Name	Aks
Director	Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Producer	Amit jiJhamu Sughand
Writer	Renzil D'SilvaRakeysh Omprakash MehraKamlesh Pandey
Starring	Amit jiRaveena TandonManoj BajpaiNandita Das
Music	Anu MalikRanjit Barot
Cinematography	Kiran Deohans
Editing	P.S. Bharthi
Distributor	Amitji Corporation Limited| released = 13 July 2001
Runtime	184 mins
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Aks (Hindi: अक्स, marketed in English as The Reflection) is a 2001 Hindi film directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra.

Synopsis

Aks is a supernatural thriller centering on two main characters - Manu Verma, the cop and Raghavan, the shadowy killer. Raghavan is caught, and as he is about to be executed by hanging, his spirit gets into Manu Verma's body and starts to manipulate Manu Verma in performing acts that Raghavan wanted to perform. It was well received by critics

Cast

Amitabh Bachchan.... Insp. Manu Verma

Raveena Tandon.... Neeta

Manoj Bajpai .... Raghavan Ghatge

Nandita Das .... Supriya Verma

K.K. Raina .... Mahadevan Ghatge

Kamal Chopra .... ACP Pradhan

Tanvi Azmi .... Madhu Pradhan

Vineet Kumar .... Narang

Pramod Muthu .... Justice Balwant Chaudhry

Salim Ghouse .... Blind Guru

Veerendra Saxena .... Hanif Kasai (as Virendra Saxena)

Vijay Raaz .... Yeda Yakub

Vrajesh Hirjee .... Raw Officer 1

Gajraj Rao .... Raw Officer 2

Mithilesh Chaturvedi .... PM's Aide

Amol Palekar .... The Minister

abhimanyu singh

External links

Category:Hindi-language films Category:Indian films Category:2001 films Category:Indian horror films

Name	عباس کیارستمیAbbās Kiyārostamī
Caption	Kiarostami at the 65th Venice Film Festival, 2008
Birth date	June 22, 1940
Birth place	Tehran, Iran
Occupation	Director, screenwriter, producer
Years active	1962–present

Abbas Kiarostami ( Abbās Kiyārostamī; born 22 June 1940) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries. Kiarostami attained critical acclaim for directing the Koker Trilogy (1987–94), Taste of Cherry (1997), and The Wind Will Carry Us (1999).

Kiarostami has worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, art director and producer and has designed credit titles and publicity material. He is also a poet, photographer, painter, illustrator, and graphic designer.

Kiarostami is part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and includes pioneering directors such as Forough Farrokhzad, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Bahram Beizai, and Parviz Kimiavi. The filmmakers share many common techniques including the use of poetic dialogue and allegorical storytelling dealing with political and philosophical issues.

Kiarostami has a reputation for using child protagonists, for documentary style narrative films, for stories that take place in rural villages, and for conversations that unfold inside cars, using stationary mounted cameras. He is also known for his use of contemporary Iranian poetry in the dialogue, titles, and themes of his films.

Early life and background

College of Fine Arts]] Kiarostami was born in Tehran. His first artistic experience was painting, which he continued into his late teens, winning a painting competition at the age of eighteen shortly before he left home to study at the Tehran University School of Fine Arts.

In 1969, Abbas married Parvin Amir-Gholi but later divorced her in 1982; they had two sons, Ahmad (born 1971) and Bahman (1978). At the age of fifteen, Bahman Kiarostami became a director and cinematographer by directing a documentary Journey to the Land of the Traveller in 1993.

Kiarostami was one of the few directors who remained in Iran after the 1979 revolution, when many of his colleagues fled to the west, and he believes that it was one of the most important decisions of his career. He has stated that his permanent base in Iran and his national identity have consolidated his ability as a filmmaker:

When you take a tree that is rooted in the ground, and transfer it from one place to another, the tree will no longer bear fruit. And if it does, the fruit will not be as good as it was in its original place. This is a rule of nature. I think if I had left my country, I would be the same as the tree.-Abbas Kiarostami

Kiarostami frequently appears wearing dark-lensed spectacles or sunglasses. He wears them for medical reasons due to a sensitivity to light.

In 2000, at the San Francisco Film Festival award ceremony, Kiarostami surprised everyone by giving away his Akira Kurosawa Prize for lifetime achievement in directing to veteran Iranian actor Behrooz Vossoughi for his contribution to Iranian Cinema.

Film career

1970s

In 1969, when the Iranian New Wave began with Dariush Mehrjui's film Gāv, Kiarostami helped set up a filmmaking department at the Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanun) in Tehran. Its debut production and Kiarostami's first film was the twelve-minute The Bread and Alley (1970), a neo-realistic short film about an unfortunate schoolboy's confrontation with an aggressive dog. Breaktime followed in 1972. The department went on to become one of Iran’s most famous film studios, producing not only Kiarostami's films, but acclaimed Persian films such as The Runner and Bashu, the Little Stranger. When discussing his first film, he stated:

"Bread and Alley was my first experience in cinema and I must say a very difficult one. I had to work with a very young child, a dog, and an unprofessional crew except for the cinematographer, who was nagging and complaining all the time. Well, the cinematographer, in a sense, was right because I did not follow the conventions of film making that he had become accustomed to."

In 1975, Kiarostami directed two short films So Can I and Two Solutions for One Problem. In early 1976, he released Colors, followed by the fifty-four minute film A Wedding Suit, a story about three teenagers coming into conflict over a suit for a wedding. Kiarostami's first feature film was the 112-minute Report (1977). It revolved around the life of a tax collector accused of accepting bribes; suicide was among its themes. In 1979, he produced and directed First Case, Second Case.

1980s

In the early 1980s, Kiarostami directed several short films including Dental Hygiene (1980), Orderly or Disorderly (1981), and The Chorus (1982). In 1983, he directed Fellow Citizen, but it was not until 1987 that Abbas began to gain recognition outside of Iran with the release of Where Is the Friend's Home?.

Where Is the Friend's Home? tells a deceptively simple account of a conscientious eight-year-old schoolboy's quest to return his friend's notebook in a neighboring village lest his friend be expelled from school. The traditional beliefs of Iranian rural people were depicted throughout the movie. The film has been noted for its poetic use of the Iranian rural landscape and its earnest realism, both important elements of Kiarostami's work. Kiarostami also made the film from a child's point of view, without the condescending tone common to many films about children.

Where Is the Friend's Home?, And Life Goes On (1992) (also known as Life and Nothing More), and Through the Olive Trees (1994) are described by critics as the Koker trilogy, because all three films feature the village of Koker in northern Iran. The films are based around the 1990 earthquake disaster in which 50,000 people lost their lives; Kiarostami uses the themes of life, death, change, and continuity to connect the films. The trilogy went on to be become successful in France in the 1990s and other countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany and Finland. However, Kiarostami does not consider the 3 films as part of a trilogy, suggesting instead that the last two titles plus Taste of Cherry (1997) comprise a trilogy, given their common theme — the preciousness of life. In 1987, Kiarostami was involved in the screenwriting of The Key, which he edited but did not direct. In 1989, he released Homework.

1990s

In 1990, Kiarostami directed Close-Up, which narrates the story of the real-life trial of a man who impersonated film-maker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, conning a family into believing they would star in his new film. The family suspects theft as the motive for this charade, but the impersonator, Hossein Sabzian, argues that his motives were more complex. The part documentary, part staged film examines Sabzian's moral justification for usurping Makhmalbaf's identity, questioning his ability to sense his cultural and artistic flair. Close-Up received praise from directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, and Nanni Moretti and was released across Europe.

In 1992, Kiarostami directed Life, and Nothing More..., regarded by critics as the second film of the Koker trilogy. The film follows a father and his young son as they drive from Tehran to Koker in search of two young boys who they fear might have perished in the 1990 earthquake. As they travel through the devastated landscape, they meet earthquake survivors forced to carry on with their lives amid tragedy. That year Kiarostami won a Prix Roberto Rossellini, the first professional film award of his career, for his direction of the film. The last film of the so-called Koker trilogy was Through the Olive Trees (1994), which turns a peripheral scene from Life and Nothing More into the central drama. Critics such as Adrian Martin have called the style of filmmaking in the Koker trilogy as "diagrammatical", linking the zig-zagging patterns in the landscape and the geometry of forces of life and the world. A flashback of the zigzag path in Life and Nothing More... (1992) in turn triggers the spectator’s memory of the previous film, Where Is the Friend’s Home? back in 1987, shot before the earthquake. This in turn symbolically links to post-earthquake reconstruction in Through the Olive Trees in 1994.

In 1995, Miramax Films released Through the Olive Trees in the US theatrically.

Kiarostami next wrote the screenplays for The Journey and The White Balloon (1995), for his former assistant Jafar Panahi. the tale of a desperate man, Mr. Badii, hell-bent on committing suicide. The film involved themes such as morality, the legitimacy of the act of suicide, and the meaning of compassion.

In 1999, Kiarostami directed The Wind Will Carry Us, which won the Grand Jury Prize (Silver Lion) at the Venice International Film Festival. The film contrasted rural and urban views on the dignity of labor, addressing themes of gender equality and the benefits of progress, by means of a stranger's sojourn in a remote Kurdish village.

2000s

In 2002, Kiarostami directed Ten, revealing an unusual method of filmmaking and abandoning many scriptwriting conventions. , a UN commissioned documentary about programmes assisting orphans in Uganda.]]

In 2001, Kiarostami and his assistant, Seifollah Samadian, traveled to Kampala, Uganda at the request of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development, to film a documentary about programs assisting Ugandan orphans. He stayed for ten days and made ABC Africa. The trip was originally intended as a research in preparation for the actual filming, but Kiarostami ended up editing the entire film from the video footage obtained. Although Uganda's orphans are overwhelmingly the result of the AIDS epidemic, Time Out editor and National Film Theatre chief programmer Geoff Andrew stated about Kiarostami's film: "Like his previous four features, this film is not about death but life-and-death: how they're linked, and what attitude we might adopt with regard to their symbiotic inevitability."

In 2003, Kiarostami directed Five, a poetic feature with no dialogue or characterization. It consists of five long shots of nature which are single-take sequences, shot with a hand-held DV camera, along the shores of the Caspian Sea. Although the film lacks a clear storyline, Geoff Andrew argues that the film is "more than just pretty pictures". He further adds, "Assembled in order, they comprise a kind of abstract or emotional narrative arc, which moves evocatively from separation and solitude to community, from motion to rest, near-silence to sound and song, light to darkness and back to light again, ending on a note of rebirth and regeneration." He further notes the degree of artifice concealed behind the apparent simplicity of the imagery.

In 2004, Kiarostami produced 10 on Ten, a journal documentary that shares ten lessons on movie-making while driving through the locations of his past films. The movie is shot on digital video with a stationary camera mounted inside the car, in a manner reminiscent of Taste of Cherry and Ten.

In 2005 and 2006, he directed The Roads of Kiarostami, a 32-minute documentary that reflects on the power of landscape, combining austere black-and-white photographs with poetic observations, engaging music with political subject matter.

In 2005 Kiarostami contributed the central section to Tickets, a portmanteau film set on a train traveling through Italy. The other segments were directed by Ken Loach and Ermanno Olmi.

In 2008 he directed the feature Shirin.

2010s

As of April 2010, Kiarostami's next film is Certified Copy which has been shot in Tuscany. It is his first film which has been shot and produced outside Iran. It was entered in competition for the Palme d'Or in the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Cinematic style

Individualism

Though Kiarostami has been compared to Satyajit Ray, Vittorio de Sica, Éric Rohmer, and Jacques Tati, his films exhibit a singular style, often employing techniques of his own invention. The camera was allowed to roll, capturing the faces of the people involved during their daily routine, using a series of extreme-close shots. Ten was an experiment that used digital cameras to virtually eliminate the director. This new direction towards a Digital-Micro-Cinema, is defined as a micro-budget filmmaking practice, allied with a digital production basis. , looking back on his film-making techniques]] Kiarostami's cinema offers a different definition of film. According to film professors such as Jamsheed Akrami of William Paterson University, Kiarostami has consistently attempted to redefine film by lowering its full definition and forcing the increased involvement of the audience. In recent years, he has also progressively trimmed down the timespan of his films, which Akrami believes reduces the filmmaking experience from a collective endeavor to a purer, more basic form of artistic expression.

Fiction and non-fiction

Kiarostami's films contain a notable degree of ambiguity, an unusual mixture of simplicity and complexity, and often a mix of fictional and documentary elements. Kiarostami has stated, "We can never get close to the truth except through lying."

The boundary between fiction and non-fiction is significantly reduced in Kiarostami's cinema. The French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, writing about Kiarostami, and in particular Life and Nothing More..., has argued that his films are neither quite fiction nor quite documentary. Life and Nothing More..., he argues, is neither representation nor reportage, but rather "evidence":

[I]t all looks like reporting, but everything underscores (indique à l'évidence) that it is the fiction of a documentary (in fact, Kiarostami shot the film several months after the earthquake), and that it is rather a document about "fiction": not in the sense of imagining the unreal, but in the very specific and precise sense of the technique, of the art of constructing images. For the image by means of which, each time, each opens a world and precedes himself in it (s'y précède) is not pregiven (donnée toute faite) (as are those of dreams, phantasms or bad films): it is to be invented, cut and edited. Thus it is evidence, insofar as, if one day I happen to look at my street on which I walk up and down ten times a day, I construct for an instant a new evidence of my street.

For Jean-Luc Nancy, this notion of cinema as "evidence", rather than as documentary or imagination, is tied to the way Kiarostami deals with life-and-death (cf. the remark by Geoff Andrew on ABC Africa, cited above, to the effect that Kiarostami's films are not about death but about life-and-death):

Existence resists the indifference of life-and-death, it lives beyond mechanical "life," it is always its own mourning, and its own joy. It becomes figure, image. It does not become alienated in images, but it is presented there: the images are the evidence of its existence, the objectivity of its assertion. This thought—which, for me, is the very thought of this film [Life and Nothing More...]—is a difficult thought, perhaps the most difficult. It's a slow thought, always under way, fraying a path so that the path itself becomes thought. It is that which frays images so that images become this thought, so that they become the evidence of this thought—and not in order to "represent" it.

In other words, wanting to accomplish more than just represent life and death as opposing forces, but rather to illustrate the way in which each element of nature is inextricably linked, Kiarostami has devised a cinema that does more than just present the viewer with the documentable "facts," but neither is it simply a matter of artifice. Because "existence" means more than simply life, it is projective, containing an irreducibly fictive element, but in this "being more than" life, it is therefore contaminated by mortality. Nancy is giving a clue, in other words, toward the interpretation of Kiarostami's statement that lying is the only way to truth.

Themes of life and death

The concepts of change and continuity, in addition to the themes of life and death, play a major role in Kiarostami's works. In the Koker trilogy, these themes play a central role. As illustrated in the aftermath of the 1990 Tehran earthquake disaster, they represent an ongoing opposition between life and death and the power of human resilience to overcome and defy destruction.

However, unlike the Koker films, which convey an instinctual thirst for survival, Taste of Cherry also explores the fragility of life and rhetorically focuses on the preciousness of life.

Some film critics believe that the assemblage of light versus dark scenes in Kiarostami's film grammar, such as in Taste of Cherry and Wind Will Carry Us, suggests the mutual existence of life with its endless possibilities and death as a factual moment of anyone’s life in his films.

Visual and audio techniques

(1991–1992)]] Kiarostami's style is notable for the use of panoramic long shots, such as in the closing sequences of Life and Nothing More andThrough the Olive Trees, where the audience is intentionally distanced physically from the characters in order to stimulate reflection on their fate. Taste of Cherry is punctuated throughout by shots of this kind, including distant overhead shots of the suicidal Badii's car moving across the hills, usually while he is conversing with a passenger. However, the visual distancing techniques stand in juxtaposition to the sound of the dialog, which always remains in the foreground. Like the coexistence of a private and public space, or the frequent framing of landscapes through car windows, this fusion of distance with proximity can be seen as a way of generating suspense in the most mundane of moments. , Persian poet and philosopher in Nishapur]] The characters recite poems mainly from classical Persian poet Omar Khayyám or modern Persian poets such as Sohrab Sepehri and Forough Farrokhzad. One scene in The Wind Will Carry Us has a long shot of a wheat field with rippling golden crops through which the doctor, accompanied by the filmmaker, is riding his scooter in a twisting road. In response to the comment that the other world is a better place than this one, the doctor recites this poem of Khayyam:

Spirituality

Kiarostami's films often reflect upon immaterial concepts such as soul and afterlife. At times, however, the very concept of the spiritual seems to be contradicted by the medium itself, given that it has no inherent means to confer the metaphysical. Some film theorists have argued that The Wind Will Carry Us provides a template by which a filmmaker can communicate metaphysical reality. The limits of the frame, the material representation of a space in dialog with another that is not represented, physically become metaphors for the relationship between this world and those which may exist apart from it. By limiting the space of the mise en scène, Kiarostami expands the space of the art. Some draw parallels between certain imagery in Kiarostami's films with that of Sufi concepts.

However, differing viewpoints have arisen about this issue. While a vast majority of English-language writers, such as David Sterritt and Spanish film professor Alberto Elena, interpret Kiarostami's films as spiritual films, other critics including David Walsh and Hamish Ford have diminished its influence in his films.

Kiarostami is also a noted photographer and poet. A bilingual collection of more than 200 of his poems, Walking with the Wind, was published by Harvard University Press. His photographic work includes Untitled Photographs, a collection of over thirty photographs, essentially of snow landscapes, taken in his hometown Tehran, between 1978 and 2003. An exhibition of Kiarostami's photographs of roads, trees and views from a car were shown at PS1 Contemporary Art Center in New York in 2007. In 1999, He also published a collection of his poems.

Riccardo Zipoli, from the Università Ca' Foscari Venezia in Venice, has examined some aspects of the relations and interconnections between Kiarostami's poems and his films. The results of the analysis reveal how Kiarostami's treatment of this theme is similar in his poems and films. Kiarostami's poetry is reminiscent of the later nature poems of the Persian painter-poet, Sohrab Sepehri. On the other hand, the succinct allusion to philosophical truths without the need for deliberation, the non-judgmental tone of the poetic voice, and the structure of the poem—absence of personal pronouns, adverbs or over reliance on adjectives—as well as the lines containing a kigo (a season word) gives much of this poetry a Haikuesque characteristic. Four of his films were placed in the top six of Cinematheque Ontario's Best of the '90s poll. He has gained recognition from film theorists, critics, as well as peers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Nanni Moretti (who made a short film about opening one of Kiarostami's films in his theater in Rome), Chris Marker, Ray Carney, and Akira Kurosawa, who said of Kiarostami's films: "Words cannot describe my feelings about them ... When Satyajit Ray passed on, I was very depressed. But after seeing Kiarostami’s films, I thanked God for giving us just the right person to take his place." Critically-acclaimed directors such as Martin Scorsese have commented that "Kiarostami represents the highest level of artistry in the cinema." In 2006, The Guardian's panel of critics ranked Kiarostami as the best non-American film director. Nevertheless, critics such as Jonathan Rosenbaum have argued that "there's no getting around the fact that the movies of Abbas Kiarostami divide audiences—in this country, in his native Iran, and everywhere else they're shown."

While Kiarostami has won significant acclaim in Europe for several of his films, the Iranian government has refused to permit the screening of his films in his native Iran. Kiarostami has responded, "The government has decided not to show any of my films for the past 10 years... I think they don't understand my films and so prevent them being shown just in case there is a message they don't want to get out". Festival director Richard Peña, who had invited him said, "It's a terrible sign of what's happening in my country today that no one seems to realize or care about the kind of negative signal this sends out to the entire Muslim world". Kiarostami had been invited by the New York International Film Festival, as well as Ohio University and Harvard University.

In 2005, London Film School organized a workshop as well as festival of Kiarostami’s work, titled "Abbas Kiarostami: Visions of the Artist". Ben Gibson, Director of the London Film School, said, "Very few people have the creative and intellectual clarity to invent cinema from its most basic elements, from the ground up. We are very lucky to have the chance to see a master like Kiarostami thinking on his feet."

In 2007, The Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center co-organized a festival of the Kiarostami's work, titled "Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker". Kiarostami and his cinematic style have been the subject of several books and two films, Il Giorno della prima di Close Up (1996), directed by Nanni Moretti and Abbas Kiarostami: The Art of Living (2003), directed by Fergus Daly. Abbas Kiarostami is also a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation. The project was founded by Martin Scorsese and aimed at finding and reconstructing world cinema films that have been long neglected. Austrian director Michael Haneke has admired the work of Abbas Kiarostami as one of the best.

Honors and awards

from Martin Scorsese in the Marrakech International Film Festival.]] Kiarostami has won the admiration of audiences and critics worldwide and received at least seventy awards up to the year 2000. Here are some representatives:

Prix Roberto Rossellini (1992)

Prix Cine Decouvertes (1992)

François Truffaut Award (1993)

Pier Paolo Pasolini Award (1995)

Federico Fellini Gold Medal, UNESCO (1997)

Palme d'Or, Cannes Festival (1997)

Honorary Golden Alexander Prize, Thessaloniki Film Festival (1999)

Silver Lion, Venice Film Festival (1999)

Akira Kurosawa Award (2000)

Honorary doctorate, École Normale Supérieure (2003)

Konrad Wolf Prize (2003)

President of the Jury for Caméra d'Or Award, Cannes Festival (2005)

Fellowship of the British Film Institute (2005)

Gold Leopard of Honor, Locarno film festival (2005)

Prix Henri-Langlois Prize (2006)

Honorary doctorate, University of Toulouse (2007)

World's great masters, Kolkata Film Festival (2007)

Glory to the Filmmaker Award, Venice Film Festival (2008)

Honorary doctorate, University of Paris (2010)

Film festival work

Kiarostami was a jury member at numerous film festivals, most notably the Cannes Film Festival in 1993, 2002 and 2005. He was also the president of the Caméra d'Or Jury in Cannes Film Festival 2005.

Some representatives:

Venice in 1985

Locarno in 1990

Cannes in 1993

San Sebastian in 1996.

Cannes in 2002

São Paulo International Film Festival (2004)

Cannes in 2005 (president)

Capalbio Cinema Festival in 2007 (president)

Books by Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami, Havres : French translation by Tayebeh Hashemi and Jean-Restom Nasser, ÉRÈS (PO&PSY;); Bilingual edition (3 June 2010) ISBN 2749212234.

Abbas Kiarostami, Abbas Kiarostami: Cahiers du Cinema Livres (24 October 1997) ISBN 2866421965.

Abbas Kiarostami, Walking with the Wind (Voices and Visions in Film): English translation by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak and Michael C. Beard, Harvard Film Archive; Bilingual edition (28 February 2002) ISBN 0674008448.

Abbas Kiarostami, 10 (ten): Cahiers du Cinema Livres (5 September 2002) ISBN 2866423461.

Abbas Kiarostami, Nahal Tajadod and Jean-Claude Carrière Avec le vent: P.O.L. (5 May 2002) ISBN 2867448891.

Abbas Kiarostami, Le vent nous emportera: Cahiers du Cinema Livres (5 September 2002) ISBN 286642347X.

Abbas Kiarostami, La Lettre du Cinema: P.O.L. (12 December 1997) ISBN 2867445892.

See also

;Kiarostami's assistants:

Jafar Panahi

Hassan Yektapanah

Bahman Ghobadi

Bahman Kiarostami (son)

Elaine Tyler-Hall

;General:

Intellectual movements in Iran

Iranian New Wave (cinema)

Cinema of Iran

List of Iranian intellectuals

Bibliography

Geoff Andrew, Ten (London: BFI Publishing, 2005).

Erice-Kiarostami. Correspondences, 2006, ISBN 8496540243, catalogue of an exhibition together with the Spanish filmmaker Víctor Erice

Alberto Elena, The Cinema of Abbas Kiarostami, Saqi Books 2005, ISBN 0-86356-594-8

Mehrnaz Saeed-Vafa, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Abbas Kiarostami (Contemporary Film Directors), University of Illinois Press 2003 (paperback), ISBN 0-252-07111-5

Jean-Luc Nancy, The Evidence of Film - Abbas Kiarostami, Yves Gevaert, Belgium 2001, ISBN 2-930128-17-8

Jean-Claude Bernardet, Caminhos de Kiarostami, Melhoramentos; 1 edition (2004), ISBN 978-8535905717

Marco Dalla Gassa, Abbas Kiarostami, Publisher: Mani (2000) ISBN 978-8880121473

Youssef Ishaghpour, Le réel, face et pile: Le cinéma d'Abbas Kiarostami , Farrago (2000) ISBN 978-2844900630

Alberto Barbera and Elisa Resegotti (editors), Kiarostami, Electa (30 April 2004) ISBN 978-8837023904

Laurent Kretzschmar, "Is Cinema Renewing Itself?", Film-Philosophy. vol. 6 no 15, July 2002.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, "Lessons from a Master," Chicago Reader, 14 June 1996

References

External links

Biography of Abbas Kiarostami at Zeitgeist Films

Category:Iranian people Category:Persian people Category:Iranian film directors Category:Iranian screenwriters Category:Iranian documentary filmmakers Category:Iranian poets Category:Iranian photographers Category:Persian-language film directors Category:Graphic designers Category:People from Tehran Category:University of Tehran alumni Category:Légion d'honneur recipients Category:Fellini Gold Medalists Category:Akira Kurosawa Award winners Category:Roberto Rossellini Prize recipients Category:Iranian humanitarians Category:Iranian Légion d'honneur recipients Category:1940 births Category:Living people

Name	Vasundhara Das
Birth date	1977
Birth place	Bengaluru, India.
Instrument	Guitar.
Genre	Hindustani Classical and Western music.
Occupation	Actress, singer.
Associated acts	Arya, World Music band, with Roberto Narain on drums.
Years active	1999–present.
Background	solo_singer

Vasundhara Das (, ) (born 1977) is an Indian actress and singer.

Early life

Vasundhara Das was born in a Hebbar Iyengar family from Bangalore. She studied at Cluny Convent High School, Bangalore, and Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, graduating in Economics and Mathematics.

She began training in Hindustani Classical music at the age of six. She used to run away from home to avoid taking music lessons. In her college days she was part of an all-girl band. She can play some Flamenco strums on her guitar.

She speaks Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and English.

Career

Actor

Vasundhara began acting with the Kamal Hasan film Hey Ram (1999) and started her playback singing career with A. R. Rahman's Tamil film Mudhalvan. She was considered for the role of heroine by Mani Ratnam in his movie Alaipayuthey opposite R. Madhavan. She played heroine alongside the veteran actor Mohanlal in the Malayalam movie Ravanaprabhu, the female lead role opposite Ajith in the Tamil movie Citizen, and heroine opposite Dharshan Tugdeep in the Kannada movie Lankesh Pathrike. She also appeared in the Hindi T.V. serial Rab Ne Banadi Jodi.

Singer

She moved her base from Bangalore to Mumbai and founded a musical band named Arya with Roberto Narain. The band comprises musicians from various backgrounds in world music ranging from Hindustani and Carnatic classical music to Jazz, Latin, rock and pop. Roberto Narain plays the drums and Vasundhara provides Western and Indian vocals. Arya’s music can be broadly classified as World Music. Arya’s first performance was at the prestigious festival La Mar de Musicas in Spain in 2003. The band toured the United States in September 2004.

Her breakthrough in films came in the 2001 film Aks with songs like Rabba Rabba for which she was nominated for the 2002 Filmfare Best Female Playback Award.

She has sung one song pattu viral thottu vittadhaal for maestro Ilaiyaraaja in the Tamil movie Dhanush directed by A.M. Gurumani. She has sung an English song in the Hindi film Lagaan for the British character played by Rachel Shelley. Her most famous Hindi song is It's the time to Disco in the film Kal Ho Na Ho sung for Preity Zinta . She is also well-known for the song kattipudi kattipudi da in the movie Kushi. She often sings for the actress Preity Zinta among others.

She has recorded her own album of non-film songs. She has sung in French, English, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, and Telugu.She is known as demi goddess of the south.

Filmography

Ugly Aur Pagli [2008] Hindi.

Ek Dastak [2005] Hindi.

Aegan [?] Tamil.

Kushi [?] Tamil.

Boys [2003] Tamil.

Kanda Naal Mudhal [?] Tamil.

Anniyan [?] Tamil.

Manmadhan [?] Tamil.

Kudiyon Ka Hai Zamana [2005] Hindi.

Pathar Bezubaan [2004] Hindi.

Vajram [2004] Malayalam.

Filmstar [2003] Hindi.

Lankesh Patrike [2002] Kannada.

Citizen [2001] Tamil.

Ravanaprabhu [2001] Malayalam.

Monsoon Wedding [2000] Hindi.

Hey Ram [1999] Tamil & Hindi.

Music influences

Hindustani Classical

Carnatic Classical

Ghazal

Choral

English

Fusion

Rock and Funk

Spanish

References

3. http://www.hamaraphotos.com/photo_-34804.html

External links

http://www.littleindia.com/news/153/ARTICLE/1290/2006-09-14.html

http://www.hamaraphotos.com/photo_-34804.html

Category:1977 births Category:Living people Category:Indian actors Category:Indian female singers Category:Indian film singers Category:Kannada playback singers Category:Kollywood playback singers Category:People from Bangalore Category:Tamil actors Category:Telugu playback singers

:Not to be confused with another actress bearing the same name

Name	Sonam Kapoor
Caption	Kapoor at the Cricket stars party (2007)
Birthdate	June 09, 1985
Birth place	Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Yearsactive	2004 - present
Occupation	Actress
Spouse	None

Sonam Kapoor (; born 9 June 1985, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India) is an Indian film actress who appears in Bollywood films.

Early life

Kapoor is the daughter of Anil Kapoor and Sunita Kapoor, and the granddaughter of filmmaker Surinder Kapoor. She is the niece of producer Boney Kapoor, actress Sridevi, actor Sanjay Kapoor and producer Sandeep Marwah. Kapoor is the eldest of three children; the others are sister Rhea Kapoor and brother Harshvardhan.

She went to school in Mumbai at the Arya Vidya Mandir school in Juhu and then enrolled in the United World College of South East Asia to do her International Baccalaureate. She made her acting debut alongside newcomer, Ranbir Kapoor in Bhansali's Saawariya (2007), which failed to do well at the box office. Her performance was opened to good reviews by most critics.

In 2009, Kapoor appeared in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Delhi-6, opposite Abhishek Bachchan. The film flopped at the box office and received mixed reviews by the critics, but her performance was highly praised. Critic Rajeev Masand commented, "Sonam Kapoor is the revelation in Delhi 6. She's a firecracker performer, instinctive and uninhibited in what isn't even a conventional female lead".

In 2010, she appeared in Punit Malhotra's I Hate Luv Storys opposite Imran Khan. The film went on to become her first box office success. She also appeared in the romantic comedy, Aisha, opposite Abhay Deol.

In 2011, Kapoor is scheduled to appear in Players opposite Abhishek Bachchan, Thank You opposite Akshay Kumar and Mausam with Shahid Kapoor.

Awards and nominations

Filmfare Awards

Nominated

2008: Filmfare Best Female Debut Award; Saawariya

2008: Sony Head N Shoulders Fresh Face of the Year Award; Saawariya

Star Screen Awards

Nominated 2008: Star Screen Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Female; Saawariya

2008: Star Screen Award Jodi No. 1 along with Ranbir Kapoor; Saawariya

Zee Cine Awards

Nominated 2008: Zee Cine Award for Best Female Debut; Saawariya

Stardust Awards

Winner 2008: Stardust Superstar of Tomorrow - Female; Saawariya

Filmography

{| border="2" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 90%;" |- bgcolor="#B0C4DE" align="center" ! Year !! Movie !! Role !! Notes |- | 2007 || Saawariya || Sakina || Nominated, Filmfare Best Female Debut Award |- | 2009 || Delhi-6 || Bittu Sharma || |- |rowspan="2"| 2010 || I Hate Luv Storys || Simran Sharma || |- | Aisha || Aisha Kapoor || |- |rowspan="3"| 2011 || Thank You || Sanjana || Filming |- | Mausam || Aayat || Filming |- | Players || || Filming |}

See also

List of Indian film actresses

References

External links

Category:1985 births Category:Indian actors Category:Indian film actors Category:Living people Category:Indian Hindus Category:Hindi film actors Category:People from Mumbai Category:Sindhi people Category:Punjabi people Category:University of Mumbai alumni Category:Alumni of the University of East London

Name	Abhishek Bachchan
Caption	Abhishek Bachchan at the IIFA awards
Birth date	February 05, 1976
Birth place	Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Spouse	Aishwarya Rai (2007 - present)
Occupation	Actor, Producer, Television presenter
Years active	2000- present

Abhishek Bachchan (, born 5 February 1976 in Mumbai, Maharashtra) is an Indian actor and producer and the son of Indian actors Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan. He is married to actress and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai.

Bachchan debuted with J.P. Dutta's Refugee (2000). In 2004, he appeared in Dhoom and in Yuva. His work in Yuva received several awards, including his first Filmfare Award in the Best Supporting Actor category, an award he would win for the two next years as well. In 2010, he won his first National Film Award (as a producer) for Paa which won the Best Feature Film in Hindi Award.

Early life

Abhishek Bachchan is the son of Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan and actress Jaya Bachchan; his elder sister is Shweta Bachchan-Nanda (b. 1974). His grandfather, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was a poet of Hindi literature. The original last name of his parental family is Srivastav, Bachchan being the pen name used by his grandfather. However, when his father Amitabh entered films, he did so under his own father's pen name. Bachchan is of Punjabi Sikh heritage from his grandmother Teji's side, while also of Bengali Kulin Brahmin descent from his mother Jaya Bhaduri's side.

Bachchan was dyslexic as a child. He attended Jamnabai Narsee School and Bombay Scottish School in Mumbai, Modern School, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi, and Aiglon College in Switzerland. He then went to the U.S. to attend Boston University.

Career

Bachchan began his career with J.P. Dutta's Refugee (2000). Bachchan went on to do other films, including Kuch Na Kaho and Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai, without much success.

Abhishek went on to give a string of 17 poorly received films but his performances in Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (2003) and Mani Ratnam's Yuva (2004) proved his mettle as an actor. The same year, he starred in Dhoom his first commercial hit. He won his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for Sarkar. Bachchan also received his first Filmfare nomination in the Best Actor category.

Bachchan's first 2006 release Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, was one of India's highest-grossing films of the year. He played the role of Rishi Talwar, a young man who lives in New York and whose wife sets on an extramarital affair with another man. His performance in the film earned him his third consecutive award for Best Supporting Actor at the Filmfare Awards. He was also a part of Mani Ratnam's stage show, Netru, Indru, Naalai, alongside many other co-stars. Bachchan's second release Umrao Jaan failed to do well at the box office, but his third film that year, the sequel Dhoom 2, did very well—although, as in the first Dhoom, critics found that Hrithik Roshan, as the antagonist, stole the show.

In 2007, Bachchan starred in Guru, receiving much acclaim for his performance, and the film emerged as his first solo hit. In May 2007, he made a brief appearance in the successful Shootout at Lokhandwala. His next release, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, which released in June 2007, failed to do well in India but did better overseas, especially in the UK. While the film itself received mixed reviews, Bachchan won praise for his performance.

In the summer of 2008, Bachchan, his wife, his father, and fellow performers Preity Zinta, Ritesh Deshmukh, and Madhuri Dixit starred in the "Unforgettable World Tour" stage production. The first leg covered the U.S, Canada, Trinidad, and London, England.

Bachchan is also involved in the functional and administrative operations of his father's company, originally known as ABCL, and rechristened as AB Corp. Ltd. That company, along with Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., developed the Unforgettable production.

Among Bachchan's 2008 films were Sarkar Raj, Dostana and Drona.

Bachchan produced the Hindi film Paa for his family company AB Corp. Ltd. in which he played the role of his father Amitabh Bachchan's father.

In January 2010, Bachchan hosted a game show for Colors titled National Bingo Night. The debut episode fetched a 3.5 in the TVR ratings. In 2010, he starred in the film Raavan opposite his wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Rediff said the film had "great performances". With a five week box office of 38.53 Crore and a distribution share of 25.33 it was declared a flop by Boxoffice India.

Personal life

at the IIFA Awards (2007).]]

In October 2002, at Amitabh Bachchan's 60th birthday celebration, Abhishek Bachchan and actress Karisma Kapoor announced their engagement. The engagement was called off in January 2003.

In 2006, Bachchan was named the sexiest man in Asia by UK magazine Eastern Eye. The Times of India called him the most eligible bachelor of India.

Bachchan and actress Aishwarya Rai announced their engagement on 14 January 2007. The couple was married on 20 April 2007, according to traditional Hindu rites of the South Indian Bunt community, to which Rai belongs. Token North Indian and Bengali ceremonies were also performed. The wedding took place in a private ceremony at the Bachchan residence Prateeksha, in Juhu, Mumbai, but was heavily covered by the entertainment media. The couple appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Monday, 28 September 2009.

Awards and nominations

Among the awards, Bachchan has received National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi (as a producer) for Paa and 2005's Stardust Star of the Year Award - Male for Yuva as well as Filmfare Awards for "Best Supporting Actor" in 2005, '06 and '07

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- |rowspan="3"|2000 | Refugee | Refugee | Nominated, Filmfare Best Male Debut Award |- | Dhai Akshar Prem Ke | Karan Khanna | |- | Tera Jadoo Chal Gaya | Kabir Srivastav | |- | 2001 | Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai | Surajchand Shrivastav | |- |rowspan="4"|2002 | Haan Maine Bhi Pyaar Kiya | Shiv Kapoor | |- | Shararat | Rahul Khanna | |- | Om Jai Jagadish | Jagadish Batra | |- | Desh | Anjaan | |- |rowspan="5"|2003 | Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon | Prem Kumar | Nominated, Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award |- | Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost | Kanji | |- | Kuch Naa Kaho | Raj | |- | Zameen | ACP Jaideep "Jai" Rai | |- | LOC Kargil | Lt. Vikram Batra | |- |rowspan="7"|2004 | Run | Siddharth | |- | Yuva | Lallan Singh | Winner, Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award |- | Hum Tum | Sameer | Guest appearance |- | Dhoom | ACP Jai Dixit | |- | Phir Milenge | Tarun Anand | |- | | Manav | Guest appearance (item number) |- | Naach | Abhinav | |- |rowspan="9"|2005 | Bunty Aur Babli | Rakesh Trivedi/Bunty | Nominated, Filmfare Best Actor Award |- | Sarkar | Shankar Nagare | Winner, Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award |- | Dus | Shashank Dheer | |- | Antar Mahal | Brij Bhushan | |- | Salaam Namaste | Dr. Vijay Kumar/Narrator | Special appearance |- | | Customer at Pizzeria | Special appearance |- | Ek Ajnabee | Bodyguard | Special appearance |- | Neal n' Nikki | Man in Bar | Special appearance |- | Bluffmaster | Roy Kapoor | |- |rowspan="5"|2006 | Alag | | Special appearance in song Sabse Alag |- | Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna | Rishi Talwar | Winner, Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award |- | Lage Raho Munna Bhai | Sunny Khurana | Special appearance |- | Umrao Jaan | Nawab Sultan Khan | |- | Dhoom 2 | ACP Jai Dixit | |- |rowspan="6"|2007 | Guru | Gurukant K. Desai | Nominated, Filmfare Best Actor Award |- | Shootout at Lokhandwala | Abhishek Mahatre | Special appearance |- | Jhoom Barabar Jhoom | Rikki Thukral | |- | Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag | Gypsy singer | Special appearance |- | Laaga Chunari Mein Daag | Rohan Varma | Extended cameo |- | Om Shanti Om | Himself | Special appearance |- |rowspan="4"|2008 | Sarkar Raj | Shankar Nagare | Nominated, Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award |- | Mission Istanbul | | Special appearance |- | Drona | Aditya/Drona | |- | Dostana | Sameer | Nominated, Filmfare Best Actor Award |- |rowspan="3"|2009 | Luck by Chance | Himself | Special appearance |- | Delhi-6 | Roshan Mehra | |- | Paa | Amol Arte | |- |rowspan="2"|2010 | Raavan | Beera | |- | Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey | Surya Sen | |- |rowspan="4"|2011 | Game | | Releasing on March 18, 2011 |- | Dum Maro Dum | | Releasing on April 22, 2011 |- | Players | | Filming |- | Bol Bachchan | | Pre-production |}

See also

List of Indian Actors

References

External links

Category:1976 births Category:Living people Category:Indian film actors Category:Hindi film actors Category:Indian Hindus Category:People from Mumbai Category:Indian actors Category:Filmfare Awards winners Category:Indian film producers Category:Indian television presenters

Name	Abhimanyu Singh
Birth place	India
Yearsactive	2001 - Present
Occupation	Actor, Television producer

Abhimanyu Singh is an Indian film actor who works mainly in Bollywood. He made his debut in films with Aks (2001), directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. He got his first break with the role of Ransa Singh in Gulaal (2009), directed by Anurag Kashyap. The role won him the 2010 Stardust Award for breakthrough performance. He won praises for his role of Bukka Reddy in Rakta Charitra (2010), directed by Ram Gopal Varma. In his review in The Times of India, Nikhat Kazmi compared his performance to that of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight (2008) which outshone the lead star. Abhimanyu Singh is also a television producer. He is the younger brother of actor Chandrachur Singh.

Filmography

2011 Dookudu(Telugu)

2010 Nenu Naa Rakshasi (Telugu)

2010 Rakta Charitra(Hindi, Telugu, Tamil)

2010 Accident on Hill Road

2010 The Film Emotional Atyachar

2010 I Am

2009 Gulaal

2007 It's Breaking News

2007 Dhol

2007 Konte Kurrallu

2004 Lakshya

2001 Aks

References

IMDb Page

Singh,Abhimanyu Singh,Abhimanyu Category:Indian actors Category:Hindi film actors Category:Indian television producers