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Jackky Bhagnani returns to acting after six years with Independence Day anthem 'Tere Rang Mein': "I wanted the street credibility and respect of Gen Z"

Jackky Bhagnani has returned to acting after a six-year gap with the Independence Day anthem 'Tere Rang Mein,' released under his music label Jjust Music. The actor-producer said the song offered him an opportunity to return to the screen with a project that was personally meaningful to him. Bhagnani described himself as a patriot and said the nature of the song played an important role in his decision to face the camera again. “I am a patriot by heart. It’s been quite some time since I faced the camera. So, I thought the best way to come back is with the right cause,” Bhagnani said. The actor's return comes after several years of focusing primarily on film production. According to Bhagnani, stepping away from acting was a conscious decision as he worked behind the scenes and became more involved in producing films. Jackky Bhagnani on focusing on film production Bhagnani said his experience as a producer made him rethink the way he wanted to approach his acting career. He ...

Onlookers review – snapshots of a south-east Asian country shaped by tourism

Through static compositions and observational detail, the documentary explores how Laos’s visitors and residents inhabit the same spaces in very different ways

Shot in Laos, Kimi Takesue’s idiosyncratic documentary gazes upon sights and vistas that would not be out of place on travel postcards. Minimal in its camera movements, the film looks at glimmering golden temples, waterfalls cascading down silver rocks, and processions of monks moving through lush landscapes. It also shows what is absent from glossy brochures, namely the intrusion of tourists. The disruption to the local rhythm of life is at once visual and aural: we see throngs of wandering visitors, their casual clothes of shorts and T-shirts a stark contrast to the ancient architecture. Their occasionally rowdy leisure activities are intercut with more mundane moments from the locals’ everyday lives, like schoolchildren heading to class or laywomen offering alms to monks by the roadside.

There’s a sense of tension between the static camera and the movements that occur within the frame. Scenes of tourists being loaded on to buses bring to mind Jacques Tati’s 1967 classic Playtime, which gently pokes fun at the idea of an authentic cultural experience attained via consumerist means. The point of view in Takesue’s film, however, is on shakier grounds. Some of the visual juxtapositions veer towards reiterating well-worn binaries between the east and west, the regional and the global. For instance, most of the tourists seen in Onlookers are white; in truth, visitors to Laos largely come from neighbouring Asian countries. Likewise, the Laotian population is also far from homogeneous: one sequence shows middle-aged men playing a game of catch, with the caption telling us they are “arguing in Lao” – yet some of them are speaking Vietnamese.

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Jackky Bhagnani returns to acting after six years with Independence Day anthem 'Tere Rang Mein': "I wanted the street credibility and respect of Gen Z"

Jackky Bhagnani has returned to acting after a six-year gap with the Independence Day anthem 'Tere Rang Mein,' released under his music label Jjust Music. The actor-producer said the song offered him an opportunity to return to the screen with a project that was personally meaningful to him. Bhagnani described himself as a patriot and said the nature of the song played an important role in his decision to face the camera again. “I am a patriot by heart. It’s been quite some time since I faced the camera. So, I thought the best way to come back is with the right cause,” Bhagnani said. The actor's return comes after several years of focusing primarily on film production. According to Bhagnani, stepping away from acting was a conscious decision as he worked behind the scenes and became more involved in producing films. Jackky Bhagnani on focusing on film production Bhagnani said his experience as a producer made him rethink the way he wanted to approach his acting career. He ...