Tag Archives: Gangs of Wasseypur

GANGS OF WASSEYPUR

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GANGS OF WASSEYPUR

2013 | dir: Anurag Kashyap | 159 min (Part 1) 158 min (Part 2)

Presented by Adi Shankar, producer of A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES, DREDD, LONE SURVIVOR, KILLING THEM SOFTLY and THE GREY.

From Guneet Monga, the producer of THE LUNCHBOX, the most successful foreign-language movie of 2014 to date in the U.S., GANGS OF WASSEYPUR is director/writer/producer Anurag Kashyap’s ambitious and extraordinary blood-and-bullets fueled crime saga that charts seventy years in the lives – and spectacular deaths – of two mafia-like families fighting for control of the coal-mining town of Wasseypur, India. Inspired by the real-life exploits of local gangs and beginning with the bandit-like career of Shahid Khan (Jaideep Ahlawat) in the 1940s, the film follows the ruthless rise of his son Sardar (a brilliant Manoj Bajpayee) and his offspring, the surreally-named Danish, Perpendicular and Definitive Khans and their numerous wives and girlfriends.

GANGS OF WASSEYPUR mirrors the tumultuous and explosive growth of modern India with ferocious cinematic intensity. As with Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in THE GODFATHER, it’s the least likely of Sardar’s children – the perpetually stoned Faizal (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) – who rises to the top ranks of the Khan crime family, vowing brutal revenge on their longtime nemesis, the wily and seemingly unstoppable Ramadhir Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia). Composer Sneha Khanwalkar’s stunning soundtrack ranks with legends like R.D. Burman, but don’t expect Bollywood-style dance numbers: this is a movie that up-ends every expectation of what great Indian cinema should look (and sound) like.

Anurag Kashyap is known for his prolific and award-winning career in cinema, both as a director, screenwriter and as a producer. Among his noted directing credits are terrorist thriller BLACK FRIDAY, cult classic DEV D, and UGLY, which screened at Director’s Fortnight at Cannes 2013 where he also received the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. His highly anticipated neo noir drama BOMBAY VELVET is set for worldwide release in 2015 via 20th Century Fox. Widely regarded as the driving force of India’s new wave of filmmakers, Anurag also recently produced Michael Winterbottom’s TRISHNA and Ritesh Batra’s THE LUNCHBOX.

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Rated 95% Fresh on ROTTEN TOMATOES

First Indian Movie of this decade to enter the IMDB TOP 250

“A dizzying explosion of an Indian gangster film, whose epic structure and colorful, immoral killers capture the imagination for over five hours.”
Deborah Young – Hollywood Reporter

“Kashyap’s direction is ferocious and mesmerizing, deftly balancing hundreds of characters, story lines and bloodshed that never apologizes or slows down.”
Jim Brunzell III – Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Give it a chance and you’ll never look at Bollywood the same way again.”
Stephen Kelly – Total Film

COMING TO THEATERS JANUARY 16TH 2015
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 Film Society of Lincoln Center (Part I & Part II) New York, NY get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 29, 2015 Globe Cinema (Part I & Part II) Calgary, AB, Canada get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC South Barrington 30 (Part 1) Chicago, IL get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC Dublin Village 18 (Part 1) Columbus, OH get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC Rio Cinemas 18 (Part 1) Gaithersburg, MD get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC First Colony 24 (Part 1) Houston, TX get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC Burbank 8 (Part 1) Los Angeles, CA get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC Mayfair 18 (Part 1) Milwaukee, WI get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC New Brunswick 18 (Part 1) New Brunswick, NJ get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC Cherry Hill 24 (Part 1) Philadelphia, PA get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC Waterfront 22 (Part 1) Pittsburgh, PA get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC Fashion Valley 18 (Part 1) San Diego, CA get ’em
Jan 16-Jan 22, 2015 AMC Mercado 20 (Part I) Santa Clara, CA get ’em
Jan 25, 2015 Texas Theatre (Part 1) Dallas, TX get ’em
Jan 29, 2015 Texas Theatre (Part 2) Dallas, TX get ’em
Jan 20-Feb 5, 2015 Belcourt Theatre (Part 1 & 2) Nashville, TN grab ’em
Jan 30-Feb 12, 2015 Downtown Independent (Part 1 & 2) Los Angeles, CA grab ’em
Feb 20-Feb 22, 2015 SIFF Uptown (Part 1 & 2) Seattle, WA get ’em
Apr 24-Apr 30, 2015 Jean Cocteau Cinema Santa Fe, NM coming soon
May 9, 2015 George Eastman House Rochester, NY get ’em
July 1-7, 2015 Pacific Cinematheque Vancouver, BC, Canada get ’em


US THEATRICAL TRAILER (Red Band)

US THEATRICAL TRAILER (Green Band)

Gangs Gang

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Lunch in Los Angeles with the GANGS OF WASSEYPUR Gang: Cinelicious Pics exec Dennis Bartok, presenter/producer Adi Shankar, director Anurag Kashyap, Cinelicious Pics exec Paul Korver, consultant Ben Rekhi (IM GLOBAL), and CAA agent David Taghioff. Missing from this picture? GANGS Producer Guneet Monga, Cinelicious Pics India acquisitions coordinator Anu Rangachar (both in India), and Cinelicious Pics director of acquisitions David Marriott… stuck holding the camera.

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DEADLINE: Cinelicious Pics, Adi Shankar Banking On “Tarantino Of Bollywood” With 5 1/2 Hour Crime Epic ‘Gangs Of Wasseypur’

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DEADLINE
JULY 7, 2014 | 2:05PM PT
Jen Yamoto

EXCLUSIVE: After launching in June, newbie indie/art house distributor Cinelicious Pics has struck a deal to bring acclaimed five-and-a-half-hour Bollywood new wave crime epic Gangs of Wasseypur to North America. The film is the latest from Anurag Kashyap (Black Friday, Dev D, Ugly, and Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna), the Indian filmmaker whose bullets ‘n’ blood-soaked saga has earned him a reputation as the Scorsese/Tarantino of Bollywood.

Kashyap co-wrote, produced, and directed the Godfather-esque pic tracking 70 violent years in the lives of two mafia families battling for control over the coal mining town of Wasseypur, based on the real-life gang wars between two families in the cash-strapped industrial region. Cinelicious will release the film this fall in NY and LA in two parts, to be presented stateside by film producer Adi Shankar (The Grey, Lone Survivor).

So how does a neophyte specialty distributor strategize the release of a 319-minute foreign language picture? One of the film’s producers, Guneet Monga, produced The Lunchbox, the Irrfan Khan starrer that’s become the most successful foreign-language movie of 2014 in the States. Monga and Kashyap turned to Indian-born Shankar to help bring Gangs to the action-hungry U.S. audiences that connected with his R-rated actioners Dredd, Killing Them Softly, Machine Gun Preacher, and The Grey as well as the viral Marvel superhero fan videos Shankar has produced and released online. Shankar will boost the pic to his fan base online and at events like New York Comic-Con in October, where he’s scheduled to appear.

adi-shankar“Gangs is such an important and monumental movie for my people – it marks our emergence as an international cinematic powerhouse,” said Shankar. “America has The Godfather, Korea has Oldboy, Japan has Battles Without Honor & Humanity, Hong Kong has Infernal Affairs, Brazil has City of God, and now India has Gangs of Wasseypur.”

LA-based Cinelicious Pics, which opened its doors this summer under film restoration expert Paul Korver and former American Cinematheque programmer Dennis Bartok, will take cues from last year’s two-parter theatrical release of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac. Gangs will launch in a platform release in New York and LA with Part I and Part II hitting theaters a week apart, while theaters will have the option to screen both parts in a single five-and-a-half-hour block. Cinelicious is also hoping to draft off buzz for Kashyap’s James Ellroy-inspired neo-noir Bombay Velvet, which 20th Century Fox is releasing worldwide November 28.

Inspired by the multi-generational power struggle between the families of Fahim Khan and Shabir Alam, Gangs begins in the 1940s with the bandit-like career of Shahid Khan (Jaideep Ahlawat) and continues through the ruthless rise of his son Sardar (Manoj Bajpayee) and his offspring, the surreally-named Danish, Perpendicular and Definitive Khans, as well as their numerous wives and girlfriends. Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Tigmanshu Dhulia also star in the sprawling pic which features a Filmfare Awards-nominated score by Sneha Khanwalkar. The film world-premiered in Cannes in 2012 before opening in India, where it was met with protest from local Wasseypur figures, and released in the UK, France, Spain, and other territories.

“Gangs of Wasseypur is definitely India’s Great Crime Film and a watershed moment for Indian cinema in general,” said Bartok. “I’m an enormous fan of contemporary and classic Indian cinema, which for U.S. audiences is still criminally unknown. Gangs of Wasseypur should change all that. The film combines the best of Scorsese, Leone and Tarantino into an incredibly kinetic saga filled with moments of unexpected tenderness and shocking violence. Even at 5 1/2 hours, you never want it to end.”

From Director Kashyup: “I had always wanted to make a film about the parts of India unexplored in cinema, the parts of India where I grew up. When the writer Zeishan Quadri told me about this speck of an industrial town Wasseypur, I was shocked to learn how local families became powerful organized crime syndicates over a period of decades. More than what the mafia did, I became obsessed with why they did it. These family grudges continued for years, often-times with the younger generation not knowing why. I am thrilled that the film continues to find new audiences now in the US, and I look forward to audience reactions to it. “

“When we set out to make Gangs of Wasseypur as a passion project, we had no idea the impact it would have on audiences around the world,” adds producer Guneet Monga. “Not only is it a portrait of a small town politics, it’s a historical tale of the rough transition from post-colonial India to the privatized and often corruption-filled independent state that perseveres to today.”

Cinelicious Pics President Paul Korver, President of Business Affairs Kristine Blumensaadt, EVP Dennis Bartok and India Acquisitions Coordinator Anu Rangachar negotiated the deal with French sales agent Elle Driver on behalf of producers Guneet Monga, Anurag Kashyap and Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, along with consultant Ben Rekhi.