Blog Archive
October 28th, 2005 - December 14th,
2005
International Cooperation at an Auckland
Dairy
Where does an
unimaginative Auckland PR lady take a Bollywood actress for a photo shoot?
To a local dairy (milk bar), because "Indians are the dairy-owners of
New Zealand."
Fortunately,
actress Ishitta Arun – touring New Zealand with “The Merchants of Bollywood”
production - “is a true pro, sweeping into the Freeman's Bay dairy managed
by the Ahmed family in good humour.”
And then,
according to the
New Zealand Herald:
Leaving the
dairy, Arun says she is pleased to see the Ahmeds, who are Pakistani,
working so well with the dairy's Indian owners; this is not necessarily
common where she comes from, the north-western state of Rajasthan bordering
Pakistan.
I wish that sort of cooperation happened at home, she says: "Our culture
should come here and check this out."
December 14th, 2005
A Wonderful New
Bollywood Movie
Location
Bollywood film makers like
to travel. In recent years, scores of Bollywood movies have been made down
under. But now, is
it all over for Australia as
a
favored
locale for Bollywood movies? It seems the studios
might
have found
a new location – Ireland.
The Hindu
reports:
The craze for
shooting in locales in Australia...may soon give way to wonderful new
locations in the countryside of Ireland, which beckons producers from
Bollywood and Kollywood.
Already a couple of
Hindi and Tamil films have been made in Wicklow county and more are in the
pipeline, say officials of the County Wicklow Film Commission.
…County Wicklow is
not only known as "The Garden of Ireland" but also as The Hollywood of
Europe. Over the last 85 years hundreds of films have been made in the
County, justifying its title, claim officials.
December 9th, 2005
Bollywood Burn-Out
The
New Zealand Herald reports:
A New Zealand film
industry advocate says a glut of low-budget Bollywood films shot in New
Zealand could lead to "location burn-out", risking the country's prospects
for higher-budget films. Judith McCann, head of Film New Zealand, said the
country should be pushing for high-budget movies from India rather than a
quantity of the lower-end Bollywood productions.
She said while marketing New Zealand's landscape was a major plank in
attracting overseas movies and had spin-offs for tourism, she was not in
favour of encouraging a large number of lower-budget movies….On a state
visit to India last year Prime Minister Helen Clark encouraged links, saying
"Bollywood diplomacy" was an important link. She said the hit 2000 Bollywood
film "Say You Love Me," shot in Queenstown, was partly credited with
boosting Indian tourists from 3000 a year in 2000 to 18,000 by last year.
….In March 2002 Paul Fairless, of post-production house Images Post, went to
Chennai and Mumbai for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and
Industry's Frames conference as part of a Trade NZ offensive on the Indian
film sector. He got a lot of business as a result, he said, but it was hard
work.
"When we got back we were full of hope and promise. We got a few jobs and it
was fun and interesting, but it is hard. They have a different work ethic
and way of operating. The wages of crews here is way above what they have in
India, and the laws are stricter. Since then I haven't been actively
pursuing or doing Bollywood-related work because there are easier places to
get the work from. We do work for the UK and USA, and India is not a prime
focus."
Raj Varma, now an actor, was New Zealand line producer on three shoots in
2002-2003 of six to 12 days each - the 12-day shoot visited six or seven
locations. "The American productions come in and pay thousands, the Indians
will hire a van and drive around, jump out and shoot without a permit."
December 3rd,
2005
Bollywood Star Nite
Bollywood Star
Nite at the Sydney Super Dome – is it on or off? I’m not sure.
According to the promoter:
Pleased be
advised that the Bollywood Star Nite concert scheduled for Saturday 17th
December 2005 has been postponed. The new show date is still to be confirmed
in consultation with the artists’ management.
However, at
the website for the
Sydney Super Dome, we read:
Payal
Emporium proudly presents Bollywood Star Nite - a night of non-stop
entertainment from "Filmcity" with major actors, singers, dancers and
musicians! Also featuring a live orchestra with over 40 performers!
Bollywood
fans will be provided a once in a lifetime opportunity to see their
favourite artists perform at the Bollywood Star Nite concert featuring
famous actors Bipasha Basu, John Abraham and famous singers Udit Narayan and
Sunidhi Chauhan.
Don't miss
this year's biggest Bollywood concert event, for one exclusive night only!
If you have
tickets, better check first.
December 2nd, 2005
Sequins and Suggestive Outfits
 “The
Merchants of Bollywood” show hits New Zealand in December, and the New
Zealand Herald features a couple of lengthy reports. The first is a
show preview:
In quick
succession, the women will toss on red saris, harem pants, cheerleader
outfits, combat pants, full skirts embroidered with mirrors - everything
glittered and shimmering. The guys will be shaking their booties, wearing
more sequins and suggestive outfits than hoodie-wearing male dancers in
Western hip-hop videos would ever dream of - leopard print pants teamed with
rash shirts or even no shirts, all the better to show off their pecs and
tatts.
A handful of actors perform slapstick routines while the dancers do
quick-whip changes and flirt in the wings, the whole thing held loosely
together by a thin Bollywood-style plot. As a spectacle, the show's an
impressively high energy, entertaining blur; as an aerobics workout, it's
hard to beat….
Many of the
350 costumes are hand-embroidered silk. They look glorious, and would hold
up for several takes on a movie set, but Kim, the Melbourne costume manager, has had to bring his sewing
machine down from the costume room three storeys up and park it just beside
the prompt corner so that he can sew up split pants mid-performance. One of
the dancer/actors, Deepak "Six-pack" Rawat, rips his vest every night by the
power of his abs alone.
The second
report is about the efforts of Bollywood film-makers to
lure Western audiences:
It helps
that Bollywood has started wooing its non-resident Indian audiences with
films set in Melbourne and Vancouver. And in
New Zealand: over 100 feature and TV ad crews have landed in Queenstown
alone. The 1999 hit Say I Love You (Kaho naa pyaar ha), which was set
partially in the alpine town (rather than just using it as random,
unexplained scenery as is often the case), has been credited for helping
increase the number of Indian tourists to Aotearoa from 3000 to 18,000 a
year. But the number of Indian crews heading to Godzone [NZ] has diminished
in the past couple of years - because of the high
New Zealand
dollar, better government incentives elsewhere and cheaper labor closer to
home in
Malaysia,
Thailand or even
Prague.
November 28th,
2005
Hype and Hoopla
The Bollywood
Masala Film Festival opens in Sydney, and The Australian newspaper
carries
an excellent report. According to Mitu Bhowmick Lange of Melbourne-based
MG Distribution, official distributor of Bollywood movies and organiser of
the festival, it was a huge success last year.
"It ran for 87 days
across Australia and recorded an attendance of more than 40,000 people, of
which 80 per cent were non-Indians."
Now, in its third
year, the festival expects to attract more than 50,000 people across eight
Australian cities. And Lange is doing everything to create the required hype
and hoopla. Some of India's top film talent is being flown to Australia for
the festival, which opens tomorrow in Sydney with director Anand introducing
“Salaam Namaste.”
Accompanying Anand
will be Indian actor Balan and directors, Pradeep Sarkar (“Parineeta”),
Shaad Ali (“Bunty Aur Babli”) and Soham Shah (“Kaal”), who will discuss
their films with audiences after screenings.
"In the past few
years, Indian films have captured the imagination of the West with their
sheer exuberance and vivid stories," Lange says. "These interactive sessions
will give Australians a chance to talk to the creators of these wonderful
films and film-makers an opportunity to get a fresh perspective from a
foreign audience."
November 9th,
2005
“Australians Have a Deeper Bond with Indians”
The
New Delhi
Television
website
reports on a
Bollywood dance class in Adelaide, run by
expatriate
graduate student Vinay Kumar,
who has worked as an extra for various Telugu films.
With perhaps
just a touch of hyperbole, the report notes that Indian culture is thriving
down under.
The
interest in Bollywood goes much beyond this dance class. Even though
Adelaide has an Indian population of only 5000, the taste of
India seems to linger over the city, which is dotted with curry
joints. And Bollywood DVDs are much sought after….Perhaps the setting of the
recent hit “Salaam Namaste” in
Melbourne had something to do with it, but analysts believe
Australians have a deeper bond with Indians.
"Australians are attracted to the vibrancy of Bollywood. They are
discovering it and they really like it," said Mike Walsh, Film Lecturer,
Flynders
University.
This could
be one of
India's biggest exports to
Australia and it's not just for fun, this is a serious business
proposition.
November 7th, 2005
“We Go, Brad Pitt, Wow, But Bollywood Stars
Have a Bigger Following…”
New Zealand’s
leading newspaper, the
New Zealand Herald, features a story, “Bollywood Stars a Coup for
Festival,” about the arrival in Auckland of
actor Jimmy Shergill and pop singer Aiysha as two of the
judges in today’s Bollywood dance competition in the city’s main street,
Queen Street. Other judges include Bollywood talent-spotter Vikram Khakar,
along with three of Aiysha's choreographers and her dance instructor.
Group and solo contestants will have six minutes to impress the judges, who
will award points for details such as costumes, confidence and stunts.
"Bollywood is a worldwide phenomenon and it's way bigger than we can
imagine," says
Auckland
City event organiser
Barbara
Strong-MacKinnon. "We go, Brad Pitt, wow, but Bollywood stars have a bigger
following in terms of numbers."
October 30th, 2005
Aiysha in Auckland
 Bollywood
comes to Auckland this weekend with the arrival of Brisbane-born singer
Aiysha. She’ll be there for
Radio Tarana’s
Diwali festival, accompanied by
actor Jimmy Shergill. It’ll be the city’s first taste of Bollywood glitz,
to be followed next month by “The Merchants of Bollywood” musical.
October 28th, 2005
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