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 actress can be seen donning the Indian cricket team's jersey as she has a moment of joy with her cast members. 'Shabaash Mithu' is directed by Srijit Mukherji with story penned by Priya Aven. In addition, Taapsee has an interesting slate of upcoming films like 'Dobaaraa', 'Mishan Impossible', 'Loop Lapeta' and her debut production 'Blurr'.
Rhea had filed a plea seeking release of her gadgets like an Apple laptop and an iPhone, and access to her bank accounts, according to her lawyer Nikhil Maneshinde. The gadgets were seized while the bank accounts were frozen by the NCB after her arrest last year in connection with the probe into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
Rajkummar Rao recently introduced the cast of the show through an innovative video saying that his reputation of a well mannered 'Rao' is under threat from the new 'Rao family' of the show. Responding to the video, Lara Dutta has expressed her gratitude towards Rajkummar for introducing the show's characters and has ensured him of securing the Rao surname's reputation.
While granting conditional bail to the trio, the Bombay High Court had stipulated, among several other things, that they must visit the NCB office every Friday between 11 a.m.- 2 p.m., deposit their passports and not leave Mumbai or India without prior permission.
Both Ranbir and Alia chose to don the shades of blue on the festive occasion. Many film personalities like Jacqueline Fernandez, Zoya Akhtar and Anaita Shroff Adajania put up love reactions under the couple's picture.
An addition to the director's cop universe after "Singham" and "Simba", "Sooryavanshi" is a classic Rohit Shetty entertainer with action, romance, humour, drama and thrills, all packaged into a delectable treat. And early reports about the Akshay Kumar-starrer's performance across territories have been encouraging enough to make Bollywood continue its Diwali celebrations.
