by Alex Deleon  for<filmfestivals.com>   Amitabh Bachchan accepting the key to the city of Florence as Selvaggia Velo looks on. PHOTO: BY FRANCESCA MANOLINO  

The appearance of 70 year old Indian Megastar Amitabh Bachchan at the River to River Festival of Indian Film in Florence gave rise to a feverish outpouring of adulation from local Indians while serving as an unoffical certification for this festival as the foremost showcase of Indian film in the West. In Ind...

by Alex Farba-Deleon     The dean of Indian film directors, Yash Chopra, passed away on October 21 at the age of eighty. Yash Chopra was not just another Bollywood director --he was one of the world's top craftsman of the seventh art although he always crafted his films to suit the taste of the Indian audience, which is the main reason he remains practically unknown in the West.   In Asia where Bollywood films are far better known than here Chopra was honored ...

As an indication of the ever increasing outreach of Bollywood, one of the most famous practitioners and directors of this special Indian brand of film, Yash Chopra, 76, will be honored at the upcoming 14th annual Pusan IFF in South Korea, where he will  be named "Asian filmaker of the year".  An Asian (Indian) cinema night will be held in Chopra's honor. Since his directorial debut in 1959 with a film called "Dhool ka Phool" (Blossoms in the dust) Chopra has dir...

As an indication of the ever increasing outreach of Bollywood, one of the most famous practitioners and directors of this special Indian brand of film, Yash Chopra, 76, will be honored at the upcoming 14th annual Pusan IFF in South Korea, where he will be named "Asian filmaker of the year". An Asian (Indian) cinema night will be held in Chopra's honor. Since his directorial debut in 1959 with a film called "Dhool ka Phool" (Blossoms in the dust) Chopra has directed a total of 21 features, whic...