Miami Wise

We were all eagerly waiting for Nabeel Qureshi to be recognised internationally for his filmmaking talent. Well, it has happened but… not quite that way. The director has won the award for the best short film at the Miami Short Film Festival for his music video of Shani Arshad’s song Ki Jana.

The video stars Mohsin Abbas Haider and Sonya Hussyn and its central idea focuses on the issue of honour killing. Congrats Nabeel Q. Now you know the long and short of award shows.

Zeb and Mahi

Here’s another feather in the already richly decorated cap of Zeb Bangash. The mellifluous singer has come up, on this Iqbal Day, with a heartwarming rendition of Allama Iqbal’s Persian poem Shaheen o Mahi. The project has been conceptualised by the Pakistan Air Force, for which they should be commended. Zeb’s singing and the composition are, as usual, top-notch and go with the spirit of the poem. Zeb B, keep flying high like a Shaheen!

The Mask

The svelte Bollywood starlet Ananya Pandey is these days busy filming director Shakun Batra’s yet-to-be-named movie. (He is the same guy who made Kapoor and Sons.) Recently, after wrapping up work for the day, when the actress left the set and hopped into her car to reach home, she was caught by shutterbugs who tried to take her pictures. Instead of running away from them, the gal waved at them and even took off her mask (her protection from the coronavirus) for the paparazzi. It made their day. Good gesture Ananya P. But do be careful next time. This virus is not immune to flashlights.

The Khans Together

Aamir Khan is known for essaying difficult characters. This time round, in the upcoming film Laal Singh Chaddha, he is playing the Indian version of Forrest Gump. News is that he has managed to convince Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan to appear in their iconic roles of Raj (from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge) and Prem (from Maine Pyar Kiya) respectively for a brief sequence in the story, which is set in the late ’80s. Wow! How cool is that! However, it’s been more than two decades since the two Khans played those parts; they aren’t young anymore. We hope that they don’t fluff their lines, otherwise Aamir K might have to add a couple of words to the title of the film: Ghussey Se Laal Singh Chaddha.

Bullet Point

All Lady Gaga fans who wanted her to keep working in films after the resounding success of A Star is Born, well, get ready to be happy: she’s been roped in for an action-packed thriller, Bullet Train, opposite none other than Brad Pitt. The movie is based on a novel in which five assassins find themselves, rather mysteriously, on a train. Let’s see if the project succeeds. The story sounds a bit shallow and during filming there’s no likelihood that an affair is born because Brad P can’t sing.

Married to GC

Amal Clooney, wife of George Clooney, earlier this year won the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. On November 19, at the International Press Freedom Awards held online, she was introduced to the audience by none other than Meryl Streep. Speaking on the occasion, Amal C jokingly said, “I know I can’t ever hope to win the number of awards that you’ve won, but it does occur to me that we have something special in common, which is that we’ve both been married to my husband. And honestly, the fact that you did it as Mr and Mrs Fantastic Fox just makes that so much less awkward.” In case you’re confused, George C and Meryl S played husband and wife in the 2009 stop-motion adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel Fantastic Mr Fox. Hmmm, the ‘less awkward’ part of the statement still needs a bit of an explanation.

Published in Dawn, ICON, November 29th, 2020