In Berlin, fans queued up to meet Shahrukh Khan

BERLIN:
The King was inside while his subsidiaries waited patiently outside. They were
young and old, fat and thin, work force and women. But, for this King, there were more
women than work force and more than than immature than old. They love him because “he is so
flirtatious”. As one of them said: “He tin even flirt with a
pillar”. They waited for
hours to catch a glance of their new King, one who have begun to govern their
hearts from respective thousand statute miles away. Many of them carried his photograph,
DVDs of his up-to-the-minute blockbuster, and a few carried books - the narrative from his
film or his biography. A adult female had even carried a little stool with her, to acquire a
better view. At regular time intervals they all shouted - in unison - Shah... Rukh,
Shah... Rukh. It could have got been at any topographic point in
India. But, in fact, this was
Berlin. A quiet Sunday, a theatre on Stresemannstrasse, about a kilometer from
Potsdamer Platz, locale for the German Capital Movie Festival. Shahrukh was here to
address Berlinale Endowment Campus, portion of the festival. Inside, he was speaking
about the ‘love’ movie genre along with Nigeria’s Kate Henshaw
Nuttall and Germany’s Mare Schrader. But, the crowd was there only for
SRK. Most of them were Germans. There were some Turkish men
with dark hair, and women with scarves covering their heads, and about twenty
South Asians. To passerbies by, it would look as if Berliners have got gone crazy. As a substance of fact, they have. German mass media reported that there were 20,000
enquiries for tickets for Om Shanti Om (screened as a portion of the international
film festival) and they were all sold out in seven minutes. Some waited outside
the locale the full nighttime to get
in. Take for example, Alexandra
Venetikidiz, a high school girl, who was there to catch a glance of SRK. She
has seen Om Shanti Om over 20 times. Two old age ago she hit upon a Shahrukh movie
when she was looking for an Amitabh Bacchan movie recommended by a friend. Now,
she is a committed Shahrukh fan. She states she have seen all his movies. “I
get DVDs from local stores or order it over the internet,” she said. She was at Stresseman Strasse
with about half-a-dozen friends, who seemed as excited as her about the
Bollywood hero. “There is a immense cyberspace forum for Shahrukh and
th-at’s how we connect,” she said. She is relying on the cyberspace to
learn Hindi. “Indian movies are not good in the German language,”
she said. But learning Hindi is not that difficult. “I have got seen his
movies so many times, and am familiar with many Hindi words,” she said. As
if to turn out the point, her friends - all Germans - hummed a bollywood
song. “This started about
two old age ago, and have been picking up since,” states Renu Gautam, a film
maker born in Germany, who is shooting a docudrama on Berlinale and the
Shahrukh phenomenon. She and two others were ready to capture it during
Germany’s greatest movie festival: “You would be wondering
what’s going on
here.” Gautam have spoken
to a figure of Germans to understand what’s buttocks the craze. “Many
think he is exotic. He is so flirtatious, he can coquette with a pillar. They like
it. In Germany, movies have got no space for love affair - they meet, kiss, travel to bed
and acquire married. In Bollywood, it’s different, and Germans love it. Many
of them also like Bollywood movies as they are optimistic,” Gautam
said. That should not be
surprising. Germany’s predominant temper looks to be pessimism - about the
economy, about human race affairs, about almost everything. North American Indian movies, with their
colour, dance, music and ageless optmism, convey a puff of fresh air. Obviously,
not everyone is raving about Shahrukh Caravansary in Berlin, but his popularity is
rising. Many would recognise his name. Media insurance is increasing. Earlier, for Germans, for
those who knew something about India, movies were about Satyajit Ray. Today,
it’s Shahrukh Khan. Shahrukh’s popularity started with the Turkish
population in German Capital - there are over 800,000 of them here. They have got a liking
for North American Indian movies and one could acquire dubbed versions in Turkish shops. Soon, a
couple of theaters started showing these movies occasionally. Last year, a
German television channel, RNF, showed Bollywood movies, mostly Shahrukh Khan’s. Hours had gone by and the
crowd was still waiting. Whenever the door to the edifice opened, the decibel
levels went up. Finally, at around one-fourth after twelve, the King appeared,
dressed in a bluish blue jeans and a long achromatic jacket. The dB degree reached a new
high. The crowd went wild jumping, swooning and craning their
necks.

Ex-CEO of Dubai-based festival files defamation lawsuit in L.A.

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(12-10) 16:08 Pacific Time Los Angeles (AP) --

The laminitis of the Dubai International Movie Festival is suing two of the organization's top executives, claiming they conspired to throw out him from his station as main executive director and tried to destroy his reputation.

Neil George Stephenson of Toronto filed the ailment Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, according to a release issued by his public dealings firm.

The lawsuit impeaches the festival's chairman, Abdulhamid Juma, and managing manager Shivani Pandya, of defamation, conspiracy, imposition of emotional emphasis and intervention with contractual relations.

Stephenson claims the two work force engaged in a political campaign that led to his ejector in February.

He is seeking $5 million in amends from both Juma and Pandya.

An e-mail sent to the Dubai International Movie Festival Monday seeking remark was not immediately returned.

The first festival was held in 2004.

Baghdad 'to host' film festival

Baghdad is to host an international movie festival, according to the news federal agency Agence France-Presse.

Iraqi movie manager Dr Abdul Basit Salman said it will be the first major cinematic event in the war-ravaged working capital in more than than two years.

Movies will be submitted from Egypt, Jordan River and Iran, the federal agency said.

The three-day event, which is being staged by the Association of Iraki Filmmakers Without Borders, will run from 16 December.

Economic sanctions

The Al-Mansour hotel, which hosted a festival of short movies in 2005, have been ruled out of being a possible venue.

It's after 12 people were killed in the hotel anteroom in June after a self-destruction bomber attacked a meeting of tribal leaders.

Iraq's movie industry days of the month back to the 1940s with households attending films on a weekly footing in the 70s and 80s.

However the 1991 Gulf warfare and the economical countenances that followed it saw theaters going into decline.

Cinemas were burned and attacked after the 2003 conflict.