The New Nation - Internet Edition

Film Festival: Impress movies showcase begins today in Kolkata

Entertainment Desk

Seven movies of Impress Telefilm Ltd will be screened at the Gorki Sadan in Kolkata in India in a film festival titled 'Nakshi Kantha’.

The festival will start on July 21 and will end on July 26.

To promote the quality films, Impress Telefilm Ltd has taken initiatives to produce several cinematic works. This is a part of its venture to showcase seven of their full-length feature films.

Eminent film director Mrinal Sen is expected to inaugurate the festival today.

The films produced by Impress Telefilm that will be screened at the festival are the following:

Noy Number Bipod Sanket (directed by Humayun Ahmed), Ek Khondo Jomi (Shahjahan Chowdhury), Ghani (Kazi Murshed), Kittonkhola (Abu Sayeed), Swapnodanay (Golam Rabbani), Bachelor (Mostafa Sarwar Farooki) and Roopkothar Golpo (Tauquir Ahmed).

Hollywood: Jolie leaves hospital with twins

BBC Online

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has left the hospital in southern France where she gave birth to twins last week, the clinic has confirmed.

In a statement posted on the Lenval hospital website, it said the 33-year-old had left early on Saturday morning.

"The mother and her babies are doing very well," it said.

The Oscar-winning star gave birth to twins Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon last week. Actor Brad Pitt, the children's father, was by her side.

Celebrity couple

Jolie slipped out of the Lenval hospital in Nice unseen by the crowd of reporters, cameramen and photographers who have been camped outside since she gave birth last weekend. The pair, reportedly sold picture rights for the babies to a US publication for $11 million, which they will donate to charity.

The celebrity couple, dubbed Brangelina in the press, already have a daughter together - Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt - who was born in Namibia in 2006.

They have also adopted three more children - Cambodian-born son Maddox, daughter Zahara from Ethiopia and Pax, from Vietnam.

Their newest daughter is named after Jolie's mother, also an actress, who died of cancer last year.

Last week the couple's doctor admitted he felt added pressure delivering their twin babies because of their fame.

Onno Boshonto on ATN Bangla today

Entertainment Desk

Onno Boshonto, a 16-episode new drama serial, started from May 17 on ATN Bangla.

Taukir Ahmed, Richi Solaiman, Fazlur Rahman Babu, Dilara Zaman, Shahidul Alam Sacchu, Shamim Zaman, Sharmin Shila, Saleh Ahmed, Dr Inamul Haque, AKM Hasan, Jhuna Chowdhury, among others, are main performers of the serial.

The drama serial based on three separate stories. But there is a connection among the stories. Among the mess members, Maznu is senior to others. He is a service holder. He did not get married. Mamun is searching job after completion of study. He has an affair with Nitu. Ranju and Abir are studying. Manager of the mess takes loans from them, but did not return them. His main duty is to look after the maidservant of the mess. Father of Nitu is practicing herbal medicine and wants to open a chamber in his house. He has a conflict with his wife in this regard. His son-in-law is jobless. He lost huge amount of money in the name of opening of various projects. Ant cultivation was one of them. This is the story of Onno Boshonto.

Art: Kanak Chanpa and Mithu win gold in Olympic Art

Entertainment Desk

Artists Kanak Chanpa Chakma and Khalid Mahamood Mithu have been awarded a gold medal each from the Olympic Fine Arts 2008.

The awards are for Kanak and Mithu's works titled 'Amity of Torch' and 'Target-2,' said a news release.

The award will be given to the artists on August 11 at the Beijing International Exhibition Centre.

Three hundred artists have been selected from around 10,000 entrants.

An honorary certificate and a symbolic torch of the Olympic will be given with the gold medal. The Olympic Committee explained the act of conferring the torch symbolises that 'Art ignites passion, while colour transfers dream wish.'

Bollywood stars set to kick off world tour

Toronto, Agencies

The A-list of Bollywood is on a mission - to take the glitz and glamour of Indian cinema to the rest of the world.

Opening in Toronto on Friday, the Unforgettable Tour is billed as the biggest live Bollywood performance outside the subcontinent, featuring Bollywood's star couple, actress and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai and her husband, Abhishek Bachchan, father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan and a host of other Indian superstars. The three-hour singing and dancing extravaganza is to be performed in 11 cities across North America, Europe and the Caribbean between now and August 29 with a cast of 150.

Actress Shilpa Shetty, known to British audiences for her controversial appearance on the reality TV show 'Celebrity Big Brother,' is set to join the London leg of the tour. Rai Bachchan, the most recognizable of the stars outside of India, acknowledged that Bollywood is starting to appeal to an international audience, but the tour's goal was not to gain more Western fans.

"The fact that these shows are so welcomed with such enthusiasm and love by the audience in itself reiterates the reach of our cinema, of our film industry, and the way people embrace it," she told a camera-flooded press conference. While Bollywood produces more movies each year than Hollywood, often topping three hours and featuring extended musical numbers, most of its stars are unknown outside of Asia with Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan household names in India, but struggling for international recognition.

Amitabh Bachchan, dressed in sunglasses, jeans and a black motorcycle jacket, said the tour's purpose is to "just to be with the fans and spend some time with themt"

"If you set out once to one city, you need to go to all of them. There are fans all over the place," said Bachchan, nicknamed 'Big B' in India. The Toronto production company, Ethnic Guru, said the time was right for a Bollywood global tour.

"It's taken a long time, but the sophistication in the production value of Indian cinema is now omnipresent and at par with North American standards," said Moe Jiwan, production manager of Ethnic Guru. "It's not so much a breakout into the North American market as it is the North American market sort of embracing this type of entertainment and therefore crossing over," he said.

Toronto, where the Bachchans premiered the film 'Guru' last year, is home to hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians, some of whom criticized the tour's ticket prices. With tickets originally priced from approximately C$100 to C$300 ($99 to $298) a seat, the show has still not sold out its 10,000 seats.