Dinesh Kamath’s column ‘New movies to get released in Navi Mumbai’ (Filmistaan, Holiday, Edge of Tomorrow and The World Before Her) that was published in Newsband.

New movies to get released in Navi Mumbai

By Dinesh Kamath

Filmistaan

Filmistaan is a 2013 Indian film written and directed by Nitin Kakkar.

The movie has an interesting plot. In Mumbai, affable Bollywood buff and wanna-be-actor Sunny, who works as an assistant director, fantasizes on becoming a heart-throb star. However, at every audition he is summarily thrown out. Undeterred, he goes with an American crew to remote areas in Rajasthan to work on a documentary. One day an Islamic terrorist group kidnaps him for the American crew-member. Sunny finds himself on enemy border amidst guns and pathani-clad guards, who decide to keep him hostage until they locate their original target. The house in which he is confined belongs to a Pakistani, whose trade stems from pirated Hindi films, which he brings back every time he crosses the border. Soon, the two factions realize that they share a human and cultural bond. The film shows how cinema can be the universal panacea for co-existence.

The film has Sharib Hashmi as Sunny, Inaamulhaq as Aftaab, Kumud Mishra as Mehmood and Gopal Dutt as Jawwad

Holiday

Holiday: A Soldier Is Never Off Duty is a Bollywood action thriller film written and directed by A.R. Murugadoss, and produced by Vipul Shah. It features Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha in the lead roles, along with Govinda in a supporting role. It is a remake of the 2012 Tamil film Thuppakki.

What's the movie about? Captain Virat Bakshi, an army man comes back home to Mumbai for his holidays. His family takes him to see a bride, and he feels the girl is too soft and an introvert. Later in another occasion, he finds out that she is actually a boxer and is surprised by her personality. Having a police man friend, and the love he develops for this girl, the film revolves around the fun that happens among the three, until at one point, an anti social activity in the heart of Mumbai city gets him involved into something huge.

Virat Bakshi being a patriot and a special agent in the Indian Army, is dragged into a huge network of terrorism. The rest of the story is about him fighting against the wittiest of Terror head, and how he swipes out the city of Mumbai from Sleeper cells. The film ends with a dedication to the Indian Army.

The film has Akshay Kumar as Virat Bakshi, Captain in D.I.A., a wing of Indian Army, Sonakshi Sinha as Saiba, a boxer, Govinda as Virat Bakshi's Senior Commanding Officer, Sumeet Raghavan as Virat's friend also an Inspector, Mumbai Police, Freddy Daruwala as the leader of the sleeper cells, Gireesh Sahedev and Zakir Hussain.

Pritam collaborated with A. R. Murugadoss for the songs of this film. Lyrics penned by Irshad Kamil. The film has songs like Tu Hi To Hai sung by Benny Dayal, Aaj Dil Shayrana by Arijit Singh, Blame The Night by Arijit Singh, Aditi Singh Sharma and Piyush Kapoor, Palang Tod Ke by Mika Singh and Ritu Pathak, Tuhi Toh Hain by Kunal Ganjawala, Ashq Na Ho by Arijit Singh and Palang Tod Ke by Mika Singh and Ritu Pathak

Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow is a 2014 science fiction film starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. The US-backed production is directed by Doug Liman. It is based on the Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.

Major William Cage (Cruise) is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously dropped into what amounts to a suicide mission. Killed within minutes, Cage now finds himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop — forcing him to live out the same brutal combat over and over, fighting and dying again…and again.

But with each battle, Cage becomes able to engage the adversaries with increasing skill, alongside Special Forces warrior Rita Vrataski (Blunt). And, as Cage and Rita take the fight to the aliens, each repeated encounter gets them one step closer to defeating the enemy.

The World Before Her

The World Before Her is a Canadian documentary film, released in 2012. Written and directed by Nisha Pahuja, the film explores the complex and conflicting environment for young girls in India by profiling two young women participating in two very different types of training camp — Ruhi Singh, who aspires to become Miss India, and Prachi Trivedi, a militant Hindu nationalist with the Durga Vahini.

The World Before Her — her third film, after Diamond Road and Bollywood Bound — dives deep into two Indian subcultures that outsiders may not know, and the questions about both came fast and furious from fascinated viewers who wanted to know more about each side of the story. Half of the film goes behind the scenes at the 2011 Miss India beauty pageant, where contestants participate in a 30-day beauty boot camp. The focus is on polish, poise, and grooming, but Pahuja speaks to some of the contestants — particularly Ruhi Singh, whose parents are unusually devoted and supportive, and Ankita Shorey, the eventual winner — about how the seemingly superficial contest represents a rare chance for a woman in India to have a voice, a place in society, and earning power equal to a man’s.

The other half of the documentary follows Prachi Trivedi, a leader at a religious fundamentalist camp, which trains young girls in physical skills and gun use, and teaches them about the Durga Vahini’s militant Hindu beliefs. Pahuja catches prepubescent girls, caught up in the fervor of their teachings, talking about their desire to kill Muslims who disrespect Hinduism, and “slit the throats” of anyone who tries to claim Kashmir from India. But she spends more time at home with Prachi, a woman in her early 20s who has found purpose and self-respect as a camp leader, after finding none at home with her father, a traditionalist who repeatedly says her purpose is to get married and make babies. In the movie’s most chilling sequence, he calmly describes disciplining her by burning her feet with a red-hot iron rod; meanwhile, Prachi smiles on the sidelines, checking her foot for the scar.

The World Before Her is full of such startling moments, but Pahuja’s greatest accomplishment is in the way she finds parallels between two Indian movements that have open contempt for each other — one traditionalist and nationalistic, one openly Westernized — that both rely on disenfranchised young women looking for power and an identity in a modern India where girl children are still regularly aborted to make way for sons.