Mammootty bag Asianet film awards

Malayalam superstars Mammootty and Mohanlal reigned supreme at the popular Ujala-Asianet Malayalam film awards 2009 announced here Sunday. While Mammootty bagged the ‘Millennium actor award’, Mohanlal was named best actor for his role in “Ividam Swargamanu”.
Mammootty had more reason to cheer as his blockbuster movie “Pazhassi Raja” was adjudged as the best film. Renjith was named best director for “Paleri Manickam”, which also stars Mammootty.

The names of the awardees were announced Sunday by Asianet Television officials. The award ceremony will be held here Jan 18.

Kavya Madhavan was selected as the best actress for her role in “Banares” while Prithviraj was chosen as the Youth Icon for the year.

Mammootty as ‘John, Jaffer, Janardhanan’

Mollywood superstar Mammootty is now getting a chance to play the lead in ‘John, Jaffer Janardhanan’. Named after the big multistarrer hit of the eighties, this movie will be directed by actor Jagadheesh, who is debuting to call the shots with this movie. Mammootty will play the three different faces of the same character in this movie. To be scripted by Jagadheesh, the dialogues of the movie will be penned by Krishna Poojappura. ’John, Jafer, Janardhanan’ is expected to kick off its shoot by the mid of May.

Mammootty re-elected Kairali TV chief

Malayalam super star Mammootty has been re-elected chairman of Malayalam Communications Limited, which operates a bouquet of channels under the flagship Kairali TV, during the annual general meeting of the company held in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday. John Brittas was also re-elected as the managing director of the channel.

The meeting announced 5% dividend for 2008-09. This is the first time since its formation that Kairali TV is announcing a dividend. The company, riding on a 36% increase in revenue over the previous year, logged a total turnover of Rs. 47.86 crores during 2008-09. The revenue during 2007-08 was Rs. 35.21 crores.

Mammootty said that the company, which had launched two channels ‘People’ and ‘We’, had already acquired satellite space for a fourth channel and would launch the channels as early as possible. John Brittas said that from January 1, Kairali TV would switch over to non-linear post production and server-based telecast of programmes.