Entertainment: Lipstick Under My Burkha to open Melbourne Fest

The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2017 has selected Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha as its opening film. The film, starring Ratna Pathak Shah and Konkana Sen Sharma among others, was in the news after CBFC objected for it being “lady-oriented”.

“It is a great honour that Lipstick Under My Burkha will be opening the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. While the film has travelled to many parts of the world, it will be screened in Australia for the first time. I am really looking forward to the reaction of the Australian audience,” said Alankrita.

The trailer of the film was released after winning the battles with the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). Ekta Kapoor has said she does not have any issue with the board as it reflects the mentality of the society. We will trivialise this issue if we make it about CBFC. It's a larger issue.

The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2017 also tweeted about the film.

Diversity will be the central theme of IIFM, the fest will screen 60 films in 20 languages. Bollywood actor Vidya Balan is the ambassador of the festival, which is to be held from August 10-22.

A Billion Colour Story wins award at UK festival

A Billion Colour Story, a new film by Satish Kaushik bagged the top prize at the annual London Indian Film Festival (LIFF). the film won Audience Award at the festival on Friday. The film has a heart-warming tale and a powerful plea for Hindu-Muslim unity and religious harmony,

“It's incredibly special for us that A Billion Colour Story resonates with audiences across countries and continents. It continues to vindicate our faith that people and their hearts are the same across cultures and horizons,” said the filmmakers.

Fimmaker Satish Kaushik also tweeted about the success of his film.

Other special awards presented by the festival, now in its eighth year and backed by the Bagri Foundation, included three Sunmark ICON Awards for South Asian directors who have made a global contribution to cinema Adoor Gopalakrishnan from Kerala, Ashutosh Gowariker from Mumbai and documentary filmmaker Pratibha Parmar from London. LIFF's annual Satyajit Ray Short Film Award went to the film Papa, directed by Siddharth Chauhan.

The festival this year coincides with the UK India Year of Culture celebrations in London and plugs into the British Film Institute's (BFI) ongoing “India on Film” series.

“India has one of the world's richest and most prolific film industries. Throughout 2017, we celebrate the diversity of Indian filmmaking and films about India, from Bollywood to Tollywood (home of Telugu and Bengali cinema) in cinemas and online,”said Robin Baker, BFI Head Curator.

The film is produced by Bollywood filmmaker Satish Kaushik and directed by Padmakumar Narasimhamurthy

Parineeti is not doing Vikas’s next

Actress Parineeti Chopra has denied that she would be teaming up with "Queen" director Vikas Bahl in his upcoming film.

Recently, the actress was photographed along with the filmmaker in suburban Bandra, leading many to speculate that she would co-star in his next, which reportedly features Hrithik Roshan.

Asked about the film, Parineeti said, “It's not true. Nowadays whenever we meet in Bandra for lunch, people think we will come out only after signing the film. But it doesn’t work like that. I just went to meet Vikas for some other work. But I believe he is starting his film and I wish him all the best.”

There were also reports that the 28-year-old actress would be a part of the sequel to Akshay Kumar-Katrina Kaif starrer Namastey London.

To which she said, “I am going to announce my next film next week. Apart from Golmaal 4, that's the one film I am doing.”

The actress, meanwhile, is currently shooting for Golmaal 4. The film features Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Kunal Khemu and Shreyas Talpade.

With inputs from PTI