Sibling Revelry

ONE more actor is getting ready to take his place behind the camera. Nana Patekar is likely to turn director, with a film he will helm for Ramgopal Varma’s production company. Right now, the Parinda star is acting in two films for Varma, the first being Bhoot, which also features Ajay Devgan, Urmila Matondkar, Victor Banerjee, Seema Biswas, Fardeen Khan and Rekha. The other is Varma’s co-production with Twentieth Century Fox, which also stars Saif Ali Khan and Urmila Matondkar. Patekar, who is known to have a short temper and can be moody and badly behaved ever so often, is determined not to act in the film he will himself direct. It will be interesting, then, to see which actors are willing to risk Patekar’s temperamental nature and his dominating personality by consenting to feature in his film.

From the Road to Nepal

IT’S very difficult to hide the truth in Bollywood. Everyone knows that director Rajat Mukherjee fell out with his producer Ramgopal Varma mid-way during the making of Road, and that the film was completed by Varma himself. Now, determined to score a bona fide hit without any controversy, Mukherjee has embarked on his latest film, Nepal, starring Sonu Nigam. The filmmaker flatly denies rumours that his movie is centred around the bloody massacre of Nepal’s royal family, but won’t tell what the film is really about either…

Good Directors Never Die…

LONG after both Bollywood and the movie-going public in general have given up on them, some filmmakers keep on going. Nothing, for instance, can kill Dev Anand’s spirit. The actor-filmmaker is currently wrapping up post-production on his latest film, Love In Times Square, in which, among others, Salman Khan has made a special appearance. Also undeterred is Feroz Khan, who recently left for Australia to hire stunt technicians for his latest film Janasheen, which stars his beta Fardeen opposite former beauty queen Celina Jaitley. Both filmmakers, despite the dismal box-office reception to their last offerings, are forging ahead with their newest projects, determined to hit the right note this time.

A Century at The Box-Office?

EVEN as Sachin Tendulkar continues to cross milestone after milestone on the field, his close friend Vinod Kambli is gearing up for a tough match of his own. The former cricketer makes his acting debut in fight-master Ravi Dewan’s latest film, Annarth, co-starring Sunil Shetty. Scheduled for a release before the end of the year, the film is an action flick, and promises impressive stunt sequences featuring both Kambli and Shetty. Whether Kambli can safely settle into his make-up chair and get set for an eventful career in the movies will depend solely on the box-office performance of Annarth.