‘Slumdog Millionaire’ receives Directors Guild Award

March 18th, 2009 BEIJING - 'Slumdog Millionaire', the Academy Award-winning best picture of the year, will hit Chinese screens March 26, an official said Wednesday. 'The movie will be available at cinemas nationwide,' said Zhang Xiaosong, an official with the China Film Group Corporation (CFGC).

February 23rd, 2009 LOS ANGELES - Indian music maestro A.R. Rahman made history as he became the first Indian to win two Oscars as 'Slumdog Millionaire', the rags to riches story of a boy from the slums of Mumbai, swept the annual Academy Awards.

February 22nd, 2009 LOS ANGELES - British director Danny Boyle's hit film 'Slumdog Millionaire' is the favourite to win the Oscar for best picture at Sunday night's annual Academy Awards, but would luck smile on Indian music maestro A.R. Rahman too? Rahman, the first Indian musician to be nominated for the annual Academy Awards, has been listed for three of the film's ten Oscar nominations - one for his original score and two others for songs composed by him, 'O Saya' and 'Jai Ho.' He also sang the first song along with MIA and Sukhwinder Singh as the lead singer for the second.

February 15th, 2009 NEW YORK - After winning top honours at the Golden Globes and BAFTA, Oscar favourite 'Slumdog Millionaire' has won an award at the Art Directors Guild Awards. Danny Boyle's movie was named the Best Contemporary Film at the black-tie ceremony held at Beverly Hills Saturday.

February 8th, 2009 LONDON - British filmmaker Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire', the Mumbai-based rags-to-riches movie, has won top honours at Britain's most prestigious film awards with a sweeping seven wins, including best film. It beat four other contenders Sunday - 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', 'Frost/Nixon', 'Milk' and 'The Reader' - to win best film at the awards ceremony in London's Royal Opera House.

February 7th, 2009 LONDON - British-Irish filmmaker Danny Boyle's rags to richs underdog drama 'Slumdog Millionaire' won another feather in its cap by walking away with the most prestigious awards at The Writers Guild of America awards Saturday. Cotnactmusic.com reports, the film's writer Simon Beaufoy won the gong for best-adapted screenplay for his reworking of Vikas Swarup's novel 'Q & A'.

February 6th, 2009 MUMBAI - Oscar contender 'Slumdog Millionaire', which has received global critical acclaim and become a worldwide box-office success, has raked in Rs.215 million since its Jan 23 release in India and is expected to gross about Rs.300 million. 'We expect 'Slumdog Millionaire' to make about Rs.300 million in India.

February 1st, 2009 LOS ANGELES - After winning the top honour from the Directors Guild of America (DGA) for the Mumbai-set hit film 'Slumdog Millionaire', British Director Danny Boyle appears to be on the inside track for an Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremony Feb 22. The DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film is often an accurate indicator of who will land the Oscar for directing as 55 of the 60 past DGA award winners also went on to win the Academy Award for directing.

January 25th, 2009 LOS ANGELES - With the entire cast of 'Slumdog Millionaire' winning the top prize at the 15th Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards, the rags-to-riches saga of a Mumbai slum dweller, the film has forged ahead in the race for the best picture Oscar. 'It was overwhelming enough to be nominated.

January 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Danny Boyle's acclaimed film 'Slumdog Millionaire' has taken home two more major US film industry awards over the weekend, winning the top prizes from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild of America. Bollywood stars Anil Kapoor and Irfaan Khan, British Indian Actor Dev Patel, and newcomer Freida Pinto received the overall cast prize for the Mumbai-set rags-to-riches saga at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles Sunday night from Anthony Hopkins.

January 16th, 2009 MUMBAI - Ever since 'Slumdog Millionaire' shone at the Golden Globes award, everyone is asking why no Bollywood director thought of it. While Sriram Raghavan of 'Johnny Gaddar' fame missed the chance because Vikas Swaroop had given the movie rights of his book 'Q & A' to eventual producers Film Four, directors Anurag Basu and Imtiaz Ali say other Indian filmmakers didn't think about it because they are not in the habit of reading.

January 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Music maestro A.R. Rahman has become the first Indian to win the prestigious Golden Globe award for best original music score as the Mumbai-based 'Slumdog Millionaire' bagged four top prizes, including Best Motion Picture-Drama.

January 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Noted Indian music director A.R. Rahman won the Best Composer award as Mumbai-set hit film 'Slumdog Millionaire' swept the 14th Annual Critics' Choice Awards winning five top prizes including Best Picture of 2008.

January 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The 'Slumdog Millionaire' saga continues with the British director Danny Boyle's Mumbai-set film picking up more key award nominations in the run up to next month's Academy Awards. While the Writers Guild of America nominated it for best Adapted Screenplay for screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, the American Society of Cinematographers picked it up for Best Cinematography nomination for Anthony Dod Mantle Wednesday.

January 5th, 2009 WASHINGTON - British director Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire' has earned a Best Picture nomination from the Producers Guild of America, putting the acclaimed film on track to be a major contender at next month's Academy Awards. Coming a day after the film jumped back into the North American Top 10 with total gross earnings of $28.78 million in eight weeks, the PGA nomination is considered particularly important since generally most of the five nominated films go on to also earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.