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Farhan Akhtar’s debut movie as an actor, though it released as his third film after Rock On!! And Luck By Chance was The Fakir of Venice. Subhash K Jha takes a look back at the 2009 film.

In his first acting assignment, Farhan Akhtar is splendidly in form as a bit of a jerk. He plays a production controller who can arrange anything a film crew wants, from a monkey performing tricks to an exotic fakir performing monkey tricks.

Adi is okay with supplying anything as long as he gets paid.

The monkey and the monkey tricks are aptly equated in the hugely original, ferociously flawed script (Rajesh Devraj). When Adi is asked by a museum in Venice to produce a fakir who can bury himself completely in the sand for hours, the narrative brings into play the crass touristic culture of peddling exotica to the West.

Annu Kapoor, in...

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The Italian comedy-drama follows an aspiring punk band whose friendship is put to the test when they get the chance to open for their favourite band.

Screen can exclusively reveal the first trailer Niccolò Falsetti’s debut feature Margins which is playing in Venice Film Festival’s Critics Week (August 31 - September 10).

The Italian comedy drama follows an aspiring punk band whose friendship is put to the test when they get the chance to open for their favourite band and kickstart their careers.

Falsetti co-wrote the screenplay with Tommaso Renzoni and Francesco Turbanti who stars in the film alongside Emanuele Linfatti,...

The Fakir Of Venice

Starring Farhan Akhtar, Anu Kapoor, Valentina Carnelutti,Kamal Sidhu

Directed by Anand Surapur

In his first acting assignment Farhan Akhtar is splendidly in form as a bit of jerk. He plays a production controller who can get a film crew anything they want, from a monkey performing tricks, to an exotic fakir performing monkey tricks.

Adi is okay with supplying anything, as long as he gets paid.

The monkey and the monkey tricks are aptly equated in the hugely original is ferociously flawed script (Rajesh Devraj). When Adi is asked by a museum in Venice to produce a fakir who can bury himself completely in sand for hours, the narrative brings into play the crass touristic culture of peddling exotica to the West.

Anu Kapoor, in a stellar performance as the spaced out alcoholic chawl dweller who desperately needs to make money, is that performing monkey,...

Federation Entertainment has acquired worldwide rights to “Made in Italy,” a drama series chronicling the birth of the Italian fashion industry in the 1970s.

Co-produced by Taodue Film and The Family for Mediaset, “Made in Italy” stars up-and-coming model Greta Ferro as Irene, a daughter of Southern Italian immigrants, who takes a job at the fashion magazine Appeal to finance her college studies and quickly moves her way up. The series follows Irene’s private and professional life, while reflecting on the evolution of Milan’s fashion industry, the birth of new pret-a-porter designers, as well as the social and political upheavals of the 1970s.

“Made is Italy” marks the screen debut of Ferro who stars opposite Margherita Buy, the renowned Italian actress of “Mia Madre,” “Habemus Papam” and “White Space.” The series also toplines Valentina Carnelutti, Sergio Albelli, Giuseppe Cederna. It’s directed by Luca Lucini (“The Comedians”) and...

The Rock-on star, Farhan Akhtar, has bagged his next with 'The Fakir of Venice' where he will be seen portraying director Homi Adajania’s character in the movie. Homi Adajania has directed films like Cocktail, Finding Fanny and Being Cyrus. The film, which is a quirky comedy, will show real life portrayal of unusual experiences of Homi Adajania. The film will also see Annu Kapoor, Kamal Sidhu , Italian actress Valentina Carnelutti and German actor Mathieu Carriere in important roles. The movie was shot in Ladakh, Venice, Banaras and Mumbai and will see path of intense human behavior, amidst barriers of language, truth and lies. Directed by Anand Surapur, Farhan will be seen as a production executive, who has a task of finding out about a peculiar holy saint. Farhan was last seen in Rock on 2 along with Shraddha Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Purab Kohli. Stay tuned for more developments!

LOCARNO -- Dismayed by the prospect of a lifetime spent toiling at the local oil refinery, the teenaged rebel in Enrico Pau's cautionary tale Jimmy della Collina (Jimmy from the Hill) discovers that armed robbery only leads to a worse kind of imprisonment.

Enjoying a world premiere in competition at the Locarno International Film Festival, the Italian movie offers some impressive performances, especially from Nicola Adamo, as the fiery Jimmy, and Valentina Carnelutti, as a woman who works with young offenders. The bright acting gives the film its best chance of standing out from the pack; however, it lacks any real spark that would enliven a familiar tale of a restless youngster, who sees crime as a quick way to escape the tedium of a dead-end job. Boxoffice is unlikely to be exceptional even in Italy.

His father's acceptance of work amid the grim furnaces and stacks at the refinery condemns Jimmy to a gloomy future. While petty crimes offer distraction at first, he quickly aims higher. Director and co-writer Pau, working from a novel by Massimo Carlotto, quickly sketches the young man's disenchantment, which is fed by tall tales of past crimes by blowhards in the local bars.

Bored with his girlfriend and even the local hooker, Jimmy urges his buddies on from burglary to robbing banks but they chicken out and he is caught and incarcerated. Narrowly avoiding adult imprisonment, he is sentenced to serve three years at a juvenile detention center. There he meets fellow inmates Simone (Federico Carta), who has a creative mind but who giggles incessantly, and Salvo (Giovanni Cantarella), a tattooed body-builder with a quick temper.

Simone offers something like friendship but Salvo's thin skin brings out the worst in Jimmy and leads to a violent episode. As a result, Jimmy is a transferred to the Collina, a halfway house run by a kindly deacon, Don Ettore (Francesco Origo). The place offers a modicum of freedom but it also requires discipline and hard work from its inmates.

The compassionate Claudia (Carnelutti) intrigues him, but Jimmy's inarticulate desire to escape a humdrum life drives him to reject the opportunity to take a different path in life.

Pau evidently wishes to present the young man's dilemma as a universally defining moment. Some hard truths are delivered effectively but the picture is not dynamic enough to make an ordinary tale memorable.

JIMMY DELLA COLLINA

XFilm Rome

Credits:

Director: Enrico Pau

Screenwriters: Antonia Iaccarino & Enrico Pau

Producer: Guido Servino

Director of photography: Gian Enrico Bianchi

Music: Sikitikis, Gaetano Mastroiaco

Editor: Johannes Hiroshi Nakajima.

Cast:

Jimmy: Nicola Adamo

Claudia: Valentina Carnelutti

Don Ettore: Francesco Origo

Burattinaio: Massimiliano Medda

Salvo: Giovanni Cantarella

Simone: Federico Carta

Mohammed: Mohammed El Gahilassi

Tonio: Andrea Diomedi

Pietro: Riccardo Sanvido

Fidanzata: Eleonora Usala

Padre: Giovanni Carroni

Madre: Gisella Vacca

Prostitute: Caterina Silva

Penitentiary agent: Sergio Piano

Malavitoso: Silvano Portoghese

Psychologist: Antonio Murru

Institution director: Gabor Pinna

Francesco: Corrado Licheri

Tore: Pino Corda

No MPAA rating

Running time -- 90 minutes...