JP Dutta glad with Ranveer Singh-Arjun Kapoor’s ‘Border Dubsmash’

Arjun Kapoor’s recent Dubsmash on the 1997 hit number ‘Sandese aate hain’ from JP Dutta’s Border has impressed the veteran filmmaker and his daughter Nidhi Dutta.

JP Dutta is glad the younger generation of actors like Arjun still remembers and cherishes movies which the filmmaker used to make and also the songs from the movies of the 90s.

Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor’s regular tweets and Dubsmashes dedicated to each other are known to all. Ranveer recently teamed up with Ayushmann Khurrana to dedicate a Dubsmash to Arjun. They lip-synced to ‘Pardesi pardesi jaana nahi’ to Arjun complaining about how Arjun has no time for him anymore and calling him back to the country.

In response to Ranveer’s complain, Arjun made a Dubsmash on ‘Sandese aate hain’ from Border by smartly picking up the line ‘Main vaapis aaunga’ from the song.

JP Dutta says, “It’s nice to see the young brigade of Bollywood reliving the songs of the 90s and making Dubsmash videos of the same which is also a testimony of the fact that the evergreen songs are still loved by all generations.”

Very soon the veteran filmmaker will be launching his daughter Nidhi Dutta with his home production, Jee Bhar Ke Jee Le, directed by Binoy Gandhi.

Mastizaade motion poster breaks the internet!

Sunny Leone, Tusshar Kapoor and Vir Das have been the talk of the country since the release of the first motion poster of their upcoming naughty comedy, Mastizaade, last night. The film is directed by Milap Zaveri.

The first motion poster that was released live on Tuesday (December 8) went viral and started trending on Twitter within a few minutes of its launch and has received an overwhelming response. The motion poster not only continued to trend for the next 10 hours but even hashtags associated with it like #Jan29, #Mastizaade and director Milap Zaveri’s Twitter handle started trending. The Mastizaade motion poster and Sunny Leone’s Lele twins in their glorious bikini best literally broke the internet much like Kim Kardashian on Paper magazine!

The excitement was so massive that leading Bollywood stars including Varun Dhawan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Anil Kapoor, Ayushmann Khurrana, Emraan Hashmi, Sidharth Malhotra, Esha Gupta, Shaad Randhawa and directors Mohit Suri, Sanjay Gupta and Sujoy Ghosh posted the Mastizaade motion poster on their personal Twitter and Facebook pages. The trade also responded massively, putting out the motion poster and commenting extremely positively on it. Amongst trade experts who did so were Taran Adarsh, Komal Nahta, Girish Johar, Amul Mohan, Akshaye Rathi, Raj Bansal and Harsh Jain.

The motion poster shares a sneak peek into the Mastizaade house, discovering the wild secret behind closed doors! Featuring hot pink rubber balloons, Sunny as the sexy Laila and nerdy Lily, and two crazy boys Tusshar and Vir, the motion poster is hot, steamy and naughty - everything that the film promises to be.

The crazy and naughty comedy co-written by Milap and Mushtaq Sheikh is a raunchy comedy of errors revolving around the hilarious and playful characters Aditya Chotia (Vir Das) and Sunny Kele (Tusshar Kapoor) who fall for the bombshell twin sisters, Lily and Laila.

Directed by Milap Zaveri, the naughty comedy features Sunny Leone, Tusshar Kapoor and Vir Das sharing the screen space together for the first time. It releases in theatres worldwide on January 29, 2016.

Giving a teaser of the masti the film has to offer, the motion poster will make your imagination go wild.

A landmark year for Universal Music Group at the 58th Grammy Nominations!

Label leads across categories with its artists Kendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift and The Weeknd among Top Contenders!

The Official `2016 Grammy Nominees’ album will be released on Universal Music Group next month 

Nominations for the 58th Annual Grammy Awards have been announced and leading label Universal Music Group has emerged on top once again. For over 5 decades, the Grammys have been recognizing brilliance in the music community and presenting the most deserving with what has become one of the most prestigious awards in the music business. This year, again saw some of the biggest names in the industry represented by Universal Music Group, garner the largest number of nods includingKendrick Lamar, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, James Bay and Drake. 

Lamar, Swift and The Weeknd, all represented by Universal Music are this year’s most nominated artists withKendrick Lamar getting a phenomenal 11 nominations followed by Taylor Swift  and The Weeknd both with 7 nominations each!  

The label also owned the prestigious `Album of the Year’ category with all 5 of its artists nominated - Alabama Shakes, Kendrick Lamar, Chris Stapleton, Taylor Swift and The Weeknd. 

Universal also boasts three of the five Best New Artist nominees: James Bay, Sam Hunt and Tori Kelly. The Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack received 6 nominations, while Drake and Florence + the Machine each received 5 nominations. 

Of the six nominations in the Best Rap Performance category, four nominations have gone to Universal Music artists along with four of five for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, Best Rap Album, Best Country Duo/Group Performance and Best Country Album. 

To add to the plethora of nominations, Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) writer/producer Jeff Bhasker is nominated for Producer of the Year and UMPG writer Lori McKenna is nominated for Song of the Year for Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush”. 

With a hefty roster that is diverse in its artists and genres, the record label can definitely expect to see many of their own take home the highest honors at the 2016 Grammys. 

The 58th Annual Grammy Awards will be held on February 15, 2016 in Los Angeles, Staples Center

THE 4TH EDITION OF DELHI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL CAME TO AN END

The 4th edition of Delhi International Film Festival came to an end with a glittering awards ceremony at N.D.M.C Convention centre, Delhi. The festival which started with an amazing opening at Central Park with Kick starrer Jacqueline Fernandez saw the participation of delegates from more than 70 countries and showcased more than 200 films with an arts section as well. The week long festival was the centre of attraction in the city with many personalities paying their visit to the event.

Where the opening film for the festival was 'Definition of Fear', the closing film paid tribute to the legendary actor Raj Kapoor with the Russian film 'Comrade Raj Kapoor'.  

The guests for the closing ceremony was the National award winning Bengali actress 'Rituperna Sengupta' who presented the trophy and certificate to the awardees. 'Bhavatharna: Crossing Sansara' won the best film across borders. The lifetime achievement award was given to the 'Manjhi' director 'Ketan Mehta'. The Dhemaji Tragedy won the best documentary India. The much talked bout film 'The Lost Salesman of Delhi' won the best social film. The best actor award was given to Major Ali Shah Ali for 'Ruffian' and Martine Malali Zikkia had an emotional moment on stage while winning the best actress awards across borders for the film 'Utopia' and said "By films we do culture not politics".

Ram Kishore Parcha, the founder president of DIFF closed the evening by saying "in the coming years the DIFF will be bigger and bigger"

Winners from Junior and Senior Groups’ to record an album with Universal Music Group

Max Life Insurance, one of the leading life insurers in India and leading music label Universal Music India, today announced Maithili Thakur & Tannishtha Puri as winners of  ‘i-genius Young Singing Stars Season II’.  

The Grand Finale witnessed outstanding performances by the 10 finalists. The 10 were chosen by a jury including Salim Merchant & Shraddha Sharma, from over one lakh entries received from across the country.  The two winners from the junior and senior categories Tannishtha Puri & Maithili Thakur respectively have won an opportunity to record their own album.  5 top winners from the Primary category will feature in a special music video, and the 4 finalists each from Junior & Senior Group win a contract each to record a single. 

After the grand success of ‘i-genius Young Singing Stars’ in 2014, Max Life Insurance launched ‘i-genius Young Singing Stars Season II’ in 2015. The programme has become a huge success and has attracted the interest of over 2.5 lakh participants who registered for the programme in the last two years. The programme has provided an exciting platform for aspiring and talented young singing stars aged between 4-15 years to have their songs heard by industry professionals and come one step closer to realizing a dream of recording their own music album. Through a rigorous three-phase selection process, the panel of jury shortlisted many top performers.  Following this, a video conferencing round was used to finalise the top 10 who went through mentoring sessions with Salim Merchant and Shraddha Sharma. 

Commenting on the programme, Mr. Rajesh Sud, CEO and Managing Director, Max Life Insurance said, “We are extremely excited with the response that our ‘i-genius young singing stars’ programme is continuing to receive since its launch in 2014. It is a privilege for us to be able to nurture the future talent of the country by giving them a platform to showcase their talent. Our i-genius programme which was launched in 2010 has become a benchmark and has connected with over 26.5 lakh children from across the country through our various initiatives including i-genius Scholarship and Young Authors Hunt programme.”

Commenting on the occasion, Devraj Sanyal, Managing Director - Universal Music Group and EMI South Asia said, "The amazing response to the Max Life i-genius Young Singing Stars continues in Season 2. Yet again we have seen the entries surpassing the figure of 1 lakh. What makes this season special is the quality of talent, which has surpassed that of Season 1 by miles and is unparalleled to any other singing platform that I have seen in this age group. I am very proud of the way this program is shaping up and I can’t wait to start working in the studio with these stars of the new generation.” 

Commenting on the occasion, Salim Merchant, Jury & Brand Ambassador said, “The quality of talent we have seen in Season 2 of Max Life i-genius Young Singing Stars has been truly astonishing. As an industry professional, you want to encourage every child that is giving their 100% but as a judge, given the level of talent that I witnessed, in all honesty, I had a hard time choosing them from the initial pool itself.  The passion that these young children have shown when combined with the right mentoring will help them go a long way in becoming the future stars of our industry.” 

About i-genius Young Singing Stars Season 2

The participation for i-genius Young Singing Stars Season 2  wasopen to all children from 4 years to 15 years of age in three categories: i-genius Primary- 4-7 yrs,  i-genius Junior - 8 – 11 yrs and i-genius Senior - 12-15 years from all over India. The programme ran in four phases-:

·         Phase 1: Online registration was opened to the participants who could register online at www.igenius.org or through physical registration forms that were available at all Max Life offices

o    The above was to be followed by a one minute audio submission on IVR number 92500 32222 or via an online widget on www.igenius.org

·         Phase 2:In the next phase Digital Auditions were held in select cities in each region through video-conferencing which were evaluated by the jury

·         Phase 3: Selected kids received mentoring from the Brand Ambassadors

·         Phase 4 (Finale): After receiving training from the mentors, the kids performed at a grand finale event where 1 winner was selected from Junior & Senior Group and won an album recording contract with Universal Music Group and 4 finalists each from Junior & Senior Group will won a contract for a single song. 5 top winners from Primary group got an opportunity to be featured in a special music video. Additionally, 600 winners received CD Hampers as consolation prizes.