Hrithik set to fly high with 'Kites'

A sizzling promo of his first international film Kites, directed by Anurag Basu with separate international and domestic versions, was unveiled on the sidelines of the 62nd Cannes Film Festival on Friday in the presence of the green-eyed superstar, his Mexican costar Barbara Mori and Basu.
The $30-million film is expected to be released towards the end of this year, and Hrithik seems ready to set global hearts aflutter through this love story with a lot of action.
Kites is being pitched as India’s first film made for global audiences, and not as a “crossover” film.
Hrithik spoke about how it was time for Indian mainstream cinema to become “realistic” and forego things like dance numbers “where dancers suddenly appear from nowhere”. Yes, this film too has a scene of a dance competition to let the actor showcase his enormous dancing skills, but both he and Basu are emphatic that it is woven into the script as an authentic dance performance and not as a sudden number.

Hinduja’s appeal

Meanwhile, industrialist S P Hinduja made an appeal to organisers to “guide” Indian filmmakers on how to get their films into the Cannes Film Festival. Hinduja’s words, during the opening of the India Pavilion on Thursday.
The last time an Indian film was part of the official selection was in 2002, when Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas was screened as part of Out of Competition section, and the last Indian film in competition was Shaji N Karun’s Swaham.