Manasvi Mamgai's Hollywood production Captivated starring Al Pacino commences with blessings of Pope Leo XIV

In a rare and historic meeting at Vatican City, Hollywood legend Al Pacino and producer Manasvi Mamgai were officially received by His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, marking a spiritual and symbolic beginning for the upcoming film Captivated. The project, backed by 32RED Entertainment, has commenced filming in Rome. This meeting holds several firsts — Al Pacino, known globally for The Godfather and other iconic roles, became the first film star to be formally received by the newly appointed Pope Leo XIV. It also marked the first time Pacino met with a Pope. For Manasvi Mamgai, co-founder of 32RED Entertainment, the moment was equally significant as one of the few Indian-origin producers to receive such an audience. Mamgai reflected on the moment, saying, “Meeting His Holiness, the Pope, was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. As an Indian-origin producer, standing alongside Al Pacino in such an extraordinary moment felt surreal and deeply meaningful. No better way to start a movie than to...

The Witcher: Sirens of the Deep review – gore flows in bloody animated mer-western

Lovejoyish dude with magical powers wanders into a seaside kingdom where merpeople and regular humans are at loggerheads

This animated feature is part of the larger Witcher fantasy franchise which started with short stories by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski and has evolved to survive on all manner of platforms, from video games and comics to live-action TV series and films. Thanks to the wealth of wiki knowledge out there, you can get the gist pretty quickly. There’s a dude with magical powers, fearsome pectorals (and the platinum hair of a Finnish metal band lead singer) named the Witcher, AKA Geralt (voiced here by Doug Cockle); he wanders around a medieval-ish countryside battling monsters, partly for hire and partly out of the goodness of his own gruff heart. He’s like a ronin or a knight or TV-show amateur detective of the Lovejoy vintage, but with a sword. Geralt’s wisecracking sidekick Jaskier (Joey Batey) is cowardly and comical, and plays a lute-like instrument on which he performs ballads celebrating Geralt’s heroics. We also meet (mostly in flashback) Geralt’s on-off romantic partner Yennefer (Anya Chalotra) who can visit his dreams in order to flirt with him, but she’s less of a big deal here than in other Witcher products.

Instead, Geralt and Jaskier wash up in a seaside kingdom where merpeople and regular humans are at loggerheads because the humans keep decimating the oyster beds in search of pearls. Shockingly, they don’t make use of the oysters as food, which depletes food sources for the various fantasy animals the merpeople feel are their buddies because they all live in the sea together. It’s the equivalent of a post-colonial western where the merfolk are the Native Americans and the humans are rapacious land-grabbing whites. But the script also threads in a star-crossed lovers’ story involving a mer-princess and a dopey human prince which plays out like a blend of Romeo and Juliet and The Little Mermaid. Plus, because no gen-Z skewed animation would be complete without a trans subtext, there’s a bit of that too at the end.

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