Entertainment
Britain in focus, homage to Tom Alter, Om Puri at Kolkata film fest
Kolkata, Nov 5 (IANS) In commemoration of the UK-India Year of Culture 2017, Britain will be the focus country for the 23rd edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), India’s second oldest film festival, which will also pay homage to icons of Indian cinema Tom Alter, Om Puri and Ramananda Sengupta.
The festival beginning here on November 10 will screen an assemblage of 143 films spanning 53 countries under 16 different categories till November 17.
“As many as 13 films from Britain will be shown during the festival while six films of acclaimed English filmmaker Michael Winterbottom will be screened as part of retrospective,” Yadab Mandal, KIFF Director, said here on Sunday.
Stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan will be present at the inaugural ceremony on November 10. Tamil film icon Kamal Haasan and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt are also slated to attend the ceremony, to be presided over by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Three films will be showcased in memory of cinematographer Sengupta (“Headmaster”) and actors Tom Alter (“Shatranj Ke Khiladi”) and Om Puri (“Sadgati”).
As for the competitive section, the women’s director’s competition has been replaced by ‘Innovation in Moving Images’ with a prize money of Rs 51 lakh for the best film and Rs 21 lakh for the best director.
Indian languages competition section has been introduced this year in which 10 films in nine languages will fight it out for the Hiralal Sen Memorial Award. Also, there’s a prize money of Rs 700,000 for Best Film and Rs 500,000 for Best Director.
“As many as eight films in as many languages (Monpa, Konkani, Kodava, Boro, Dogri, Maithili, Khasi and Chakma) will be featured in the ‘Unheard India: Rare Indian Languages’ section,” Mandal said.
Apart from Winterbottom, in the retrospective category, six films of Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, one of Thailand’s most celebrated working directors will be screened.
In a toast to cinematic technique, an exposition of original equipment used by the LumiAre brothers, auteur Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak has been planned.
A total of 93 foreign language films be screened through the festival and 50 from India.
–IANS
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Entertainment
Casino Days Reveal Internal Data on Most Popular Smartphones
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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