Actress Nushrratt Bharuccha has joined hands with Anurag Kashyap and Vishal Rana for their next thriller film. The yet-untitled project is produced by Rana’s Echelon Productions, with Kashyap onboard as the creative producer.
The actress took to her social media handle to share photos with Rana, Kashyap and the film’s director Akshat Ajay Sharma and wrote, “The Thrill is Real! My next! A rollercoaster of suspense and thrill with the creative genius Anurag Kashyap And very passionate Vishal Rana. Helmed by Akshat Ajay Sharma. This one’s going to be memorable”
Meanwhile, talking about this collaboration, Vishal Rana said, “We are thrilled to have Nushrratt Bharuchha lead this project, guided by the visionary Anurag Kashyap as Creative Producer, and skillfully directed by Akshat Ajay Sharma. This collaboration reflects our ambition to create high-quality, compelling cinema that pushes boundaries and resonates deeply with audiences.”
The actress added, “This film is a bucket list tick! Working with Anurag sir is a dream come true! That too on this intense, gripping thriller film, where we are all aligned to push the boundaries and create something that will be etched in the minds of the audiences for a long time to come. I am very happy to join hands with the ambitious and very passionate Vishal Rana. I am also looking forward to working with Akshat, a promising storyteller. It’s my first with all three, but as they say firsts are always the most magical!!”
Calling Nushrrat a fine actress, Anurag Kashyap expressed, “Nushrratt, a very fine actor, who I have never had the chance to collaborate with, finally working with Vishal Rana after trying to, for over three years and Akshat Ajay, who I have known since he was the second unit director of Sacred Games and had the opportunity to work with him closely. I also admire the way the script is now and pushing the boundaries of storytelling.”
Tag: Anurag Kashyap
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Nushrratt Bharuccha, Anurag Kashyap join forces for next thriller
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Anurag Kashyap shares new stills of Sunny Leone from Kennedy
With two weeks to go before its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Anurag Kashyap has posted two new stills of Rahul Bhat and Sunny Leone in character from Kennedy. The film will be shown out of competition at the 76th edition in the Midnights Screening Section. Anurag shared the new photographs on Instagram as he began the countdown for the film.
Tagging the cast and crew of the film, he wrote on Instagram, “2 weeks to go! #Kennedy’s countdown to Cannes is on!” The first still features Rahul as Kennedy. He is sitting on a red leather sofa, peeling an apple while smoking. The next still is of Sunny Leone as the character Charlie. She is wearing a black saree while seated on a chaise lounge. Holding a drink in her hand, she seems to be looking off camera at someone else.
Fans of the director began asking for the trailer in the comments section. One fan shared, “Trailer maangta hai apun ko kuch toh footage do (We want the trailer, please share some glimpses from the film).” While others also wondered about the film’s release in India later. They asked, “#cannes ke baad kisi ott me? (After Cannes, which streaming platform will it come on?)” Actor Abhilash Thapliyal added, “Yes we Cannes..!” Kennedy also stars Mohit Takalkar, Abhilash and Megha Burman.
In a statement, Anurag shared, “I’ve lived with the character for a very long time since I was writing for Sudhir Mishra and he used to tell me stories of this mad policeman. Then years later during the lockdown, a headline incident happened in Mumbai and that triggered an idea and I took the cop from Sudhir Mishra’s stories and put him around that incident and Kennedy was born. It’s one of those ones that suddenly comes to you and you write relentlessly till it’s fully formed. Then I was lucky to find people who believed in it as much as I did, and it just happened.” -
The truth has a price
Picking on critics and opponents is a common pastime of those in power
By Julio Ribeiro “The penchant of the Modi government to ram laws through Parliament without adequate discussions or following parliamentary procedures, the targeting of activists and journalists for disagreeing with government policies and misuse of draconian laws like sedition and the UAPA to silence critics of the regime has attracted adverse attention at home and abroad. The Economist of London and the Washington Post have criticized the Modi government for its indifferent record on the civil liberties of its citizens.”
The Freedom House, a US-based research organization, which had downgraded India’s status from a ‘free country’ to a ‘partly free’ country during the Emergency years of Indira Gandhi, has done it again in its ‘Freedom in the World 2020’ report! It gave India 34/40 for political rights but only 33/60 for civil liberties.
Would the income tax raids on Anurag Kashyap and Taapsee Pannu amount to misuse of power? In one interpretation ‘yes’, since only critics of the government have been targeted. But if these two representatives of the entertainment industry have dodged paying legitimate taxes, the answer would be ‘no’. The Freedom House, which had downgraded India’s status from a ‘free country’ to a ‘partly free’ country during the Emergency years, has done it again. Picking on critics and opponents is a common pastime of those in power. The best course for intended victims to adopt is to always keep a clean slate. This may be difficult in an industry that employs a generous dose of unaccounted cash in its business. If it is not able to function otherwise, then there is no alternative to keeping their mouths shut even in the face of gross injustices that sensitive folk are not able to digest. Prakash Javadekar, I&B Minister, has denied that the BJP had any hand in the raids. Income tax officials on the ground supported the minister’s contention by affirming that they came across entries in the books that aroused their suspicions. Individual citizens must have hit upon the truth according to their political preferences. The chatterati will be vertically divided on this issue, as they are on most other issues in public space. But using power to tame opponents of its policies is an old game that is difficult to play unless you yourself are a politician thirsting for power.
After the Emergency, Indira Gandhi lost the elections. She was the object of a witch hunt which landed her in jail briefly. But soon thereafter, she capitalized on the inability of her rivals to present a united front, and returned to power. Despite the farmers’ protests and the injustices heaped on Disha Ravi and Safoora Zargar, Modiji is safe on his perch. The BJP has succeeded in splitting the country on communal lines. It is advisable for opponents and the disenchanted among the populace to ‘bear the slings and arrows of outraged fortune than taking arms against a sea of troubles’ because there is no chance of ending them till Mr Modi is around.
But all is not lost. Conscientious judges of some courts have decided that ‘enough is enough’. They have decided to fulfil their constitutional duty of dispensing justice according to the truth and the law of the land. We salute them. And to make the day even more pleasant, we read in the newspapers that even the Supreme Court has stepped up its act. Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hemant Gupta dismissed a petition seeking the prosecution of a former Chief Minister of J&K for disapproving of the Centre’s decision to scrap the special status granted to J&K under Article 370 of the Constitution. The court held, and rightly so, that dissent is not sedition and citizens cannot be tried for anti-government views. The court fined the petitioner for the frivolous demand of disqualifying the ex-CM, Farooq Abdullah, who is an elected MP from the Valley.
The penchant of the Modi government to ram laws through Parliament without adequate discussions or following parliamentary procedures, the targeting of activists and journalists for disagreeing with government policies and misuse of draconian laws like sedition and the UAPA to silence critics of the regime has attracted adverse attention at home and abroad. The Economist of London and the Washington Post have criticized the Modi government for its indifferent record on the civil liberties of its citizens.
The Freedom House, a US-based research organization, which had downgraded India’s status from a ‘free country’ to a ‘partly free’ country during the Emergency years of Indira Gandhi, has done it again in its ‘Freedom in the World 2020’ report! It gave India 34/40 for political rights but only 33/60 for civil liberties.
Another guardian of democracy, the Internet Freedom Foundation recorded that of the 109 times the Internet was shut down the world over, the largest number of occasions this happened was in India!
Our government has refuted the Freedom House report by criticizing Freedom House itself. That is not going to help. That same organization had criticized Indira Gandhi’s administration for the Emergency decision in its 1975 and 1976 reports. The BJP must surely have concurred with those reports. It cannot reject this year’s report with any sense of justice and fair play. In fact, it has opened the doors to the charge that an undeclared Emergency is now in motion.
When he first assumed power in 2014, Modiji made a splash on the world scene, accumulating many brownie points in the world’s capitals. Indians were treated with unaccustomed respect abroad. Alas, this will now change. When international travel revives, the humiliation of Indian passport holders abroad will resume. It had been different in the initial years of the Modi era.
Having surrendered ground to its fringe elements, having chosen the consolidation of power over the oft-repeated but unimplemented credo of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, the Modi regime is leading our beloved country towards a goal that will find its citizens divided vertically, and I am afraid, fatally. Is this the India Mr Modi dreams of when he snatches a few hours of sleep from his punishing regimen of work, work and more work?
If he truly believes in ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’, and the recently added ‘Sabka Vishwas’, he should remove Section 124(A), the sedition clause, from the IPC. It is a misused provision in the law, originally introduced by the British to facilitate its rule over ‘the jewel in its monarch’s crown’. It is now being misused by police forces in BJP-ruled states to silence critics and assorted ‘enemies of the regime’, including Muslims, leftists, students, farmers, climate activists, and Dalits asking for a place in the sun!
The police forces of which I was once a proud member have capitulated totally. Its leadership in the sad words of an old, upright colleague ‘has transformed into unscrupulous careerists’. Such an about-turn in concepts of leadership is bound to weaken the security management in the country. Has this occurred to Mr Modi? I am not sure it has. Those near him are afraid to speak the truth to him. And therein lie the seeds of a possible tragedy.
(The author is a retired IPS Officer)
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Centre targeting those supporting farmers: Rahul on IT raids on Taapsee Pannu, Anurag Kashyap
New Delhi (TIP): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi blamed the central government for the Income Tax raids on Bollywood celebrities – Taapsee Pannu and Anurag Kashyap. Rahul Gandhi attacked the Modi government with three famous idioms (muhavare) and also explained his metaphorical meaning behind them.
He used the hashtag ‘ModiRaidsProFarmers’ with his tweet in Hindi to take a dig at the government.
Putting out three popular Hindi idioms – ‘Ungliyon pe nachana’, ‘Bheegi billi banna’ and ‘Khisiyani billi khamba neeche’ — Gandhi stated what he believes they mean in the current context.
In his three-pronged attack, he alleged that the Central government makes the Income Tax Department dance to its tunes, friendly media gets cowed down before the Centre and the Central government raids those supporting farmers.
The searches against Pannu and Kashyap as well as his partners who launched the now-shuttered production house Phantom Films were carried out across 30 locations in Mumbai and Pune. They were part of a tax evasion probe against Phantom Films, officials said.
Pannu and Kashyap, both known to be outspoken in their views on a range of issues, were shooting in Pune and are understood to have been questioned by the tax sleuths as part of the preliminary questioning that takes place during raids.
The raids also covered Reliance Entertainment group CEO Shibhasish Sarkar and some executives of celebrity and talent management companies KWAN and Exceed.