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Satish Shah, Memories
St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, has a reputation for holding among the best annual cultural fests from the city’s 100+ colleges. It is called Mahar, so named because it takes place during the monsoon. Malhar started in 1979, and, to the best of my knowledge, continues. The college was also associated with a group simply called Theatre Group, founded in 1941, by Sultan ‘Bobby’ Padamsee and his brother, Alyque Padamsee. Personalities like Satyadev Dub...
Ching’s Secret Attack, now in a new, 9 minute, video pack
Few people know the recipé of this concoction. Those who know are keeping it a secret. But they have managed to sell millions/billions of sachets of this ‘Desi Chinese’ product, without spilling the beans. Ching, a variation of Qing, refers to the Manchu dynasty in China, which ruled during 1644–1912, and was the last imperial dynasty that ruled the country. In Mandarin Chinese, thousands of words have va...
FICCI FRAMES 2025, 05: Padma Shri Akshay Kumar and Ayushmann Khurrana, BA
FICCI FRAMES the annual Media and Entertainment Convention event, was held over two days, October 07 and 08, at the Fairmont Hotel, near CSMI Airport, Sahar, Mumbai. RISE: Redefining Innovation, Sustainability, and Excellence was the theme for the convention this year. The inauguration of the event, on the morning of October 07, was graced by India’s Information and Broadcasting Secretary in the Union Govern...
Gabby’s Dollhouse, Review: A tonic for every catatonic
Gabby Dollhouse is the second live-action film produced by DreamWorks Animation, after the 2025 remake of How to Train Your Dragon (2010). It is also DreamWorks Animation's first live-action +animation film that is not a remake. DreamWorks is a ComCast company, as is the international distributor of the film, Universal. It is the big screen version of Gabby's Dollhouse an American interactive television series, premiè...
FICCI FRAMES 2025, 04: Call for Balanced Regulation, Innovation and Digital Expansion, in Broadcasting Sector
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman, Anil Kumar Lahoti, has emphasised the need for balanced regulation and innovation to drive the next phase of growth in India’s broadcasting and media industry.
He was speaking at the 25th edition of FICCI FRAMES in Mumbai. Lahoti noted that India’s Media & Entertainment (M&E) sector contributed ₹2....
FICCI FRAMES 2025, 03: Landmark MoU signed between FICCI, IICT and Netflix
The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and the Indian Institute of Creative Technology (IICT) announced a landmark partnership with Netflix India to nurture India’s AVGC-XR (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, Comics & Extended Reality) talent. The MoU was exchanged in the presence of Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India, a...
FICCI FRAMES 2025, 02: India’s M&E industry grows ten-fold, from Rs. 25,000 crore in 2000, to about ₹2.5 lakh, in 2025
I missed it, but you get it. A report on the fireside chat between Maharashtra’s Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, Supersta...
FICCI FRAMES 2025, 01: A silver jubilee March, into October
As it happened several times in the past, my participation and coverage of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)’s annual media convention, FRAMES, began with accreditation/registration blues. There was no reply to the online form submission. Assuming that it was too late now to consider going there, I was surprised to find a WhatsApp voice message on my phone, sent at 6.22 am and viewed at 9.20 a...
Kantara, A Legend, Chapter 1: All’s well that ends in a Well
How many times can you scream out long war-cries in a film that is 168 minutes long? Theoretically, maybe around 2,520 times. Kantara, A Legend, Chapter 1 does not clock anywhere near that number, hovering, most probably, around a mere 252 times. That shows consideration and sympathy for your tympanic membranes, aka ear-drums. In between, it lets out a barrage of voice overs, dubbed dialogue (I saw the Hindustani version of th...
Sunny Sanskari ki Tulsi kumari, Overview: Funny Kalamkari ki Bhari shikari
Okay, so you need to look up the word ‘kalamkari’. No, you don’t. I will do the needful. ‘Kalamkari’ is a form of printing designs on cloth. And if you tell me you don’t know what shikari and funny mean, it is not funny! So, who or what is funny? Sunny (proper noun) is. And where is the ‘kalamkari’? All over the film, in terms of criss-cross lines and a veritable feast of...
Tu Meri Poori Kahani, Overview: Future to the Back
Presenter and co-writer Mahesh Bhatt, director Suhrita Das and music director Anu Malik make an attempt to espouse the cause of films of yore, that had songs, most of them playback in lip sync, and many of them owed their success to these songs. This pattern of film-making, in vogue from 1935, got phased out in the late 90s, with the death of gramophone records, cassette tapes and VHS videotapes, and the emergence of music videos, telecast fr...
Kantara, Chapter 1, press meet: A Legend at Land’s End
A young man worked in Andheri West, Mumbai as an office boy, and, later, as a driver, in 2008. More recently, he started making films, in his home state, Karnataka. He spent 250 days of the last 3 years shooting a film, which is a prequel to a blockbuster he made, released in 2022. A writer, director and actor, he camped in a place called Kundapur, near Mangalore, Karnataka, with his wife, the costume designer, and their 10-month ol...
Homebound, Review: A treasure found
Neeraj Ghaywan took ten years to make his second feature, after the universally acclaimed Masaan. Much was expected from this tremendously gifted writer-director. What will he come-up with, after making his debut with a minor classic? Will he be able to trump Masaan? The answer is yes. He’s done it.
Homebound is at least on par, if not better, than Masaan. It is not entirely an Indian effort, although Karan Johar’s Dharma Productions is the ban...
Jolly LL.B., Overview: Bikaner to Boston, in racing cars, and two advocates riding camels
Land acquisition, for building roads, bridges, residential and commercial buildings, factories and airports, are burning issues that have been making headlines in developing India for several decades now. These acquisitions are either by the government in power, or by companies that are owned by billionaires. In many cases, the government acquires the land, at a nominal price, only to hand it ove...
Nishaanchi, Review: Hits some, misses some
Quintessential Anurag Kashyap. If not Bihar or Jharkhand, it must be UP. If one was titled Gangs of Wasseypur, this one could be titled Gangsters of Kanpur, but it’s not quite the same. If Wasseypur had a Part II, this one declares that it will have a Part II, after the end credits. We don’t know whether Nishaanchi’s Part II was shot as single film, like Wasseypur, and had to be divided into two films. Wasseypur, the composite, was ...
Sunny Sanskari ki Tulsi kumari, Trailer launch: Two breakups, two weddings, and Exs v/s Exs
They were all there, but for two: Writer-director Shashank Khaitan, actors Varun Dhawan, Jahnvi Kapoor, Rohit Saraf, Manish Paul, and producer Apoorva Mehta. The two, who were missed, were producer Karan Johar and actress Sanya Malhotra. The former’s absence was attributed to his decision not to attend events related to his films, because he feels that when he is present, all attention is focusse...
Downton Abbey-The Grand Finalé, Review: Down Times for the Upper Class
One good thing about British films is that we can follow the dialogue. British accent is more comprehensible than its American cousin. Add to that some helpful sub-titles, and you have a film in which both, the audio can be understood, without straining your eardrums. Moreover, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finalé, set in the England of over a hundred years ago, avoids the use of uncommon or effete words, except f...
Mirai, Review: Rod of the Rings v/s Sword of the Rings
If this film makes good money, the makers can rue over the fact that the plot took off when the villain was trying to get possession of the seventh book of scriptures, out of nine, which would impart magic and, ultimately, godliness and immortality, and ended with his attempt at acquiring the ninth and last one. Well, they could have made nine films instead of one, and earned nine times over. Mirai is another instalment in what is now an ...
War 2, Review: RAW deal, plane truth and Special Oops
War, spelt in reverse is Raw. In India, which is not at war with any country at the time of writing this review, RAW stands for Research & Analysis Wing, the official secret service of the country. Being a secret service, little info should be available about it in the public domain. However, it is common knowledge that a secret service deals with espionage, planting and exposing secret agents, exposing double agents, being on the look...
Teaser launch of 120 Bahadur: War is not only about winning, it’s also about heroics
India lost the battle of Rezang La, in the Indo-China war, of 1962. It was an unequal battle. Battles and wars are very rarely fought among equals. At -24 degrees Celsius, and with no warning, 3,000-5,000 Chinese militarymen attacked 120 Indian troops. The result was a foregone conclusion. But one man, Major Shaitan Singh, of the Indian army, exhibited such heights of bravery that he was posthumously aw...
Ajit Rai, film and theatre journalist, and biographer of the Hindujas, dies in London
Last week, I received the news of the passing away of veteran film and theatre journalist, and the man who chronicled the ventures of the billionaire Hindujas into the film industry, Ajit Rai. He died in his sleep, in London, while staying at a friend’s place, yesterday. He was 58. Originally from Bihar, Ajit was a wandering soul, and travelled to various places in and outside India, wherever t...
Saiyaara, Review: Forget it
Saiyaara or Sayyara or Sayyaaraa, Saiyaaraa is a word derived from Arabic and an integral part of the Urdu language. It could refer to a star, a planet or anything that travels. The word saer/sair, which means ‘taking a tour of’ or ‘wandering’ is derived from this root, or maybe the other way round. Saira is a common name among Muslims, and the most famous Saira in India is Saira Banu, the wife of acting icon Dilip Kumar. There was a song in...
Krishna Arjun, Review: A one-shot movie that experiments within a formula
Hemwant Tiwari (no typo here; it is HemWant, and not Hemant) released Krishna Arjun on YouTube, on 27 March this year. More than three months later, he organised a press show, on 02 July 2025, at the IMPPA mini-theatre, in Andheri, Mumbai. Here, he revealed that even after a year of having shown his film to the Central Board of Film Certification, he was refused a certificate, unless he carried out the cuts, maskings an...
Asia Tech x Singapore, 2025, 05: Alibaba and SAP in strategic partnership
Alibaba Group and SAP have announced a strategic partnership aimed at helping enterprises modernise their operations through cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence.
As part of the collaboration, Alibaba Cloud has joined SAP’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) Certification Program and will support customers running SAP’s enterprise cloud solutions.
Alibaba Group will also use SAP Cloud ERP Priva...
Sitaare Zameen Par, Review: Lots of sympathy, very little empathy
Aamir Khan has earned for himself the sobriquet of a crusader, or an actor with a conscience. Several of his films have dealt with social issues, as in Taare Zameen Par (autism) and PK (an alien who helps earthlings to battle social evils), or cricket+revolt against British imperialism of yore (Lagaan). He also hosted a TV show, wherein he tried to get justice for sufferers of societal victimisation and injustice. So, making a ...
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About Siraj Syed
 Syed Siraj
(Siraj Associates)
Siraj Syed is a film-critic since 1970 and a Former President of the Freelance Film Journalists' Combine of India.
He is the India Correspondent of FilmFestivals.com and a member of FIPRESCI, the international Federation of Film Critics, Munich, Germany
Siraj Syed has contributed over 1,015 articles on cinema, international film festivals, conventions, exhibitions, etc., most recently, at IFFI (Goa), MIFF (Mumbai), MFF/MAMI (Mumbai) and CommunicAsia (Singapore). He often edits film festival daily bulletins.
He is also an actor and a dubbing artiste. Further, he has been teaching media, acting and dubbing at over 30 institutes in India and Singapore, since 1984.
Bandra West, Mumbai India View my profileSend me a message
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