The Indian Film Festival 2010 has commenced in Australia and New Zealand. Interestingly the festival is giving special honours to Rani Mukherji by organizing a ‘Rani Mukherji Retrospective’. Being tagged as ‘Queen of Bollywood’, the event is screening Rani’s films including ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’, ‘Hum Tum’, ‘Bunty Aur Babli’, ‘Black’, ‘Paheli’, and ‘Saathiya’.
According to reports, the festival is being held at Melbourne, Sydney, and Perth in Australia and Auckland in New Zealand, and concludes on April 15.
Gracing the inaugural ceremony of the festival, Rani had stated that she is there mainly to promote culture and movies and nothing else. The fest has come in the wake of Indian-Australian strained relations.
“We are here for the larger number of Australians who love our cinema. We are (here) for the Indians and the Asian communities who watch our movies, so we are here for a greater cause,” quoted the actress.
Also Rajkumar Hirani whose film ‘3 Idiots’ will be screened here, said to the media, “You can't generalise and say that a country is against us. The incidents are sad but one wouldn't like to say that every person, every Australian, walking down the street is against Indians. These types of incidents happen in India also.”
Besides ‘3 Idiots’, the festival will also screen other Bollywood films namely ‘Dev D’, ‘Dil Bole Hadippa’, ‘Dostana’, ‘Ghajini’, ‘Kaminey’, ‘Love Aaj Kal’, ‘Luck by Chance’, ‘New York’, ‘Paa’, ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ and ‘Wake Up Sid’.
Priyadarshan’s award winning ‘Kanchivaram’ and well-acclaimed Marathi film ‘Harishchandrachi Factory’ are among the regional films that are going to be included in the ‘Beyond Bollywood’ category.