IIFA Awards 2010 to be held in Seoul

Seoul (South Korea) will host the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards in 2010.

It is expected to draw hundreds of India’s leading actors, actresses and filmmakers.

Starting with London (United Kingdom) in 2000, these annual Awards events have been held in South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, People’s Republic of China and are announced to be held in Canada (Toronto) in June 2011 . IIFA Awards are said to recognize, honor and celebrate the achievements of India’s film industry. It claims to attract a worldwide television audience of over 350 million.

Welcoming Seoul’s move to host Awards events, acclaimed Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed said that it was time now for American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize India’s contribution to world cinema and introduce a new award category of “Best Bollywood Film” in Oscars for films made in India. This gesture would bring more credibility to Oscars also in the international arena, as it was long overdue, Rajan Zed, who is chairperson of Indo-American Leadership Confederation, added.

Seoul has been described by Lonely Planet as a “fashion-filled” city that “vibrates with energy night and day” and South Korea as “a country of endless possibilities”. Bollywood is said to be producing about double the number of movies than Hollywood and about four billion cinema tickets are sold annually in India.

Mumbai based IIFA endeavors to promote Indian cinema and showcase its talent globally. Its founder-directors are Andre Timmins, Viraf Sarkari, and Sabbas Joseph. Its Advisory Board boasts of big Bollywood names: Amitabh Bachchan (Brand Ambassador), David Dhawan, J.P. Dutta, Jaya Bachchan, Karan Johar, Manmohan Shetty, Pahlaj Nihalani, Ramesh Sippy, Shyam Shroff, and Vinod Khanna.

Rajesh Khanna to be felicitated with Lifetime Achievement Award at IIFA 2009

In the 60s, there came euphoria, a phenomenon, sweeping women across India off their feet with those naughty eyes, stylish shake of the head and enigmatic smile. It belonged to none other than superstar Rajesh Khanna, whom the IDEA IIFA Awards salutes this year.

The legend will be honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Videocon IIFA Weekend, which will be held at The Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel from June 11 to 13 in Macau.

Stalwarts of Indian cinema like Mumtaz and Dharmendra have previously been recipients of this prestigious Award. Each year, IIFA honours a member of the Indian film fraternity with the Lifetime Achievement Award, who has made innumerable contributions to Indian cinema.

Keeping this in mind, the IIFA Advisory Board and the IIFA Management recognizes Rajesh Khanna in its tenth year.

Aishwarya Sonam Kareena to perform at IIFA 2009

Aishwarya Rai will be dancing at the 10th IIFA awards to be held in Macau from June 11. Sonam Kapoor is all set to make her stage debut at IIFA this year. Kareena Kapoor too has been confirmed to perform.

The show will be hosted by Riteish Deshmukh, Lara Dutta and Boman Irani. But one of the highlights each year, the movie premiere, has been done away with.

Explains IIFA director Sabbas Joseph, "It can't be helped. The movie premiere had to be cancelled this year because of the ongoing strike of new releases in Bollywood. Two big films were ready to be premiered at IIFA this year. I shall refrain from mentioning their names. But the imbroglio did away with the premiere."

As a substitute IIFA this year has the world-famous Cirque de Soleil performing for the audience. "We believe audiences won't get a chance to miss the world premiere once they see the Cirque de Soleil performing."

Why Macau? Says Sabbas, "Because we feel it's the Las Vegas of the East. In this the tenth year of IIFA's existence, we wanted either the US or China to be our venue. We chose China because we feel it could be a gateway for Bollywood to the China. We also hope to end the deadlock between India and China over the exchange of cinema. We haven't come away from one venue without opening up doors for Bollywood. We're confident this would be the case in China."

Kat fever hits IIFA

Katrina Kaif was down with heavy viral fever during the IIFA awards held in Bangkok recently. The doctors had advised her complete bed rest. The organizers wondered whether Katrina would be able to live up to her commitment and perform live for the event. In fact taking doctor's advice into consideration the organizers too suggested that Kats should just take it easy and not perform at the show. But Kats just popped in some antibiotics! And was all ready to take on the stage. Retracting from a commitment was out of question. And the kind of performance Kats dished out, not once did the onlookers come to know that Kats was completely down with high fever. Kats looked as fresh as the morning dew.

After the show when people learnt that Kats had performed despite her illness, they praised her for her professionalism. Producers, who had worked with Kats earlier, also swore by her professionalism.