RANI, HIRANI, KAUSHAL TO ATTEND IFFM IN AUG.
◗ The fest will honour Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi, the two loved actors who passed away recently
Melbourne: A galaxy of stars including Freida Pinto, Rani Mukerji, Vicky Kaushal, Ram Charan, Richa Chadha, Raj Kumar Hirani, Ali Fazal, Simi Grewal and Malaika Arora will attend this year’s Indian Film Festival of Melbourne ( IFFM) to be held from August 10 to 22.
Announcing the fest details, the IFFM director Mitu Bhowmick Lange said this year the festival will screen over 60 movies in 22 languages during the 12 day long program with Tabrez Noorani’s film Love Sonia as its opening night film.
“Love Sonia is a relevant film for the festival which is on the theme of inclusion,’’ Lange said adding that Pinto, Chadha, Mrunal Thaku and Noorani will be present on the night. This year the festival will honour Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi, the two loved actors of Bollywood who passed away recently, by holding special screenings of their two iconic films Siddhartha and Chandni.
This year’s competition section of the festival will have six categories where 12 filmmakers including Rajkumar Hirani, Shoojit Sircar, Meghna Gulzar, R Balki, Rima Das, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Suresh Triveni will battle in the best director award segment.
Eight films including Sanju, Raazi, Padman, Padmavat, Secret Superstar, Hichki and Mahanti will compete in the best film categories while Ranbir Kapoor, Akshay Kumar, Varun Dhawan, Ranveer Singh, Shahid Kapoor, Soumitra Chatterjee, Manoj Bajpayee and Fahad Faasil will contest in best actor category.