Indian Film Festival is not about politics, Bollywood Queen says

The Indian Film Festival, Bollywood and Beyond, has hit Melbourne, with the aim of improving Australian-Indian relations and to promote Indian films to the wider market. With the "Queen of Bollywood" already there, every Australian politician is watching.

The Indian Film Festival (IFF) arrived in Melbourne yesterday, heralding another attempt by the Australian and Indian governments to improve relations that have been strained by a streak of violent attacks on Indians living in Australia. The festival, Bollywood and Beyond, will take place in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Auckland, New Zealand over the next six weeks. According to The Australian, the festival director Mitu Lange said that the festival had “made a conscious attempt to be like a cultural bridge between the two countries,” with an aim to attract international students as well as the great community to the celebrations. Along with a large variety of films in Hindu, English, Tamil and Benglai the festival will also include dance competitions, a chance to meet the “Queen of Bollywood” Rani Mukherjee and end with awards for the Best Film and Best Director. There is also a Short Film and Video competition for aspiring directors that will award the best Australian, New Zealand and Indian short film entered. A certain attraction of the festival will be to see Ms Rani Mukherjee, widely believed to be one of the most loved Indian actresses. She has made over 40 films including Bunty Aur Babi which was shown on the opening night of the Melbourne festival. When giving interviews about her participation in the festival, Mukherjee shot down the idea that this was a political move by herself and other Bollywood stars. "I've kept away from all politics because in India it's very easy to get [involved] with the political stuff," she said. "We are coming here to promote our movies culturally. 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." Her stance was strengthened by director of the movie 3 Idiots, the highest-grossing Bollywood film ever, Rajkumar Hirani who answered a question of whether he felt safe visiting Australia; “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.” This is a marked contrast from the Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan who rejected an honorary doctorate from the Queensland University of Technology in May 2009 and the Federation of Western India Cine Employees who called for a boycott of Australia last year in response to the attacks. Indeed, the Australian government will desire a positive outcome after statistics from the Immigration Department have shown a 46% drop in overseas student visa applications from India between July and October 2009 compared to the previous year, an effect, many believe, of the attacks. With efforts from the Foreign Minister Stephen Smith and cricket legend Shane Warne already to improve Australia, and especially the Victorian State’s reputation in India, the Indian Film Festival will be closely watched by all to monitor its success. However, as Yash Chopra, the festival patron and widely-acknowledged “King of Bollywood” said in his message on the IFF’s website, the festival is simply for “Indian films [to be] watched and appreciated by film lovers from all over the world, especially in Australian and New Zealand.”