Eklavya heads to 19th Palm Springs International Film Festival

Eklavya - The Royal Guard has been selected for the 19th Palm Springs International Film Festival. The festival is host to a number for premiers and Foreign Language submissions to the academy and It's known from past experience that the films that win the FIPRESCI award have automatically been nominated for the Academy.

The screening dates for Eklavya are -
Thursday, 10th Jan at 7:30 PM
Saturday, 12th Jan at 1 PM.

So if you're in and around LA/Palm Springs around that time, you can catch Amitabh Bachchan as Eklavya on the silver screen.

“Eklavya – The Royal Guard” is India’s official entry at the Oscars

Eklavya – The Royal Guard has been voted as India’s official entry to the Oscars. This is the third time Director Vidhu Vinod Chopra will be going to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His short non-fiction film, An Encounter with Faces was one of the first Indian films to be nominated for an Oscar in 1980. In 1989, Parinda was sent to the Oscars as India’s official entry.

Commenting on this news, Director Vidhu Vinod Chopra said, “I’m elated by the news. But this was only the first battle. The real one is still ahead. I’m leaving for the US on 2nd October and will start my groundwork there. I’m banking on my previous experiences at the Academy and the overwhelming support the film has received in the West. I hope to make India proud.”

Eklavya – The Royal Guard has already received accolades in Hollywood. The film got a standing ovation at the Billy Wilder Theater in UCLA, where it was recently screened as part of the India Splendour Film Festival. Robert L. Friedman, the former President of Columbia Pictures and AMC Theaters applauded it as one of the great foreign films to have graced Hollywood in recent years. He further added, “The caring and most talented direction by Vidhu Vinod Chopra is worthy of maximum praise and awards. Mr. Chopra has created a masterpiece via this film, thanks to his genuine insight and love for his film vehicle. ‘Eklavya’ is a movie that transcends all geographical boundaries – a movie for all people, everywhere, it represents the very best that India’s great filmmaking community has to offer.”

Lionel Wigram, Producer of the Harry Potter films, said “It’s a masterpiece and I can safely say that it stands an excellent chance of winning India a much awaited Oscar in the foreign film category." Jeffery Silver, Producer of the film 300, found it to be “a thriller that elevates to the level of art.”

The critics have also been unanimous in their praise:

Something about "Eklavya: The Royal Guard" suggests a lost film by David Lean.
- LA Times

“… Gives any House of Flying Daggers set piece a run for its money.”
- Metro, UK

“Vidhu Vinod Chopra is a poet on celluloid”
- Times of India

“Far from typical. Very strong and very Shakespearean”
- The Sunday Telegraph, UK

“Robustly unassuming and entertaining”
- Guardian, UK

“This is robust storytelling, with blood and thunder pumping through its veins, and real whiskers on its face.”
- LA Weekly


“Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s propulsive ‘Eklavya – The Royal Guard’ has epic sweep.”
- LA Times

Eklavya to be screened at the Billy Wilder Theater in Los Angeles on Aug 12, 2007

India Splendor is inspired by a deeply held belief that the arts have a unique role to play in building bridges between people and between cultures. Presented by India’s Mglobal Trust, in association with the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, India Splendor will screen Eklavya – The Royal Guard, at 7:30 pm on Sunday, August 12, 2007, at the Billy Wilder Theater in Los Angeles to celebrate the wealth of Indian innovation in the arts, spirituality and technology while building bridges to the USA.

LA Times Review

MOVIE REVIEW 'Eklavya: The Royal Guard' Vidhu Vinod Chopra's propulsive 'Eklavya: The Royal Guard' has epic sweep.
- By John Anderson Special to The Times February 16, 2007

Maybe it's the trains.Maybe it's the camels.Maybe it's the intermission. No matter: Something about "Eklavya: The Royal Guard" suggests a lost film by David Lean.With some muted echoes of "Hamlet." And a whiff of "Rigoletto."

Like so many Indian movies that make their way to Los Angeles, "Eklavya" - based on the low-caste warrior hero of "The Mahabharata" - is a movie masala.Unlike so many, thisstirring dramatic feature by Kashmiri director Vidhu Vinod Chopra, his first in seven years, marries its varied elements - in this case modernity and classicism,current-day India and its feudal past, contemporary corruption and blood tradition - in a coherent and propulsive fashion.There may be songs,but they are not sung by kohl-eyed virgins in rainstorms; there may be excess, but "camp" is thelast thing one would call "Eklavya." Something is rotten in Devigarh, an ancient Shangri-La of royal pretense, where the aging but still lethal Eklavya (Bollywood vet Amitabh Bachchan) protects the all-but-powerless king (Boman Irani). When the queen (Sharmila Tagore) calls out on her deathbed for Eklavya, the jealous sovereign strangles her, unleashing a tempest that will bring the brooding prince, Harshwardhan (Saif Ali Khan), home from London, and a whole world tumbling down. Chopra and co-writer Abhijit Joshi's portrayal of characters according to sex or caste is a bit dubious. Harsh's Ophelia-like twin, Nandini (Raima Sen), is more silly than disturbed; Rajjo (Vidya Balan) is Harsh's Sabrina (she's even the chauffeur's daughter). And the "untouchable" policeman, Pannalal (Sanjay Dutt), is simply a goofball. Harsh himself might have seemed the more obvious choice of protagonist in this melodrama of honor and revenge, but it is Eklavya who provides the far more potent and complex hero. He is faced with an insurmountable dilemma: Whether to honor the code of the royal guard or spare the life of his son. Chopra and his cinematographer, Nataraja Subramanian, create startling images that are used for seduction or, just as often, alarm: The shift in energy and rhythms and the velocity of the action keep the viewer off balance yet always in the flow of the story. There are dry spots, but Chopra is aspiring to epic cinema, both in his themes and his visuals, and most of the time it works. And, yes, there really is an intermission, just in case one needs to catch one's breath.

Lage Raho stuns Cannes

Mumbai 21st May, 07:

Lage Raho Munnabhai is still winning hearts across the globe. A packed screening on the 19th with the director Rajkumar Hirani present, the film was a huge hit with the entire the entire audiences. Producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and director Rajkumar Hirani were in Cannes for the screening but producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra had to return just before the screening as his mother took ill.

The screening of the movie at the Festival saw people sitting on the aisles as the theatre was completely packed. The film was screened in the ‘Les Cinemas du Monde' section which screened the best of world cinema on 19th of May 07. The 200 seater theatre was packed to capacity and had 80% of White audiences. There was also a big group of French students and clapped till the credits were finished.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya will be showcased at Cannes in the same section on the 24th of May

Eklavya - The Royal Guard completes 100 days

Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Lage Raho Munnabhai & Eklavya at Cannes this year

After having got several prestigious awards and appreciation by the audiences and the industry, Lage Raho Munnabhai will now be showcased at Cannes this year. The film will be screened in the ‘Les Cinemas du Monde' section which screens the best of world cinema on 19th of May 07.

Inaugurated by the Festival de Cannes in 2005, the ambition of 'Tous les Cinemas du Monde' section is to illustrate the vitality and diversity of cinema throughout the world, the dynamism of its young creative talent and the involvement of its institutions in promoting international cinema.

Along with Lage Raho, Vinod’s own directorial film EKLAVYA will also screened at Cannes on the 24th of May. The film is being screened in the market section.

Eklavya is all set for an art house release in the US this summer.