Today the fascist philosophy of RSS-BJP poses the biggest challenge before India and her people. Fascism knows how to hoodwink the people by hiding their real face. The history of fascism is full of false promises that they placed for the people in order to capture political power. Once they got it, all the promises were thrown to the winds.

‘Sab ka vikas’ was the watchword of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his journey to political power. But hunger and poverty, tears and sorrows of the poor are not at all taken into consideration during his governance. The pandemic days revealed the bitter reality hidden in the ‘Sab ka vikas’ programme. Hunger and sorrow that engulfed the poor man’s India is beyond imagination.

Even before the pandemic, malnutrition and child deaths were haunting the country. According to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report, which is said to be the most authentic evaluation of hunger and food insecurity in the world, food insecurity increased by 3.8 percent in India between 2014 and 2019. By 2019, 6.2 crore more people were living with food insecurity than those in 2014. The number of food insecure people galloped from 42.65 crore in 2014-16 to 48.86 crore in 2017-19.

Also, India accounted for 22 per cent of the global burden of food insecurity, the highest for any country in 2017-19, said The Hindu dated August 24, 2020.

As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) report of 2015-16, 50.4 percent of pregnant women were anaemic, 8.8 lakh children under five years died in 2018 in our country (The State of the World’s Children report-2019, UNICEF). This report pointed out that malnutrition is the cause of 69 per cent under five deaths.

The Global Hunger Index 2021 talked about an India that lowered its position to 101 among 116 countries, from its 94th position in 2020. We are placed lower than Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. The pandemic has only worsened the situation. It made the lives more miserable for the under-privileged.

Guardians of the Galaxy is typically credited with Dave Bautista’s rise to cinematic stardom, but his short turn in Blade Runner 2049 is what drew attention to the actor’s dramatic chops. Thanks to 2049 (and its short film Nowhere to Run), Bautista’s since gone on to show up in pretty good genre work like Dune and Army of the Dead, and it’s also the reason why he’s joining M. Night Shyamalan’s next movie.

While talking up the current season of Apple TV’s Servant, Shyamalan admitted how watching the 2017 flick inspired the director to cast Bautista for his upcoming horror film Knock at the Cabin. “He was still in a way that was really powerful,” said Shyamalan. “There’s a type of stillness where you’re not doing nothing; you’re doing everything and you’re still….Dave was embodying all of this philosophy in that scene.” He went on to describe himself as “taken in” by the performance, admitting first that the actor’s size made him “unusual” to see. But when the script for Cabin was finished, he knew that he needed a guy to “play this giant human being and do the stillness. So I asked Dave.”

Details on the film are currently scarce, but Shyamalan did say that writing the film was perhaps the quickest of his projects to write, beating out 2002’s Signs. “I don’t know if that’s too much to do with the engine, the movement of it, but we’ll see,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it so much, but it’s very emotional.”

Knock at the Cabin is slated for a February 3, 2023 release. It’ll be one of several films for next year that features Bautista in its cast—along with Guardians of the Galaxy’s third installment in May that same year, he’s expected to return in October 2023’s second part of Dune. For 2022, his big projects are Knives Out 2 and Thor: Love Thunder.

[The Hollywood Reporter]

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Netflix’s love affair with Masters of the Universe isn’t about to cool down any time soon. The streaming service is partnering with Mattel to develop a live-action Masters of the Universe movie — no, they weren’t put off by the 1987 flop. Production is expected to start this summer, with the Nee Brothers (who created the upcoming The Lost City) co-directing the title and writing it alongside Shang-Chi‘s David Callaham.

The companies haven’t divulged much about the plot, but they’ve already chosen Kyle Allen (Balkan in West Side Story) as Prince Adam/He-Man. Not surprisingly, there are hints Adam will discover his power as He-Man and fight Skeletor to protect Eternia.

This isn’t a surprising move when MOTU has been lucrative for Netflix. Its She-Ra reboot had five seasons, and Kevin Smith’s Masters of the Universe: Revelation is starting its second season in March. There’s also a child-oriented CG animated series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Between this and other ’80s flashbacks, Netflix appears to know what nostalgia makes its audience tick.

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The fire crackles under the vast starry sky, keeping Quemtshena and Xwistu warm on this chilled autumn night. The pair huddle around the blaze and discuss what to name their unborn child in front of their tule mat tipi. The tension between the two is as visible as their warm breath through the cold air, crackling with an intensity that pops like the fire-engulfed tinder.

Then the director yells cut.

About an hour and a half north of Spokane on the Kalispel Indian Reservation, the second night of shooting has begun on the short film Strongest at the End of the World, a period piece/supernatural thriller in which the two lead actors speak entirely in Salish.

The brainchild of writer, director and cinematographer Ryan Abrahamson, a Spokane Tribe member, the project serves as a small but ambitious piece of artistic representation.

“I’ve never seen a Salish movie,” says Abrahamson during our on-set visit, “so when we were rolling yesterday and they were speaking Salish in the hunting scene? That’s f—-ing nuts.

“We’ve got them in [Pre-Colonial] period costume, speaking period Salish, in an actual region they existed in,” he says. “It just feels like we’re on the right path. All the local elders here and local leadership love this.”

Authenticity was paramount for Abrahamson. The tipi in the aforementioned scene was crafted by Shawn Brigman, a member of the Spokane Tribe who works out of Spokane Public Library and Spokane Public School’s communal space, The Hive. The tule mat tipi took eight hours just to assemble on-site for the shoot, which is a fraction of the time it takes to harvest the reeds and put together the mats in the first place.

Sulustu “Barry” Moses acts as the film’s Salish language adviser, helping actors Tanajsia Slaughter (Quemtshena) and Shane DuBray (Xwistu) wrap their tongues around an extremely tricky dialect for the untrained.

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“This is a really advanced Salish,” says Abrahamson. “It’s not just colors and numbers, which is Salish 1. They’re on Salish 3, and they’ve never heard this stuff. Our guy Barry’s been teaching it for several years, and he’s like, ‘These guys are great.’ That said, even he recognizes Salish is f—-ing hard. It’s not like studying Spanish. You don’t know where the word stops and where it begins. Because the sounds are just wholly different.”

Strongest at the End of the World falls under the umbrella of Counting Coup Films, Abrahamson’s production company. Counting Coup’s goal is to “preserve the past, share the future” in part by training aspiring young Native American filmmakers in various on-set roles. To date, the company has created a wide variety of shorts, PSAs, music videos, etc.

The stealth goal of Strongest is to try to push for more film incentives in Washington state, specifically ones directed at film shoots in Indian country. Washington notoriously does not have great incentives for film shooting — only $3.5 million annually. It’s why so many shoots go to places that prioritize incentives that make productions financially feasible, such as Vancouver, British Columbia (which offers a 35 percent tax credit) and Georgia (which gave out $870 million in subsidies in 2019). Abrahamson thinks not taking advantage of the unique shooting locations that reservations provide is just foolish.

“There’re like 29 [reservations] in Washington. All of them have dramatically different climates. They’re all kind of like (popular filming location) New Zealand, because there’s swaths of land that are undeveloped.”

He’s hoping Stronger can shake Olympia awake to the potential economic and social boon of Indian filmmaking in the state.

“Everyone wants to make movies,” says Abrahamson. “They just want to be represented, right?” ♦

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“Money Heist” may be getting over on Netflix but a spin-off show, centring on popular character Berlin, is already being developed at the streaming service.

Netflix has officially ordered the spin-off project which will see actor Pedro Alonso returning to play Andres de Fonollosa aka Berlin.

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Titled “Berlin”, the show is set to launch in 2023, reported Deadline.

Berlin is one of the most popular-yet-polarising characters from “Money Heist”, known as “La Casa De Papel” in Spanish.

Fans have found him to be quite charming, clever, funny and attractive but deep down, he is misogynistic and violent man, who is also a sexual predator.

There are no details about the new show’s plot and how the makers plan to bring Berlin back as the character had died towards the end of season two of “Money Heist”.

The news of the spin-off comes as “Money Heist” is ending with its last five episodes dropping on December 3.

The Netflix series traces two heists pulled off by a ragtag group of thieves, led by the enigmatic The Professor (Alvaro Morte) — one on the Royal Mint of Spain, and one on the Bank of Spain.

The fifth and final season of the popular Spanish series has been divided into two parts of five episodes each. The first five had debuted on Netflix on September 3.

Meanwhile, the Korean adaptation of “Money Heist” will feature “Squid Game” star Park Hae-soo as Berlin.

The Korean adaptation of “Money Heist” will be directed by Kim Hong-sun, who has helmed TV dramas like ‘The Guest” and “Voice”.

Ryu Yong-jae and his team, whose credits include the Netflix original series “My Holo Love” and tvN series “Psychopath Diary”, will pen the 12-episode show.

Hae-Soo found global fame earlier this year after playing the role of Cho Sang-woo in hit dystopian drama series “Squid Game”.

The Korean version of “Money Heist” will be produced by BH Entertainment and Contents Zium.