Entertainment
Ronnie Screwvala provides platform to seven new directors
Mumbai, Feb 7 (IANS) RSVP, entrepreneur and media founder Ronnie Screwvala’s motion picture company, is set to launch seven new directors.
“We want RSVP to stand for three kinds of storytelling. Stories that must be told, stories that we would love to tell, and stories that everyone goes to the movies for. Along with some other exceptional talent, we are very proud to associate with some promising debutant directors and writers who see the narrative as we do,” Screwvala said in a statement.
Anand Tiwari, who has vast experience in the world of films, advertising and theatre, will make his directorial debut with “Love Per Square Foot”, starring Vicky Kaushal and Angira Dhar. It premieres on Valentine’s Day across 190 countries on Netflix.
Akarsh Khurana, who has been a part of theatre for over 15 years and has also written screenplays for filmmakers Anurag Basu and Rakesh Roshan, will make directorial debut with “Karwaan”, starring Irrfan Khan, which releases in theatres worldwide on June 1.
After working as an assistant director with Ayan Mukerji, Milan Luthria, Mohit Suri and others, Sneha Taurani — daughter of Tips Music Founder Ramesh Taurani — will be debuting as a director with “Dance Franchise” — the first of which will be a bhangra film written by Punjabi writer Dheeraj Rattan.
Aditya Dhar has been an assistant to filmmakers Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Rohan Sippy, Priyadarshan and Vishal Bhardwaj. He has written the story, screenplay and dialogues for the National Award-winning short film “Boond”. “URI”, about a landmark moment in India’s military history, starring Vicky Kaushal, will be his debut film.
Vandana Kataria won an award as production designer for “Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!”, participated in the Berinale Talent Campus 2016, and is currently working on Zoya Akhtar’s “Gully Boy”. “Tara Ki Shaadi”, a heart-warming but brutally honest tale set around a wedding, will be her first feature film as a writer and director.
Amit Joshi, who wrote the highly acclaimed film “Trapped”, now makes his directorial debut at RSVP with a comic-adventure caper about two friends on a crazy ride.
Vasan Bala, an award-winning ad filmmaker who assisted Anurag Kashyap for a decade, was an associate on Michael Winterbottom’s “Trishna” and co-wrote “The Lunchbox”, now directs “Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota”. His first film “Peddlers” (2012) competed at the Cannes Film Festival.
In addition to the debutants, RSVP also has popular directors — Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap and Karan Johar — making “four short stories on love and lust”, and more.
–IANS
nn/rb/sac
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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