Cosmos-Maya’s WowKidz goes regional with 10 Indian languages

Cosmos Maya, India’s largest animation production company is redefining the way Indian audience is consuming animated content. The company’s bouquet of 28 YouTube channels under umbrella brand WowKidz now has its content available in all major languages, namely Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Urdu, Marathi, Bhojpuri and Haryanvi, along with Hindi and English.

Though the foray has been recent, videos on Gujarati and Bengali channels have more than a million hits in less than 2 weeks. Children have been deprived of content in their mother tongue for long and WowKidz has been able to bridge that gap. The move gives the diaspora audience, which constitutes a large percentage of WowKidz’s 21 million subscribers, an opportunity to ‘Go Back to the Roots’.

 Kids in India, over the years have been watching foreign shows. The country’s mobile and data revolutions have given the masses a great opportunity. YouTube in particular, has been a big winner in this regard. Building on this, Cosmos Maya is changing the landscape of Indian animation industry by providing homegrown animation content to the Indian viewers and is also gaining traction internationally.

Anish Mehta, CEO Cosmos-Maya said, “We now provide content to millions of Indian children in their preferred language. They have given us a rousing reception and we will not stop until the length and breath of the country is covered. Wherever there is internet and smartphone penetration, there will be WowKidz providing best in class entertainment in the language of choice. Today we have 10 Indian languages. 10 more will be added in due course. Even the Indian diaspora audiences are rejoicing as WowKidz has given them an avenue to reconnect with their Indian roots and inculcate in children the goodness of their culture.”  

Admissions To the MBBS Batch of ALTBalaji’s ‘MEDICALLY YOURRS’ Open Now

The wait seems to be over as ALTBalaji has launched its most-awaited offering Medically Yourrs.  The web-series showcases the struggles of  medical students, the challenges, the pressures of not just performance but simply surviving and what it really takes to be a doctor! Since the first look of the show has been revealed, it has become the talk of the town with netizens buzzing with conversations and putting it on top of everyone’s ‘must watch’ list.  The wait comes to an end as this 10 episode series is now available for binge-watch on the ALTBalaji app.

This medical college drama, Medically Yourrs revolves around Abir Basu, played by Shantanu Maheshwari. Born in the family of doctors, he lives under the immense pressure of proving himself worthy in the eyes of his doctor father. While Nityaami Shirke, plays the role of Nibedita a total geek, a complete contrast to the character she had played in ALTBalaji’s PM Selfiewallie. Abir’s other friends, Vishesh who aims to be a doctor anyhow, Lolly who just doesn’t care about anything but interestingly is the narrator of the show and Pallav who is a state topper but has put tremendous pressure on himself are together fighting the battle of trying to sail through with the final year of MBBS.

The dashing and debonair heartthrob Shantanu Maheshwari, on playing the protagonist Abir shared, “This is a very different character that I am playing. Abir has actually given me a glimpse into the real life of medical students, something I have never even imagined. I’m very excited about the web-series as I am taking up an acting project after long, something I was actually missing.  I had a great time working with the entire cast and crew. The entire unit has been very hard working and the off-screen chemistry  between the entire cast will definitely reflect on screen.”

What makes it an interesting watch is Abir’s struggle to be a topper by defeating the current class topper Nibedita, by hook or by crook  and the situations he puts himself in order to beat his rival.

Far from the mainstream medical college caged with dilemma and tensions, Medically Yourrs will actually reveal the world that lies beyond it. A world where friendship, love, competition, passion, and dreams exist in unison. The show also features actors Bijay Anand, Shubhaavi Choksey, Ivan Rodrigues in pivotal roles. Filled with lots of real-life instances of what MBBS students go through,  the web-series is sure to take the audience on a ride full of aspirations, surprises, fun and emotions.

Medically Yourrs is streaming now. To binge watch the series, download and subscribe to ALTBalaji app!

When Salman and Arbaz Khan feared facing their family revealed on The Kapil Sharma Show

In the upcoming episode of Sony Entertainment Television’s The Kapil Sharma Show, everyone’s loved superstar Salman Khan will be gracing the show along with Bollywood beauty Katrina Kaif to promote their upcoming movie, Bharat. During the shoot, both the actors revealed some unknown facts about the lives and careers which kept the audiences engaged throughout. 

During the show, Salman Khan happened to narrate a very funny incident from his childhood which signified the word, ‘Trouble’ all over. One day, all the three brothers were watching the movie, ‘Tarzan’ while playing a game that involved stones.  Salman Khan got so involved in the game that the stone hit his brother Sohail very badly. Not meaning to do it intentionally, the Bollywood King at that time was scared as he could not imagine how his father will deal with the situation if she saw what happened. 

Salman shared, “Long time back, we three were watching the movie ‘Tarzan’ and playing a game that involved stones. I got so engrossed in the game that accidentally, I threw the stone at Sohail who was very young at the time. He went behind the dustbin and within a few seconds, started bleeding profusely.” Salman further adds, “Arbaaz and I got so scared thinking about how badly the family, especially our father will scold us.” 

Continuing the endless gossips further in the show, Salman and Katrina will be seen playing a quiz with Kapil Sharma where Kapil will try to find out how well does Katrina know Salman.

Indian Film Festival of Melbourne to complete a decade this year, to celebrate “Courage” at its central theme

Indian Film Festival of Melbourne was incepted in 2010 and was founded by its director, Mitu Bhowmick Lange. Mitu has had an illustrious career spanning across production-filmmaking and has been the pioneering force behind the festival. In 2012 the Victorian government and Film Victoria board officially backed the festival. Since its inception, the festival has grown; pillar-to-pillar attracting some of the most celebrated Indian films over the past decade to the festival and has hosted some of the biggest Indian stars from the subcontinent. 2019 is a big year for the festival as it completes a decade and this year the festival will take place from August 8th to August 17th.

IFFM has not only grown from a small compact festival into a major annual cultural event in Melbourne but has also been honoured with some major accolades and has officially become the largest Indian festival in the southern hemisphere.  The festival in its 10 years of existence has seen the who’s who of Indian cinema in attendance, from Amitabh Bachchan to Priyanka Chopra, Karan Johar, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Vidya Balan, Kangana Ranaut, Rajkumar Hirani, Kabir Khan, Nikhil Advani, Rani Mukerji, Sushant Singh Rajput, Rajkummar Rao, Freida Pinto, Richa Chadha, Konkona Sen Sharma, Ali Fazal and many others.

Each year the festival celebrates a core theme and in 2019 the theme of the festival has been selected to be courage. Courage as a term has come to be true to the cinema, especially in the last few years. Be it on screen and off, Indian cinema’s content has chosen to tell stories of subjects, which have been brave, tough and have given us some heroic icons. The theme is in lieu with a celebration of this element of modern day cinema, which will be celebrated at the 10th Indian Film Festival of Melbourne.

Will Smith thanks singer Badshah for Aladdin Hindi song

Disney India is all set to take local audiences on a magical journey to a whole new world this summer. Disney’s Aladdin, a thrilling and vibrant live-action adaptation of the most-loved animated classic flies into theatres in India on 24th May 2019. 

Now, with the re-imagination of the timeless songs, melodious music, classic romance and spellbinding magic, Disney’s Aladdin promises to be a perfect entertainer again. To add more magic in the live-action adaptation for the regional audiences, Badshah has created an exciting promotional song and music video for the live-action adaptation. And the song has been released now by Disney India, titled 'Sab Sahi Hai Bro', and it is everything one would expect from Badshah and friendship goals!! 

Well, superstar Will Smith who plays Genie in the Hollywood version has seen the song in Japan and finds it great! He has thanked the singer and also spoke on Bollywood!

Here is what he has to say on Badshah's original Hindi composition for Aladdin.

"Badshah, great work man....that is beautiful...looking at the things you shot against what is in the movie.......that is some good production you got going on there!! Its funny when we were making the sequence,  what I kept saying to Guy (Director), it gotta be Bollywood level man....don't let the sequence not be Bollywood level! You know I always wanted to be in a Bollywood dance number this is beautiful man....thank you!!