The Hindu : New Delhi News : A special cinema event to see and savour

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
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New Delhi

New Delhi

A special cinema event to see and savour

Madhur Tankha

International Indian Film Academy show

NEW DELHI: The upcoming International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) event in Yorkshire will be special for more reasons than one. Besides being a celebration of Indian cinema overseas, it will aim at promoting commercial ties between India and the United Kingdom with the focus mainly on Yorkshire.

Four-day event

The four-day event that begins on June 7 will see performances by leading Bollywood stars including current heartthrob Abhishek Bachchan and the proud winner of the Big Brother show on television, Shilpa Shetty. The extravagant award night will be hosted by the vivacious Lara Dutta and talented actors Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani.

Global audiences

Speaking about the awards this past week, IIFA brand ambassador Amitabh Bachchan said: "As always, this year too the awards will be held in the presence of global audiences including dignitaries from the world of cinema, business, politics and sports. The weekend event to be held in a picturesque locale of Yorkshire will include IIFA World Premiere, IIFA Foundation Celebrity Cricket Match, FICCI-IIFA Global Business Forum and the Idea IIFA Awards. The celebrity cricket match is definitely going to be a clash of titans.''

Day One of the IIFA show will see the inaugural session of business partnership forum that will feature bigwigs from both the U.K. and Indian business fraternity.

The primary objective of the global business forum is to address issues concerning trade and to highlight the issue of climate change that threatens the very existence of our planet. It will be inaugurated by Union Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel.

Celebrity cricket match

The second day will witness a celebrity cricket match at Headingley Carnegie Stadium between a star-studded celebrity team and a Yorkshire XI comprising cricketers and Members of Parliament.

Amitabh Bachchan will inaugurate the match before being joined by celluloid stars Salman Khan and Shilpa Shetty for the toss of the coin.

While the celebrity team will comprise Kapil Dev, Ajay Jadeja, Mohammad Azharuddin, Rakyesh Mehra, Emran Hashmi, Sohail Khan, Dino Morea, Sunny Deol, Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan and Zayed Khan, the Yorkshire XI will include Gladstone Small, Ed Balls and Shahid Mallik.

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