This Sankranthi, a rare phenomenon is observed in Telugu Cinema. Films from same family clashed at box office. NTR’s Nannaku Prematho released on January 13th and Balakrishna’s Dictator hits screens on January 14th.

With Nannaku Prematho performing slightly better than the latter, it is evident that both eat into other’s profits with this move. Now, Mega family is set to repeat this same mistake.

Allu Arjun’s Sarrainodu, Pawan Kalyan’s Sardaar Gabbar Singh are set to release on same day, if you go by the press releases from the production houses. Sardaar Gabbar Singh will be distributed by Eros International and they have released today their movie’s list release dates well in advance.

In that it is stated that Sardaar will be released on April 8th. A while ago, Allu Arjun’s Sarrainodu first look was released and Geetha Arts on this occasion, stated that movie will be released on April 8th celebrating Allu Arjun’s birthday. Well, it seems very advance to talk about this clash but it might be impossible to change too as both the production houses are bound to stick to their date.

Hyderabad: Filmmaker S.S Rajamouli’s magnum opus “Baahubali” and Malayalam romantic drama “Ennu Ninte Moideen” bagged the best film awards at the first edition of IIFA Utsavam here. The two-day event honoured the best talent across Tamil and Malayalam film industries late on Sunday. Of the 12 award categories, Rajamouli’s “Baahubali”, a Tamil-Telugu bilingual, bagged six awards, including the Best Direction and Best Picture.

The other awards the film pocketed include best Supporting Role Male for act or Sathyaraj and actress Ramya Krishnan got the same award in the female category. “Baahubali” also won awards for best Playback Singer Male and Female for Haricharan Seshadri and Geetha Madhuri respectively. Actor Jayam Ravi was awarded the best Leading Role Male for his performance in last year’s critically and commercially-acclaimed “Thani Oruvan”.

The best Leading Role Female award was won by Nayanthara for his flawless pe rformance in horror-thriller “Maya”. For his impressive work in eliciting humour in horror-comedy Kanchana 2, actress Kovai Sarla won the best actor in a Comic Role award. “Roja” fame Arvind Swamy bagged the best actor in a Negative Role for “Thani Oruvan”. Young sensational composer Anirudh Ravichander won the award for best Music D irection for last year’s blockbuster “Kaththi”.

Actor Dhanush was awarded the best Lyricist for his work in his film “Maari” . In the Malayalam film awards category, Prithiviraj-starrer romantic drama “Nenu Ente Moideen” bagged a total of five awards, including Best Picture. Actor Prithiviraj Sukumaran and Paravthi won the best Leading Role Male and Female awards for the same film. Lena Kumar, who played Prithiviraj’s mother in the film, pocketed the best S upporting Role Female award, while Shreya Ghosal won the best Playback Singer Female award.

Filmmaker Lal Jose won the award for Best Direction for the film “Neena”. Aju Varghese won the award for best Supporting Role Male for his work in highly-successful film “Oru Vadakkan Selfie”. Last year’s widely popular blockbuster “Premam”, a coming of age tale, bagged five awards, including best Music Direction for Rajesh Murugesan. Other awards for the film include best Playback Singer Male for Vijay Yesudas and Lyrics for Shabareesh Verma.

Vinay Forrt won the best actor in a Comic Role award for “Premam”, while act or Jayasuriya bagged the best actor in a Negative Role for his work in “Iyobinte Pusthakam”. At the award ceremony, special tributes were paid to late filmmaker K. Balachander, music composer M.S Vishwanathan and producer T.E Vasudevan. On Monday, the best talent across the Telugu Kannada industries will be honoured here.

With the explosion of music based programmes on television and thanks especially to ‘Paadutha Theeyaga’ more and more numbers of singers are being introduced to Tollywood. And looking at the number of shows and overseas shows, one would think that singers have plenty of work and a good life. Unfortunately, that is not the true picture.

In Tollywood, among the prominent music directors, it is only Devi Sri Prasad and MM Keeravani who respect singers and compensate them for their services. Others don’t pay them at all. They feel that singing for them is in itself a big thing for the singers even if they are well known.

The burgeoning competition has resulted in most singers including popular ones appearing for shows and events at throwaway prices that are highly embarrassing and difficult to sustain on.

For example, if a singer quotes Rs one lakh for a certain event, another singer offers to bring along a whole troupe for just Rs 25000. This kind of unhealthy competition has resulted in loss of dignity. But what is the way out?

Bollywood actress and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has bagged a rare opportunity. Aishwarya is gong to be one of the chief guests for the prestigious luncheon with French President Francois Hollande in New Delhi. Aishwarya will be having lunch with Mr Hollande on Republic Day.

As per reports, Aishwarya has been invited by Francois Richier, the Ambassador of France to India, to have lunch with French President Francois Hollande, in Delhi. Apparently, Aishwarya is the only Bollywood actor to get invitation.

Aish, who is presently busy shooting for her upcoming film, is going to take time out especially for this luncheon. After wrapping up the shoot for the day, Aish will be flying out on Jan 25th night to Delhi and going to attend the luncheon on Jan 26. The luncheon is being hosted by Richier at a prominent Indian industrialist’s residence in the capital. It will also be attended by top Indian officials.

During the ‘Nadigar Sangham’ elections, actress Radhika lashed out at everyone who was not supporting her husband. They included Kamal Haasan, Nasser and Vishal. All this criticism by her was of no avail as Sarath Kumar lost the election.

Tamil Super star Suriya’s family including his father Siva Kumar supported the Vishal group and therefore, Radhika did not spare them either. She made a lot of personal comments against Siva Kumar, Suriya and Karthi. The elections are now a thing of the past.

Radhika is doing a prominent role in Suriya’s ‘Singham 3’. Radhika who is shooting for the movie is all praise for Suriya and speaking highly of them.

Observers are stunned at this U-turn in her behavior. For was it not just a couple of months back that she couldn’t find anything positive in Suriya and his family.

So far, popular Indian stars like Aishwarya Rai, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and Irrfan Khan etc made India proud by signing several Hollywood projects. Recently, Bollywood divas Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone made headlines for their American projects.

Now, for the first time ever, a south Indian hero is set to make his Hollywood journey sailing soon. National award winning Tamil star Dhanush has landed himself a Hollywood film titled ‘The Extraordinary Journey Of A Fakir Who Got Trapped In An Ikea Cupboard’.

Dhanush will play the male lead in the film and he will get to romance two Hollywood hotties, the Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill actress Uma Thurman and Percy Jackson, True Detective beauty Alexandra Daddario. The film will be directed by Marjane Satrapi, whose Persepolis was well acclaimed across the world.

Dhanush will essay the role of Aja, a conjurer from an Indian colony of artists, who is sent to Paris on a secret mission by his mother. The film will be shot in India, Paris, Morocco and Italy. Speaking to a national media house, Marjane said, “Dhanush became the most obvious choice with his intelligence, his killer smile, his ability to enter fully into the skin of any character he played”.

Ram Charan made his Bollywood debut with ‘Toofan; a remake of the yesteryear Bollywood hit ‘Zanjeer’. The movie was a disaster at the box-office.

Ram Charan then announced that he would not do a remake of any other film. But of late, following the poor performance of ‘Bruce Lee’, he changed his mind and decided to do the remake of the Tamil hit, ‘Tani Oruvan’. And this is not a one-off decision.

Apparently, he is also interested in acquiring the rights of a Bollywood movie currently being shot with John Abraham in the lead role. So, all in all, Charan seems to have changed his mind regarding remakes.

He is a super-rich guy who ventured into film production four, five years ago and some of his films have been disasters. Nevertheless, this gentleman continues with producing movies unabated and currently has around four films in the pipeline.

One of them is a small film, a heroine-oriented film. There is some interesting gossip surrounding this project. Apparently, the producer started this film only for the company of the heroine of this film who he is mad about. Earlier too, he encouraged her and is now not averse to spending money on a huge scale to be by her side.

Such practices are not new in Tollywood but they explain the reason why many of his films have ended up being disasters. His priorities are different and quality of content is therefore bound to suffer.

Mumbai: Salman Khan continues to be in “awe” of Katrina Kaif — he has admitted on national television. From Katrina’s dance skills, beauty to her acting prowess – Salman praised it all on the stage of “Bigg Boss Nau” finale. The superstar appreciated her journey towards success in showbiz, calling her a “hard worker” and one of those he counts among the “strongest women” he has ever known. When Salman was heaping praise on Katrina’s entry to the tunes of the romantic track “Pashmina”, her “Fitoor” co-star Aditya Roy Kapoor, who accompanied her to the set of the show, said: “I was also a part of the performance.”

To that, the 50-year-old actor quipped: “She was good.” Salman and Katrina were earlier linked together for long, and then made headlines for their break-up. However, there seemed to be no animosity between them during the show even as the “Dabangg” star pulled her leg and passed witty remarks. Katrina and Aditya were given the responsibility to get one of the contestants out of the “Bigg Boss” house. When Katrina told the “Bigg Boss Nau” finalists that if she were in their place, she would have been nervous and broken down in tears, Salman stopped her from underestimating herself.

He said: “Don’t lie. You are one of the strongest women I have ever known. You were just a 16-year-old when you came in the industry and reached so far. It is all your hard work, sheer hard work. If god asks me to choose between talent and hard work, I will pick the latter.” Responding to this, Katrina quipped: “I also have talent, maybe a little”. To that, Salman said: “When one keeps working hard, the talent keeps increasing. The whole country is in awe of you, including me! So, obviously you are talented.”

Katrina’s new film “Fitoor”, which means passion or obsession, is the story of a budding artiste Noor (Aditya) who falls in love with Firdaus (Katrina). The Abhishek Kapoor directorial also stars Tabu, who is seen as Katrina’s mother in the film. Based on Charles Dickens’s novel “Great Expectations”, “Fitoor” is slated to release on February 12. Kapoor and Tabu also joined the stars on the finale episode of Colors’ reality show, where Prince Narula emerged the winner.

Among the highest civilian gallantry awards 2016 are the Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. It is an honor to South Indian Cinema field that three names Ramoji Rao, Rajinikanth and SS Rajamouli are honored with Padma Awards.

While Rajinikanth got Padma Vibhushan for Cinema, Ramoji Rao is conferred the award for Literature and Education (Journalism) and Rajamouli for his vision in uplifting the technical standards of Indian cinema with films like Bahubali, Eega.

Congratulations to all the winners on behalf of manatelugu.

Star comedian MS Narayana’s passing away last year was a sudden shock for Tollywood and also a personal loss for his family. While recovering from this major loss, now MS family has one more jolt in the form of MS Narayana’s wife Ms Kala Prapoorna death. As per reports, Kala Prapoorna (63) passed away early in the morning today following a prolonged illness.

As we all know, MS Narayana’s son Vikram and daughter Sasikiran are also connected to film industry. Since the loss of their father, they were taking care of mother Kala Prapoorna who is actually a Cardiac patient.

To remind here, MS Narayana passed away on January 23, 2015 and now it is almost exactly one year and this date of January 25, 2016 left one more pathetic impact on MS family members. CJ team prays for her soul to rest in peace.

Kalpana, the popular South Indian actress known for comedy and performance based roles is no more. She is reported dead early in the morning today in Hyderabad suffering a major heart stroke. Though, Kalpana (51) was rushed to Apollo Hospital late in the night but it was too late by then.

Actress Kalpana’s younger sister Urvashi is doing great in Telugu and Tamil films. Into personal and professional side, Kalpana is first a theater artist born to Chavara VP Nair and Vijaya Lakshmi. Then her elder sister is also an actress whose name is Kalaranjini. She also has two brothers, Late Kamal Roy and Late Prince acted in Malayalam movies. Kalpana was introduced to films by director Bhagya Raja with Tamil movie ‘Chinnaveedu.’

Kalpana was married to Malayalam director Anil Kumar and divorced in 2012. They had a daughter Sreemayi who currently stayed with Kalpana. Her last film is ‘Charlie’ in Tamil. CJ team prays for her soul to rest in peace.