Date:05/06/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/06/05/stories/2007060504560200.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

A entertaining quiz on the tinsel world

Staff Reporter

Participants at QFI's quiz came out knowing a lot more about movies

ADDING GLAMOUR: Participants at the Indian Cinema quiz organised in Chennai on Sunday. — Photo: S. Thanthoni .

CHENNAI : Simbu would be so proud. `Veerasamy Men in Action' — the team, named in honour of his papa T. Rajender's masterpiece, walked away with the first prize of the first-ever Indian cinema quiz organised by the Quiz Foundation of India (QFI). V. Ramakrishnan, R. Srinivasan and T.G. Ramakrishnan comprised the winning team.

If you have seen the trailer for `Ninaithale' starring Vyjayantimala's son and appreciated the music, here's some news. The music is a faithful rip-off from Hollywood film `The Last of the Mohicans'.

And did you know `Aan', which, released in 1952, was India's first Technicolor film? It featured Nadira, an Israeli-born Baghdad Jewish actor as the director had ambitions for a dubbed world release.

The audience at the cinema quiz found themselves richer in knowledge of Indian filmdom, thanks to a varied set of questions that probed below the surface and sought the unobvious. Not as well-known as the Landmark or Odyssey quiz, but just as passionate about random trivia, the QFI hosted the event on Sunday at Tattvaloka. Unassuming, unpretentious — you had to remove your footwear to enter the hall — yet quizzers from all over Chennai, and even Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune, turned up in hundreds. The quizzing and prizes were sponsored by Indian Terrain and English language training institute Veta.

There was an usual mix of audio-visual, straightforward and downright sneaky questions at the cinema quiz, put together by C. Karthik, Rajiv Rai and quizmaster N. Srinivasan. About 50 teams participated and six made it to the finals. There were about 100 teams for `the third annual QFI open quiz' later in the day, and eight in the finals. The winners were veteran quizzers QED, consisting of Samanth Subramanian, G. Swaminathan and Gopal Kidao. One last question courtesy QFI — Who is playing Shobana's role in the Hindi remake of Malayalam film `Manichitrathazh'? Answer: Vidya Balan.