’s billion-plus population don’t have access to a bathroom.
For women, this isn’t just a question of sanitation. It is also about safety, privacy and independence.
Akshay Kumar plays Keshav, a villager who marries an educated, spirited woman called Jaya. She simply refuses to join the other village women in their daily crack-of-dawn outing to the fields. Although she loves Keshav, she won’t live with him unless he addresses the toilet issue. This inspires Keshav to defy both his superstitious father and the village elders.
“If you want your wife to be with you,” he says, in another memorable line, “there has to be a toilet in the house.”
This is not the stuff that Bollywood romances are traditionally made of. Although there is more variety nowadays, a formulaic Hindi film tends to be built on the pillars of stars, songs, heartache, family values and love conquering all. “The masses prefer fantasy and larger-than-life images,” says Shree Narayan Singh, director of Toilet: Ek Prem Katha.
“For me, the most difficult aspect was how to convey the message of stopping open defecation in an entertaining way.”
The answer was humour, songs, melodrama — and plenty of preaching. Indeed, the film has been criticised for being heavy-handed government propaganda. The ‘Clean India Mission’ is a campaign personally championed by prime minister Narendra Modi. But viewers were clearly willing to overlook the film’s barely disguised political leanings: the film is a success, raking in the equivalent of ₤10 million (Dh47.51 million) in its first six days of release.
In 2018, Akshay Kumar will be starring in Padman – a fictionalised retelling of the story of Arunachalam Muruganatham (the social activist who revolutionised menstrual hygiene in rural India by creating a low-cost sanitary towel machine).
And Akshay Kumar isn’t the only one making unusual choices for Bollywood films. Take actor and director Aamir Khan, who has consistently tried to slip socially aware messages into the mainstream. His last film, Dangal (Wrestling Competition), was based on the true story of a wrestler who trains his daughters to be world-class champions. An eloquent plea for women’s empowerment, the film broke box office records not just in India but also in China, where it became the most successful Indian film ever released. In the UAE, Dangal did over 326K admissions in its first week of release. In total, the movie screened for 5 weeks with total admissions amounting to over 589K.
Ayushmann Khurrana appears in Shubh Mangal Saavdhan (released August 31), playing a character suffering from erectile dysfunction — a topic rarely explored in Hindi cinema.
This seems an especially risky choice, given Bollywood’s long-standing tradition of heroic, virile leading men. But Ayushmann Khurrana seems undeterred. “In this day and age,” he says, “the subject of a film has to be novel. The hero has to be relatable.”
He cites Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar as an inspiration, praising them not just for defying the constraints generally placed on a hero, but for showing that such an approach can be commercially successful.
Aanand L Rai, one of the producers of Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, says he feels it is his duty to bring such issues to the fore. “I come from a typical middle-class family,” he says. “My audience and I are both middle class. We’ve always seen the middle class as conservative but that has changed.”
Rai believes that audiences have now overcome the fear that western influences, especially their more open attitude towards sex, will dilute Indian culture and morality. “We have our own identity,” he says. “We aren’t afraid.”
Shubh Mangal Saavdhan is not the first time Khurrana has embraced such delicate subject matter. In 2012, he made his acting debut with another film-maker who seeks out socially relevant subjects. Shoojit Sircar cast him as a sperm donor in the sleeper hit Vicky Donor. Four years later, Sircar went on to co-write and produce Pink, a commercial and critical success about female consent.
Pink tells the story of three women on a night-out that turns ugly when their male companions become sexually aggressive. One girl defends herself by attacking the man with a bottle. She nearly blinds him and finds herself in court facing assault charges. The second half of Pink is almost entirely set in a courtroom and features the iconic actor Amitabh Bachchan as a lawyer who defends the girls and teaches their assailants, and the audience, that no means no.
“What is the moral of the story? For me, the most important thing is the moral.” Sircar says he broke “all the mainstream rules in Pink” simply because doing so was no longer an issue. “Now it’s just about the gut of the film-maker.”
But Sircar insists that his generation isn’t the first to take on social causes. “The best of Indian cinema,” he says, “was done by the masters. They tackled casteism, gender equality and poverty in the 50s, 60s and up till the 70s. I’m just at the fag-end trying to put together something.”
One of Hindi cinema’s earliest blockbusters was Achhut Kannya (The Untouchable Woman), a story of forbidden love from 1936 about a Brahmin boy and a dalit girl. One year later, V. Shantaram made the groundbreaking Duniya Na Mane (The Unexpected) about a young girl called Nirmala who is forced to marry an elderly widower who has children her age. She refuses to consummate the marriage, saying that, while one can endure suffering, injustice must be fought. Eventually Nirmala makes her husband understand his heinous mistake. He kills himself, exhorting her to marry a younger man.
Then, in the 1950s, directors explored the daunting issues facing a newly independent nation, Mehboob Khan’s Mother India being one landmark.
“These films were driven by a broad vision of society,” says Gyan Prakash, a historian of modern India at Princeton University in the United States. “They showcased economic and moral corruption, middle-class hypocrisy, unemployment, the gap between the rich and the poor. These critiques were organically generated and carried forward by music and cinematography. None of them seem like public service ad films like many do today.”
Indeed, Toilet: Ek Prem Katha might be great sloganeering but it’s hardly great cinema. The film’s blatant pushing of the government line also underlines an uncomfortable truth. Today’s actors and directors might be keen to test the boundaries of Hindi cinema but one topic remains resolutely off-limits: politics — especially any critique of government policies.
“The reference to any living or dead political figures,” says Prakash, “is bound to meet the censor’s scissors.” Sircar agrees. “We will only have a true democracy,” he says, “when I can stand and criticise.”
Source: Gulf News (Tabloid) and MVM Analysis
Grouchy, greedy and constipated: nobody could accuse Stephen Frears of kowtowing with his portrayal of Queen Victoria in his new film Victoria & Abdul, which premiered in Venice last week.
The director, who won a string of awards for The Queen, his 2006 depiction of Queen Elizabeth II in turmoil at the time of Princess Diana’s death, returns to royal questions in a tale of the current British monarch’s great, great grandmother’s friendship with a young Indian Muslim, Abdul Karim, in the final years of her long reign.
Set at a time when the British Empire was at its peak and India was its ‘Jewel in the Crown’, Frears’ script lampoons the pomposity, arrogance and ignorance of the Imperial age.
But, he says, the convention-defying, cross-cultural relationship at its heart has resonance today, when Britain and India’s relationship has been transformed but racism and Islamophobia lingers.
Abdul, played by Ali Fazal, is an Indian Muslim prison clerk picked out, on the strength of his height and Victoria’s liking for tall men, to be sent to London in 1887 to present the queen with a gold Mughal coin as part of celebrations to mark her golden jubilee.
It is supposed to be a fleeting visit on which, he is repeatedly told, he must above all avoid looking directly at Victoria, played by Judi Dench 20 years after her first turn as Victoria in Mrs Brown.
It is an instruction Abdul flouts, and having caught the sovereign’s eye he is soon ensconced in the royal household, to the fury of her son Bertie, the future Edward VII, and a toadying clutch of buttoned-up courtiers and ladies-in-waiting who surround and stifle the monarch.
Actors Ali Fazal, Judi Dench, director Stephen Frears and actor Eddie Izzard pose during a photocall for the movie ‘Victoria and Abdul” at the 74th Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy September 3, 2017. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
Quran and Poetry
Indian actor Ali Fazal said he had delved into history books to get a grasp of Abdul’s unique experience.
“That time was so different and so essential to this fantastical little world that these two created at the middle of this massive British Empire,” he said.
“The important thing was that we more or less humanised that era where there was protocol, there was racism and everything that we are still dealing with now.”
The Victoria-Abdul first encounters is frail and unhappy, a morbidly obese compulsive eater who is incapable of getting through her wolfed-down meals without smearing food across her face.
“I’m so lonely, everyone I’ve really loved has died and I just go on and on,” she tells her new confidant, 30 years after the death of her husband, Albert, and four years after her later-life companion, Scottish gamekeeper John Brown, passed away.
Soon though she has recovered a glint in her eye as Abdul’s presence gives her a new lease of life.
Judi Dench said the offer to play Victoria again had been an “irresistible proposition”.
“It is very, very complex her attitude to Abdul: not just a feeling of love, but the delight of being relaxed with someone without anyone around or any standing on ceremony.”
Victoria and Abdul’s bond strengthens as he teaches her Urdu and introduces her to the Quran and Indian poetry.
Historical Detective
By this time the scandalised royal household is in open revolt, with the irascible Bertie (Eddie Izzard), playing chief mutineer, even threatening to have his mother certified insane.
Victoria stands her ground but with his protector ailing, it is clear Abdul’s return to India is only a matter of time.
Abdul’s story, and the remarkable fact that Victoria, who initially knew so little of India she had to ask him to describe a mango, learnt sufficient Urdu to write letters in it, went untold for over a century, largely because of the efforts Bertie went to destroy all evidence of it.
Traces survived however and some historical detective work by journalist Shrabani Basu brought the story back to life.
Her book, Victoria and Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant, was written after she discovered 13 of Victoria’s journals that, because they had been written in the Urdu Abdul had taught her, had been overlooked by British historians.
She then tracked down, via a nephew of Karim’s in Karachi, a diary that he had kept as well as some surviving correspondence between the two that had lain forgotten in the vaults of the Royal Archives.
The letters confirmed the degree of intimacy between the young man and the dying monarch.
Invariably sprinkled liberally with kisses, Victoria describes her protégé in one as a ‘true friend’.
Movie Stats. and Critic Reviews
IMDB: Popularity 233 (up 159%)
Rotten Tomatoes: 89% want to watch this movie
“A satisfyingly sweet confection which will find, and please, its audience.” – Julian Wood, FILMINK (Australia)
“Stephen Frears knows how to keep the culture-clash comedy bright and sprightly, and Lee Hall has written a script which can be charming fun while having a few digs at racism and snobbery along the way.” – Nicholas Barber, BBC.com
“The royal performance by Judi Dench as Queen Victoria is the crowning glory of the film.” – Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile
Watch the trailer below:
Victoria and Abdul releases across cinemas in the UAE on Thursday, September 14.
Sources: Gulf News (Tabloid), Malaymail Online, IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes
