Bollywood in Hong Kong 寶萊塢在香港

This year the Jaeger-LeCoultre - Glory to the Filmmaker Award 2010, founded by laBiennale di Venezia (Venice International Film Festival), and organized in collaboration withJaeger-LeCoultre is to honour the work of the great Indian director Mani Ratnam.

 

In recent years, the award has honoured other major world filmmakers: Takeshi Kitano, Abbas Kiarostami, Agnès Varda, and Sylvester Stallone.

 

The Jaeger-LeCoultre - Glory to the Filmmaker award ceremony will take place during the 67th Venice International Film Festival (September 1-11, 2010), directed by Marco Mueller, and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta.

 

The Venice Film Festival Director Marco Mueller explains the choice as follows:

"Mani Ratnam used to make movies only in his native tongue, Tamil, but has been one of a handful of filmmakers to successfully handle the transition to the All-India market.

One of the great innovators in contemporary Indian cinema, he helped introduce the auteur concept to contemporary Bollywood.

His movies display precision and poise, and have always been removed from the bombast and bluster of mass-produced regional cinema.

The lavish musical numbers in his films, some of the best-tailored in Mumbai and Madras in recent years, have influenced the style of many others (as well as the design of commercials and music videos).

Ratnam's most celebrated films have become part of the cinematic imagination of the sub-continent.”

 

On the occasion of the award ceremony, the 67th Mostra will present the festival premiere of Mani Ratnam’s much-anticipated forthcoming film Raavan,attended by the director and by the Indian movie super stars Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan, Vikram, and A.R. Rahman. Raavan is produced in association with Reliance Big Pictures and distributed internationally by Reliance Big Pictures and IM Global.

“Raavan will enchant audiences with its stirring drama and entrancing musical sequences,” says Marco Mueller. “We are proud to be hosting the festival premiere of this wonderful film, which will be presented at the 2010 Mostra in both the Hindi and the Tamil version.”

 

Enlivened by the music composed by the two-time Academy Award winner A.R. Rahman, popularly known as the man who has redefined contemporary Indian music (and hailed by ‘Time Magazine’ as the ‘Mozart of Madras’), Raavan fuses drama, action, love story, and musical. The film tells the adventurous story of a bandit leader who kidnaps the wife of the policeman who killed his sister, taking her through a journey during which once again the everlasting, epic battle between good and bad takes place, and stars Abhishek Bachchan, Ashiwarya Rai Bachchan, and Vikram.

 

In 2010 Jaeger-LeCoultre celebrates its six years of sponsorship with the Venice International Film Festival.