A starry affair: Bollywood celebs flag off Indian Film Festival of Melbourne
Darpan News Desk IANS, 12 Aug, 2022 03:17 PM
Mumbai, Aug 12 (IANS) Bollywood celebrities such as Abhishek Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Vaani Kapoor, Tamannaah Bhatia, Shefali Shah, among many others, flagged off the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne to its physical form in Australia with its 13th edition.
Other personalities who were a part of this include singer Sona Mohapatra, former cricketer and ex captain of India Kapil Dev and filmmakers Anurag Kashyap, Kabir Khan, Aparna Sen, Nikkhil Advani and Shoojit Sircar.
The festival, which kicked off on Friday (August 12), will conclude on August 20.
Commenting on the occasion, Abhishek Bachchan, who is "absolutely loving" being in the moment in Melbourne, is excited to watch the screening of his 'Manmarziyaan' co-star Taapsee Pannu's upcoming film 'Dobaaraa'.
He said, "I'm looking forward to watching 'Dobaaraa'. My almost entire family has represented India here and I'm very proud of it. I'm looking forward to being part of all the celebrations and I thank the government and Mitu for having me here. It feels great to be given the Leadership in Cinema award".
The actors took to the podium in presence of a special audience to announce this year's programme schedule with 'Dobaaraa' being the opening night film.
Other events lined up apart from the screening of over 120 films are the Independence Day Celebrations of India and an array of panel discussions amongst other specially curated events.
When asked about the South and Hindi film debate at the festival, actress Tamannaah Bhatia said, "I think this conversation is only unique to India, whenever I travel abroad I never hear people distinguish, they simply call it Indian cinema. And such is the case even here at IFFM."
She feels that the audience wants to see pan India films as more of such content is being made and being admired by all.
The designers kept the thematic essence of the film in mind as well as creating a look that was a modern classic. It took approximately three thousand and four hundred man hours and a team of twenty five master karigars to complete the saree which features delicate handcrafted embroideries referenced from archival Edwardian and French Lace Shawls.
Actress Rani Mukerji, whose mother Krishna Mukherjee was a childhood friend of Bappi Lahiri, has mourned the death of the late veteran music composer, who is popularly called as the 'Disco King', and said that he will always be the most iconic musical personality of Indian cinema.
'Gehraiyaan' is a slow-burn, captivating, noir drama that draws you into its immersive narrative, which tells us, "Life is all about choices. ... Let's put all this behind us and move on."
Palekar has also worked and contributed to Marathi mainstream films and parallel cinema, made his debut in 1971 with the film 'Shantata! Court Chalu Aahe'. He then stepped into Bollywood with Basu Bhattacharya's 'Rajnigandha' opposite Rakhee in 1974.
But Sobti, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 74 in New Delhi, became briefly famous when he played the Pandava strongman Bhim in B.R. Chopra's iconic television serial 'Mahabharat'.
In her caption, the singer-restaurateur wrote: "'Bachpan ke din bhi kya din the' (How wonderful were the days of our childhood)." The reference was to one of Asha Bhosle's melodious numbers, which she sang along with Geeta Dutt, in one of Bimal Roy's most-remembered films, 'Sujata' (1959).
.jpg "Asha Bhosle dedicates 'Sujata' song to her Didi")