Bollywood Film Makes World Premiere In Toronto
Posted January 11, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Toronto has become one of the most important and prestigious stops on the film festival circuit and the city has made movie headlines again with a mainstream Bollywood flick making a world premiere outside of India for the first time.
The hotly-anticipated film “Guru”, starring Aishwarya Rai (pictured), one of the biggest and highest-paid stars in Indian film who’s considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, and her rumoured real-life love Abhishek Bachchan, was screened for the first time at the Elgin Theatre Thursday night.
The landmark premiere put local fans in a frenzy, some shelling out hundreds of dollars for a ticket to the red-carpet event.
“I’m really excited! I’m a great fan,” said Subakar Thayalachelvam, co-owner of the Bollywood DVD Centre in Toronto.
“I’ve actually purchased a ($250) ticket but then I gave it away because I couldn’t go.”
Hundreds of fans packed Yonge Street to catch a glimpse of the two stars, whose flight was unfortunately delayed, but did grace the red carpet in front of the historic theatre.
There were rumours circulating that the couple planned to announce their engagement while in Toronto for the film’s premiere.
Mayor David Miller personally invited Rai and Bachchan after Mississauga-based Roger Nair Productions snagged the Canadian distribution rights.
“… she is amazing. She’s lovely, talented and of course absolutely beautiful,” Miller said of Rai.
And the actress said she was pleased to be in Toronto and was looking forward to meeting the mayor after the screening.
“… he definitely extended a very, very warm welcome to the entire team and looking forward to meeting him later today,” she said.
Rai’s co-star said he wouldn’t have much time to do any sight-seeing, but hopes to return to Toronto in the future.
“We’ve just landed. In fact we’ve almost come straight from the airport,” Bachchan explained. “I’ve been here as a child but unfortunately this trip we don’t have time to see much. Hopefully we get time to come back some other day and see the city properly.”
“Guru”, directed by Mani Ratnam, is a rags-to-riches love story about a man trying to climb the business ladder. It opens across Canada on Friday.
Indian films have drawn huge crowds in Toronto before. The number of fans that turned out to see “Never Say Goodbye” at the last Toronto International Film Festival greatly outnumbered the crowd for the Oscar-touted Brad Pitt/Cate Blanchett flick “Babel”.
“Let’s say the crowds for `Never Say Goodbye’ were probably 10 times the size of the crowds that turned out for Mr. Pitt. So the fact that there’s excitement in the city for a major new movie by a director I consider one of the best working in South Asia is no surprise at all,” festival co-director Noah Cowan said.
“Bride and Prejudice” was Rai’s first English-language film and she’s set to star in a number of Hollywood flicks. She was crowned Miss World in 1994. To learn more about her, click here.
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