Abhishek Bachchan, Tamannaah Bhatia, & Taapsee Pannu flag off Indian Film Festival of Melbourne

The 13th edition of the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne was flagged off by Bollywood stars today morning in Melbourne, Australia. 

The festival is being held on-ground after a two-year gap with the physical festival starting today and concluding on August 20. Present at the official launch were Abhishek Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Vaani Kapoor, Tamannaah Bhatia, Shefali Shah, singer Sona Mohapatra and filmmakers Anurag Kashyap, Kabir Khan, Aparna Sen, Nikkhil Advani and Shoojit Sircar.

The celebrities took to the podium to announce this year's programming schedule, with Taapsee Pannu-Anurag Kashyap’s Dobaaraa being the opening night film.

Talking about the festival, Abhishek Bachchan said, “I’m finally here in Melbourne and I’m absolutely loving it. I’m looking forward to watch Dobaaraa. My almost entire family has represented India here and I’m very proud of it. I’m looking forward to being part of all the celebrations and I thank the government and Mitu to have me here. It feels great to be given the Leadership in Cinema award”.

Tamannaah Bhatia commented on the South vs Hindi films debate at the festival. She said, “I think this conversation is only unique to India, whenever I travel abroad I never hear people distinguish, they simply call it Indian cinema. And such is the case even here at IFFM. I think what the audiences want is to see pan India films and more of such content is being made and being admired by all."