Even the most miserable party pooper would struggle to deny that Yorkshire has pulled off a coup. Showbiz bling will take over when the northern English region best known for its gritty realism and craggy scenery hosts the Bollywood Oscars – the International Indian Film Academy Awards.
The buzz began on Thursday when Amitabh Bachchan, the biggest living Bollywood star, inaugurated four days of film premieres, networking and partying.
Addressing a press conference at Leeds Town Hall attended largely by Indian showbiz reporters, Mr Bachchan said: “The warmth and affection [of Yorkshire people] has been reflected in the smile on their faces. The way they have welcomed us into their homes and hearts has been wonderful.”
Hotels in Sheffield, where the awards will be handed out on Saturday night, are fully booked. Tickets for the event have been changing hands for £300 apiece. Hosting the awards is expected to bring £10m in tourist spending to the region, which invested £2.5m in winning the right to host this year’s event, which New York also pitched for.
The welcome might have been more muted had the visitors come from Manchester rather than Mumbai as English regions compete fiercely for international recognition.
“We would have been lost in a big city,” said Habil Khorakiwala, president of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce, “Here, it is more of an event.”
Bollywood starlet Shilpa Shetty, in an interview with the FT, praised the “benefits” offered by the region. “It is such a beautiful place,” she gushed, thinking perhaps of the Dales rather than industrial parts of Rotherham, “I would love to make a film here.” Ms Shetty, a British celebrity as well as an Indian one since she braved abuse on the UK reality TV show, Celebrity Big Brother, was pursued by paparazzi wherever she went.
Directors expected to attend the event included Ramesh Sippy, whose romantic blockbuster Kuch Na Kaho starred Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, a stellar couple equivalent to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
So far, only a few Bollywood epics have been shot in what one Yorkshire cheerleader, characteristically unhampered by false modesty, described as “God’s Own County”. Bollywood shorthand for the UK has generally followed the Hollywood convention of red double deckers rolling past Big Ben, though with rather more singing and dancing in the foreground.
The Bollywood awards are an important schmoozing event for anyone involved in an industry whose films sell more tickets yearly – over 3bn – than Hollywood’s productions. Jay Kumar Jain, whose business Astute Systems sells Bollywood ringtones and video clips to mobile phone users, said: “The great thing… is that you get everyone in a single place, willing to talk possibilities.”
Mr Jain was attending a business conference at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, with other business figures expected to make an appearance including Sir Martin Sorrell, chairman of the WPP advertising agency.
The focus was not confined to the film industry however, with British and Indian delegates seeking partners in fields as varied as drug development, legal services and manufacturing.
A large local British Asian community makes appetite for Bollywood films an exploitable asset throughout Britain. India’s emergence as an economic superpower – propelled by trade liberalisation and the emergence of a middle class of some 300m people – means it makes sense for British regions to nurture trade links with India.
The awards meanwhile have sought “to put something back” in a tradition imported from Hollywood. As stars walked up green rather than red carpets in Leeds on Thursday, organisers promised to offset greenhouse gas emissions incurred by flying 600 movie people from Maharashtra to Northern England.
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