|
|
Other
Topics : Art
Culture - Fashion
- Tourism
Latest
& Hot Bollywood Film News : * hourly
updation
Back
to Bollywood Current News Section
| Bollywood
News - Hindi Cinema Reviews - Previews - Music Chart -
Interviews : |
Big B's French connection
Saibal Chatterjee, Indo-Asian News Service
Speculation about why Amitabh Bachchan flew into Goa for only a day continues unabated.
He apparently wanted to meet some prospective film industry collaborators from the West. When they expressed their inability to fly to Mumbai to meet him as they were busy in the Film Market currently on at the 36th IFFI, the Big B was compelled to plan a trip to Goa.
He arrived Thursday afternoon and left Friday morning. But that certainly isn't the end of his tryst with this year's IFFI.
He is due to return to Goa to attend the French Day bash Dec 2. According to diplomatic sources, France's envoy to India had a special meeting with Bachchan in Mumbai recently to request the megastar to lend his support to the promotion of French cinema in India. Bachchan has acquiesced.
-*-
Abhishek's no show
The prolific Rituparno Ghosh is busy elsewhere, so he won't be putting in an appearance during Sunday's screening of his film "Antarmahal" in Goa. But three of the film's principal actors, Jackie Shroff, Soha Ali Khan and Roopa Ganguly, will be at the INOX multiplex.
But where, pray, is Abhishek Bachchan, who plays a small but pivotal role in Antarmahal? He will be conspicuous by his absence at the presentation ceremony that will precede the show.
Not surprising at all. If the Big B weren't welcome at IFFI, why would the Chhota B deem to play ball?
-*-
Why did Zeta-Jones say no?
Another interesting story doing the rounds here is that the organisers had at one point toyed with the idea of getting both Catherine Zeta-Jones and hubby Michael Douglas to the 36th IFFI inaugural show. Contact was indeed established with Zeta-Jones' office in Los Angeles but she wasn't available during the time she was expected in Goa.
Some enthusiastic pen pushers picked up the signals and went to town with their version of why Zeta-Jones refused to make the trip to Panaji.
They went to the extent of suggesting that she had demanded $1 million as remuneration. The entire film festival is organised on a budget that would be a shade less than that amount. So the organisers were constrained to withdraw the invitation. But officials insist there is no truth in the money angle.
|
