Believe Media has signed director Abhinay Deo for commercial representation. Additionally, a strategic partnership has been formed between Believe and Deo’s own India-based production company, RDP.
Born and raised in Bombay, India, Deo started on the path to film 20 years ago as the in-house director for Ogilvy and Mather India prior to founding RDP in 2000. Today Abhinay has over 450 spots to his credit, including well-known ads for Nike, Tata Safari, The Times of India, and the soul-stirring Mumbai Mirror newspaper campaign, which earned Abhinay the 2012 Cannes Gold Lion for Direction. The standout spot, “I am Mumbai,” documents four real citizens as they boldly and publicly vocalize personal accounts of headlines broken in the Mumbai Mirror. With voices personified by anger and courage, the film amplifies the powerful unheard stories of Mumbaikars that the paper brings to its readers.
Adding to the list of accolades is the 2013 Clio, Bronze Lion, and six Spikes Asia Awards for Deo’s passion-infused Nike campaign out of JWT India. In the spot “Parallel Journeys,” he intersperses footage of the daily rituals of the world’s top cricketers with glimpses into the lives of young athletes relentlessly pursuing that level of greatness all across cricket-obsessed India.
Of the partnership with Believe, RDP’s producer Apurba Sengupta said, “We’re elated that our leading director Abhinay Deo will be represented by Believe internationally and that we will get to represent their roster in India. We look forward to an extremely exciting and creatively fulfilling collaboration ahead.”
Believe founder/EP Luke Thornton added, “Believe is thrilled to represent a preeminent filmmaker such as Abhinay Deo and to join forces with India in this ever-expanding market, especially with a partner as established and creatively daring as RDP.”
Jennifer Kent On Why Her Feature Directing Debut, “The Babadook,” Continues To Haunt Us
"The Babadook," when it was released 10 years ago, didn't seem to portend a cultural sensation.
It was the first film by a little-known Australian filmmaker, Jennifer Kent. It had that strange name. On opening weekend, it played in two theaters.
But with time, the long shadows of "The Babadook" continued to envelop moviegoers. Its rerelease this weekend in theaters, a decade later, is less of a reminder of a sleeper 2014 indie hit than it is a chance to revisit a horror milestone that continues to cast a dark spell.
Not many small-budget, first-feature films can be fairly said to have shifted cinema but Kent's directorial debut may be one of them. It was at the nexus of that much-debated term "elevated horror." But regardless of that label, it helped kicked off a wave of challenging, filmmaker-driven genre movies like "It Follows," "Get Out" and "Hereditary."
Kent, 55, has watched all of this — and those many "Babadook" memes — unfold over the years with a mix of elation and confusion. Her film was inspired in part by the death of her father, and its horror elements likewise arise out of the suppression of emotions. A single mother (Essie Davis) is struggling with raising her young son (Noah Wiseman) years after the tragic death of her husband. A figure from a pop-up children's book begins to appear. As things grow more intense, his name is drawn out in three chilling syllables — "Bah-Bah-Doooook" — an incantation of unprocessed grief.
Kent recently spoke from her native Australia to reflect on the origins and continuing life of "The Babadook."
Q: Given that you didn't set out to in any way "change" horror, how have you regarded the unique afterlife of "The... Read More