Bollywood comes to Newcastle

Bollywood is coming to the Australian city of Newcastle, which is celebrating and exploring the thriving Mumbai-based Indian film industry with a two-day conference and film festival organised by the University of Newcastle.

Australian High Commissioner Patrick Suckling welcomed this initiative, saying that during recent trips to Mumbai and Hyderabad he had been struck by the keen interest of Indian filmmakers in filming in Australia and working with our industry.

"In meetings with senior representatives of the film industry, there was unanimous enthusiasm for doing more with Australia, whether by using Australia's world famous locations or cooperating in post-production, including high-end technology such as animation, sound-effects and computer graphics," Mr Suckling said.

Those connections will be further strengthened next month when Australia is the country partner at the annual Mumbai film conference, FICCI Frames 2014.

The Bollywood 101 Film Festival on 20 February, which will be opened by the Consul General of India in Sydney, Arun Kumar Goel, will include film screenings and presentations from film producers, while the 'Bollywood and its Others Conference' at the University of Newcastle on 21 February will host a variety of speakers including Indian-Australian filmmaker Anupam Sharma.

Filmmaker Vikrant Kishore and Susan Kerrigan, from the University of Newcastle, are the conference convenors.

"Bollywood has successfully transcended the confines of India, urging scholars to discuss its global histories," Dr Kishore said.

Dr Kerrigan believes the conference could play an important role in understanding Australian-Indian film connections.