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Mumbai, Feb 16 (Ians) Veteran actress and former Miss India Zeenat Aman, who recently made a splash with her Instagram debut, shared a picture from her film ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’. The old picture has a sepia tone.

The picture belongs to the look test from the film, which was directed by Raj Kapoor and starred his younger brother Shashi Kapoor.

Taking to her Instagram on Thursday, the actress shared the picture as she revealed the history behind the picture in the caption, “This picture was taken by photographer Jp Singhal during a look test for ‘Satyam Shivam Sundaram’ around 1977. We shot the series at Rk Studios, and my costumes were designed by Oscar winner Bhanu Athaiya.”

She then made an important point surrounding the concept of obscenity in the caption, “Anyone acquainted with the history of Bollywood will know that there was much controversy and brouhaha about my character Rupa in Satyam Shivam Sundaram.

Royals roaming the world!

It’s a big week for royal travel, with members of several royal families jetting overseas for official visits.

It kicked off with Prince Charles‘s solo visit to Romania last week, where he spent a day getting his dance on, giving hugs and greeting dignitaries in Bucharest, the country’s capital.

He then met up with his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, for a five-day visit to Italy, which has included stops all over the country.

Their first stop was Florence, where the couple posed in front of the famed Ponte Vecchio bridge.

Then, Charles went to Vicenza,...

Abu Dhabi Film Festival announces winners of Emirates Film Competition and International Short Film CompetitionScroll down for full list of winners

Abu Dhabi Film Festival has unveiled the winners of the Emirates Film Competition and the International Short Film Competition

At a ceremony in Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Palace, where the festival is based, the top award in the short narrative competition went to Shahad Ameen’s Eye & Mermaid, which also won best cinematography.

The 14-minute film centres on 10-year-old Hanan, who lives in a fishing village on the coast of the Arabian Peninsula and tries to discover the origin of the black pearls that her father brings back from his nighttime fishing trips.

The Best Emirati Film award went to Nayla Al Khaja’s The Neighbour, an 18-minute film about a woman who moves to Dubai to make a fresh start and befriends an elderly neighbour

The award for Best Script went to Cholo, while the first...

Women directors make up 70% of competition films.

Abu Dhabi Film Festival (Adff) (Oct 23-Nov 1) has announced the selection for this year’s Emirates Film Competition (Efc).

The upcoming edition of the competition features a total of 53 films, of which 37 films are directed by women, across a variety of genres.

The line up also features films by Emirati filmmakers such as Nasser Al Tamimi’s Female Scream, Nasser Al-Yaqoubi’s Haneen, Hassan Kiyani’s Marwan The Boxer and Ali Mostafa’s musical Rise. In addition, Sarah Al Agroobi’s Super Lochal is among the selected films.

Desire by Hala Matar (Bahrain, starring Johnny Knoxville) has been selected for Adff’s Short Film Competition along with Koshk, from Emirati director Abdullah Al-Kaabi. These two films will participate in both Efc and the Short Film Competition.

Highly anticipated films from the Gcc region include Now Showing directed by Abdullah Al Daihani (Kuwait), Rainbow directed by Mahmood Al-Shaikh (Bahrain) and 623 directed...

The lineups for the Mavericks, Discovery, and Tiff Kids parts of the Toronto Film Festival were announced, wrapping up a series of lineup announcements for the Toronto International Film Festival.

With the added films, the festival’s entire slate is now a whopping 393 movies. Two hundred eighty-five of those movies are feature films, of which 143 are world premieres.

The Mavericks portion of the festival includes onstage discussions following the screening of each film. Do I Sound Gay? will be followed by a talk between director David Thorpe and sex-advice guru Dan Savage. Also premiering in that space is The 50 Year Argument,...

Bill Murray is coming to Toronto folks. Actually, the film he stars in (Theodore Melfi’s St. Vincent) is having its official World Premiere launch at the jaw-dropping 285 feature film 2014 Tiff line-up. In the final batch of items we finally get the confirmation that 2014′s Palme d’Or Winner Winter Sleep (which gets added along with a trio of others to the Masters Programme) will show, and Tomm Moore’s highly anticipated Song of the Sea (among the four item line-up for Tiff Kids) also lands. Worth mentioning are the sprinkling of add-ons to the various other sections (Marjane Satrapi’s Sundance preemed The Voices, Matt Shakman’s Cut Bank and the world preem of Danis Tanovic’s Tigers) with a Studio Ghibli docu item being fitted into the Tiff Docs, but it is the Discovery Programme that finally takes shape.

The “up-and-comers” include Berlin Film Fest (and future Nyff...

Popular actress and Miss Universe Sushmita Sen is the only Bollywood actor to be featured in a coffee table book titled ‘The Indian Woman’ curated for the President of India’s gift for visiting international diplomats.

Sushmita features alongside Kiran Majumdar Shaw, Naina Lal Kidwai, Mary Kom, Gita Gopinath, Ela Bhatt, Bhanu Athaiya, Alisah Abdullah and Lata Mangeshkar, among other 20 women who are pioneers in their fields.

Her story is written by Priyanka Jain, who has co-authored a book on Vinod Chopra Productions and is also working on another on Paan Singh Tomar for Utv Disney. ‘The Indian Woman’ is curated by Shobit Arya, edited by the CNN-ibn anchor Richa Anirudh and published by Wisdom Tree.

The story celebrates Sushmita’s journey from a young Miss Universe to a single mother with two kids and a successful career. Talking about celebrating inner beauty, she suggests, “If you go beyond limiting...

From a full programme of film and stage adaptations to a new James Bond novel, unpublished works by Rs Thomas and Wg Sebald and a new prize for women writers, 2013 is set to be a real page-turner

January

10th The Oscar nominations are announced unusually early this year. Keep an eye out for a bumper crop of literary adaptations, including David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Yann Martel's Life of Pi, the David Nicholls-scripted Great Expectations, as well as Les Miserables, Anna Karenina and The Hobbit.

18th A new stage adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw at the Almeida theatre in London. In the year of the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth, his musical version will also feature around the country in both concert and stage performances.

24th The finalists for the fifth Man Booker International prize will be announced at the Jaipur festival.

From Turkish versions of Tarzan and Dracula to wintry weepies, via (whisper it) Midnight Express, Fiachra Gibbons picks out the best films shot in Istanbul

• As featured in our Istanbul city guide

From Russia with Love, Terence Young, 1963

"They dance for him, they yearn for him, they die for him …" From Russia with Love is not only arguably the best of the Bond films, it set the template for all that followed, right down to the corny one-liners. This is Tatiana, the Russian double-agent love interest succumbing to Sean Connery's charms: "The mechanism is… Oh James… Will you make love to me all the time in England?" "Day and night, darling… Go on about the mechanism…" The film was shot when the city's population was less than two million (it has mushroomed to more than 13 million today), and it's a magic carpet ride back to a time when Istanbul teemed with hamals,...

Author: Bob Christo (Foreword by Tom Alter)

Publisher: Penguin Books India

Pages: 280

Price: Rs 399/-

Isbn: 9780143414629

I distinctly remember that fight sequence from the movie Kaalia where everybody is standing in line while food is being distributed and Michael (actor Bob Christo) decides to spoil the decorum and breaks the queue. While one of his crippled inmates gathers courage and decides to retaliate against this brawny white guy, Michael shouts back, “Hum jahaan khade hote hain line waheen se shuroo hotee hai”(The line always starts behind me). Immediately after that all the other prisoners in the queue go and stand behind Michael.

The most I knew about Bob Christo then was he was an actor from Australia renowned within the Indian Film Industry as the “bad man” of Indian Cinema who played either the role of collaborator, hostile prisoner or British Officer.

The septuagenarian Robert John Christo whom the...

Actor-filmmaker Sanjay Khan is making a comeback as a producer after three decades with Ek Punch Prince and his actor son Zayed says the film will go on the floors at the end of this year. <p /><p>"Ek Punch Prince is a sports-based film that we will start at the end of the year. Currently, we are working on the script," Zayed, who will also star in the film, told in an interview. </p><p>Faruk Kabir of Allah Ke Banday fame will helm the film. Other details about the film are currently under wraps. Sanjay Khan's last production venture is the 1980 movie Abdullah. </p><p>Zayed has turned producer too and launched his company Bornfree in partnership with Dia Mirza and Sahil Sangha. His maiden venture Love, Breakups, Zindagi is taking up his maximum time. </p><p>The film's shooting is complete and it may come out in August this year. </p><p>Playing the role of...

After a bit of back of and forth, Pakistan has finally agreed to grant American officials access to Osama bin Laden's three widows, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told CNN on Tuesday. U.S. authorities will reportedly be given "direct access," sources say, meaning that they'll be available for interviews rather than just submitted questions. Malik didn't give a timeline for the talks.

But what will the women reveal? The Daily Beast's David A. Graham breaks down what we know about the various women who vowed to spend their lives with the world's most wanted man.

Related story on The Daily Beast: Don't Abandon Afghanistan!

When Osama bin Laden was shot and killed, his matrimonial life came into quick focus as rumors circulated that he had used a wife as a human shield. That story was soon debunked, but the same young wife aroused even more interest when it emerged that...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

When I was introduced to Bob in 1979 en route to a shooting location for Abdullah, it never passed my thoughts that he would become a dear friend. Bob, a fabulous singer, guitarist, had a great sense of humour. He started off as a helping hand on my sets because he came through a friend George, who I couldn’t say no to. Eventually, I realised he had an astounding screen presence. I penned a character for him in Abdullah where he was villain Danny Denzongpa’s helping hand. Initially, Bob learnt and recited lines in Hindi and Urdu. In a career ...

It's been a sad week for Bollywood, as two veteran actors have set for heavenly abode. While Navin Nischol passed away last week, Bob Christo (70) passed away in Bangalore on Sunday afternoon. He was hospitalized after a massive heart attack on Saturday afternoon. After having debuted with Abdullah, Bob went onto create and carve a niche place for himself in Bollywood; most of his roles were that of a villain's henchman and evil British officer in period films. Not many know that this man was a qualified civil engineer. The actor of Australian origin went on to act in over 200 movies, which included films like Mard, Qurbani, Mr. India, Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja and Gumraah, to name a few. Ironically, the actor's biography titled 'Flashback: My Times in Bollywood and Beyond' was to be released by Akshay Kumar in June. Bollywood Hungama prays for the departed man's soul to rest in eternal peace.

It's been a sad week for Bollywood, as two veteran actors have set for heavenly abode. While Navin Nischol passed away last week, Bob Christo (70) passed away in Bangalore on Sunday afternoon. He was hospitalized after a massive heart attack on Saturday afternoon. After having debuted with Abdullah, Bob went onto create and carve a niche place for himself in Bollywood; most of his roles were that of a villain's henchman and evil British officer in period films. Not many know that this man was a qualified civil engineer. The actor of Australian origin went on to act in over 200 movies, which included films like Mard, Qurbani, Mr. India, Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja and Gumraah, to name a few. Ironically, the actor's biography titled 'Flashback: My Times in Bollywood and Beyond' was to be released by Akshay Kumar in June. Bollywood Hungama prays for the departed man's soul to rest in eternal peace.

Bollywood popular villain of 80’s and 90’s Bob Cristo of Australian origin died in Bangalore yesterday afternoon. He was 72. He shifted his base to Bangalore several years ago and acted in over 200 films. When Bob complained of chest pain, he was immediately taken to Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research. There the doctors performed an angioplasty but there was no improvement in his condition. Finally, he died. He came to India to meet Parveen Babi and finally entered into films. Bob debuted with Sanjay Khan’s Abdullah in 1980. He acted in films like Mr India, Qurbani, Gumrah and Agneepath and ma...

Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah spoke out against the central government in the country, saying that most in power at the center consider the state of J&K a puppet in their hands. While problems within Jammu and Kashmir refuse to die down, Omar Abdullah is not prepared to accept the directions provided by the center on how to govern his own state. Speaking at the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly, the J&K chief minister made it clear that he would not tolerate interference from anybody in Delhi regarding the governance issues in his state.

In the opinion of Omar Abdullah, the people in Delhi who have been advising him till today should instead engage in serious talks with representatives from not only J&K but also the proper authorities in Islamabad back in Pakistan. It is only in this way that the solution to the...

Is Dubai the world’s smartest city? Maybe not in the sense that it mortgaged long-term infrastructure with $100 billion in very short-term debt, but “smart” in a way Ibm, Cisco and other tech heavyweights would be envious of. One advantage of building a city from scratch is that each of Dubai’s 60,000 modern buildings is equipped with the state-of-the-art in lighting, Hvac, and security systems--all of which can be wired to the Internet.

Last week at the Realcomm 2010 conference in Las Vegas, a Dubai software firm named Pacific Controls revealed it had beaten Cisco to the punch in creating the world’s first “smart city” by connecting 20,000 of those buildings – including the world’s largest mall and largest building – to a cloud-based platform capable of controlling each remotely. Using its software to track and fine-tune electricity usage in nearly half of these buildings (some 9,000 in all), Pacific Controls has managed...

Click above for movie stills The volatile situation in Kashmir has created a strange and difficult problem for Lamhaa. The film based on the problem of Kashmiri militancy is all set for release on July 16. Much as the director Rahul Dholakia wants to take the hard-hitting political drama for its initial screening into the Valley, there is no way he can do so for the simple reason that there are no proper and operational movie theatres in Kashmir. And Rahul is at his wit's end. "Lamhaa was made for the people of Kashmir. It's about their life, their anguish and their politics. How can I not show it to the people of Kashmir? The film belongs to them. It is unimaginable for me that the rest of the world would watch Lamhaa and not the Kashmiris." Dholakia now plans to take the print and projection equipment and screen the film...

Click above for movie stills The volatile situation in Kashmir has created a strange and difficult problem for Lamhaa. The film based on the problem of Kashmiri militancy is all set for release on July 16. Much as the director Rahul Dholakia wants to take the hard-hitting political drama for its initial screening into the Valley, there is no way he can do so for the simple reason that there are no proper and operational movie theatres in Kashmir. And Rahul is at his wit's end. "Lamhaa was made for the people of Kashmir. It's about their life, their anguish and their politics. How can I not show it to the people of Kashmir? The film belongs to them. It is unimaginable for me that the rest of the world would watch Lamhaa and not the Kashmiris." Dholakia now plans to take the print and projection equipment and screen the film...