Aishwarya Rai Bachchan hoists the Indian flag at Federation Square in Melbourne

World’s most beautiful woman, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was in Melbourne as the chief guest of Indian Film Festival Melbourne (IFFM) August 10-22. She also attended Indian community’s Independence Day celebration of India’s 70th Independence at Federation Sqaure and hoisted the Indian flag as thousands of Indians and locals came to watch. The celebrations has become a big drawcard as Mind Blowing Films’ IFFM coincides with the Independence Day when whole of Bollywood descends down under for the festival.

This year’s guests at IFFM included, besides Vidya Balan, Simi Grewal and Malaika Arora who are regulars, film maker Alankrita Shrivastava (Lipstick under my Burqa), Ashish Bisht (Shab), Karan Johar, Konkana Sen Sharma, Dangal director Nitesh Tiwari, director Onir, actor Rahul Bose, Raj Suri, Satish Kaushik and Raveena Tandon (Shab), director Shoojit Sarkar, Film journalist Rajeev Masand, film critic Taran Adarsh and many more.

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was felicitated with  Excellence in Global Cinema Award at this year’s IFFM.

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput, won the Best Actor award for the biopic  MS Dhoni: The Untold Story.

Konkona Sen Sharma’s  Lipstick Under My Burkha  which was awarded the Best Film, with the Konkona  winning the Best Actress award.  Dangal  director Nitesh Tiwari also bagged the Best Director award for his super hit film.

Sushant Singh Rajput with Mitu Bhowmick-Lange, Director of IFFM and WIFFS

Sydney, thanks to Mind Blowing Films, gets its own Film Festival ”“ WIFFS, Westpac Indian Film Festival, Sydney where Raveena Tandon and Ashish Bisht, Raj Suri and Tannishtha Chatterjee will be the chief guests. WIFFS will be held from August 18 ”“ 20. This year besides the festival being held at Fox Studios, the festival films will also be shown at Blacktown Hoyts. The opening night film is Raveena Tandon’s film ”˜Shab’ and ”˜Lipstick under my Burqa’. Other films to be screened in Sydney are ”˜Ai Dil Hai Mushkil’, ”˜Badrinath ki Dulhania’, ”˜Dear Zindagi’, ”˜M. S. Dhoni’, Bahubali 1 and Bahubali 2 and others.

 

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