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LEEDS, England: A film awards festival known as the Bollywood Oscars gets into full swing in Britain Thursday with the world premiere of "The Train," starring pinup actor Emraan Hashmi and former Miss India Sayali Bhagat.
The International Indian Film Academy Awards (IIFAs), which run to June 10 are taking place in Yorkshire, northern England and will likely be watched on television by some 500 million people around the world.
"The Train" is a thriller shot in Bangkok about a bored husband who has an affair with a woman he meets on a train.
By securing the prestigious premiere slot, it is following in the footsteps of movies including "Lagaan" in 2001, the last Bollywood work to be nominated for the best foreign language film Academy Award.
Elsewhere at the festival, veteran star Dharmendra and his sons Sunny and Bobby Deol will Thursday be promoting their first ever film together, the family drama "Apne."
The climax to the event is Saturday when the awards ceremony itself takes place in a massive arena in the city of Sheffield.
Other superstars in attendance include Amitabh Bachchan, his son Abhishek Bachchan and daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai plus Salman Khan and Shilpa Shetty, a household name in Britain after this year's reality TV race row.
Bachchan senior, nicknamed "the Big B," was voted biggest star of the millennium in an online poll conducted by the BBC in 1999 for a dazzling career which dates back to the 1970s.
But it is thought that Shah Rukh Khan, dubbed "King Khan," will not attend, amid reports of a rumbling row with the Bachchans, despite being scheduled to appear in London Thursday for a charity auction.
The IIFAs are held abroad to raise the profile of Hindi film internationally. Previous venues have included Amsterdam and Dubai.
The choice of the county of Yorkshire, an area built on heavy industry such as mining, to host the event has raised some eyebrows, but there are several reasons why the IIFAs have come to the relatively unglamorous location.
Yorkshire has the third highest population of Asians and British Asians in Britain - according to the 2001 census, some 200,000 of the group's overall population of 2.3 million live in the area.
In addition, Britain's tourist board has recently launched a drive to attract more visitors from India and wants to associate itself more closely with Bollywood movies.
Britain is now the second-biggest market for Bollywood films in the world - in 2005, the British and Irish box office take was 12.4 million pounds (18.2 million euros, US$24.7 million).
The event also allows the Bollywood film industry to reach out to a wider audience - despite the fevered interest in India, its international success has been modest.
Estimated global revenues for 2002 were one percent of Hollywood's and only three Bollywood films have ever been shortlisted for best foreign language film at the Academy Awards - "Lagaan," "Salaam Bombay!" (1988) and "Mother India" (1957).
In February, leading actor-director Naseeruddin Shah told BBC radio that Bollywood films did not match the quality of those from other countries such as Iran, Korea or Mexico.
"These countries are producing the most incredible movies and we are still plodding on with our boy-meets-girl, safe, old formula," he said.
"That is the reason I think our films aren't taken seriously."
- AFP/yy
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