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Around four years ago I attended the closing ceremony of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games with my wife, Rosemary.

It was a really memorable evening and like millions of people watching all around the world, Rosemary and I were captivated by the magic of the Bollywood song and dance spectacular.

It was an exciting, highly charged performance and featured such Bollywood stars as Rani Mukherjee, Saif Ali Khan and Aishwarya Rai.

It was a great example of the energy, passion, creativity and style of Bollywood - and I have been an unabashed fan of Bollywood productions ever since.

That’s why I was thrilled to be at the opening of our Indian Film Festival – Bollywood and Beyond – last month and to be able to welcome Rani Mukherjee back to Melbourne. 

Rani was here to promote Bollywood to a growing numbers of Victorians who love its cinema.

I spoke at length to Rani at the Bollywood launch and she told me how delighted she was to be back in Melbourne with her parents and how much they just loved our city.

The Indian Film Festival is a wonderful event and its success is a clear sign that I am not the only Victorian to be bowled over by Bollywood. But what I am particularly pleased about is the fact that Bollywood has also been bowled over by Victoria. 

The Indian film industry’s discovery of Victoria as a great place to make films says a lot about our state-of-the-art production facilities and unique mix of locations. It also tells me that our State is a place where world class filmmakers can get things done.

For example, the legendary Yash Raj Films has shot two movies in Victoria – Salaam Namaste in 2005 and Chak de India in 2007. Both these films enjoyed great success at the box office.

And last year we saw the premiere of  Main Aur Mrs Khanna, which features Victorian icons such as Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, Melbourne Observation Deck, Bourke Street Mall and St Kilda beach.The fascination with Melbourne is continuing.

Last month, Bollywood superstars Geneila De Souza and Ram Cherain arrived here to film the biggest Indian film to be set in Australia. Orange is a good old fashioned love story filmed in some of our most recognisable locations – like Southbank, Docklands and the West Gate Bridge.

It promises to be an absolute blockbuster when it is released in 2011. There is no better way of showcasing our State to the world than through the world’s largest film industry. These images of Victoria will reach hundreds of millions of people and is the kind of marketing that money simply can’t buy.

So, as you can see, our passion for Bollywood and Indian culture is being reciprocated.

I said at the opening of the Indian Film Festival that I hadn’t seen so much colour and movement at Federation Square since the Diwali celebrations in October!
 
Our Indian community certainly knows how to brighten things up and it is my hope that the sight of Indian dance troupes in full costume filming major Bollywood dance sequences in and around Melbourne will become more and more of a familiar sight to the people of our great city in the years to come.