Need
for song and dance ... Prateek Chakravorty, left in this promotional picture,
has fond memories of his student days in Sydney saying the racial violence
''was about people being in the wrong place at the wrong time''.
Sacha Molitorisz, The Sydney Morning Herald, reports
In 2009, Prateek Chakravorty was shocked by reports of racist
violence against Indian students in Australia. As a former UTS student, the
budding Indian filmmaker thought the hysteria in his homeland was unwarranted.
Australia is perfectly safe for Indian students, he thought. And
so instead of reaching for a placard, he reached for his camera and hit back in
true Bollywood style, with song, dance and feel-good romance.
''This film is about the perspective of an Indian student going
overseas,'' says Chakravorty of From
Sydney With Love, the feature film he wrote, directed and stars in.
''It's an Indian family comedy based in Sydney. I studied at UTS,
and for me the experience was very good, so I made a film about it. What
happened with the violence was about people being in the wrong place at the
wrong time. It was blown out of all proportion.''
After China, India sends the most students to Australia. But
recently, reports the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of Indian
student visa applications has halved, from more than 60,000 in 2008-09 to less
than 30,000 in 2010-11.
Chakravorty hopes to help those figures rebound.
From Sydney With Love is a comedy about Meghaa
Banerjee, who travels from West Bengal to UNSW after winning a scholarship.
After a sheltered upbringing in a small town, she has her eyes opened by
Australia, and by some new Indian friends.
Seventy per cent of the film was shot in Australia. Locations
include Bondi Beach and UNSW, where From
Sydney With Love has its world premiere tonight. It will then be
released on nearly 900 screens in India, says Chakravorty. In contrast,
Australian comedy Not
Suitable For Children recently opened on 42 screens. ''It is quite
a big budget movie by Bollywood standards,'' Chakravorty says.
Bollywood, which produces 800 films per year, is twice the size of
Hollywood. Each day, 14 million Indians go to the movies.
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