Miss Universe Stefania Fernandez in India

Miss Universe Stefania Fernandez will visit India for a six-city AIDS and female feticide wakefulness tour in June - courtesy fashion designer Sanjana Jon.

Jon's company IG International that deals in celebrity charitable trust events has been bringing a number of former Miss Universe to India for AIDS alertness promotional campaigns.

This year, "Miss Universe 2009 - Stefania Fernandez and Sanjana Jon Aids Awareness Tour 2010” will start on June 25 and continue till July 5.

"This is not the first time. From 2004-2006, we had bought all the reigning Miss Universe to India for a charitable cause and this year too we are doing the same. During the tour, we will be going to various hospitals and orphanages to visit AIDS affected patients,” Jon, who is the founder and president of IG International, told IANS.

"We would be visiting various centres to meet the abandoned girl child. Also, there will be a public testing forum where Stefania will encourage people to take AIDS test,” she added.

Jon also revealed that she would like to have as many celebrities on board to support the “Save The Girl Child” campaign. During the tour there will be a fashion show where a number of Bollywood celebrities were expected to turn up, she said.

"I feel that when a celebrity talks about a cause or supports it, people do listen... that is why having celebrities to support this tour is justified,” said Jon.

source:bollywoodmantra.com,hindustantimes.com

Kutch nahi dekha, to kuch nahi dekha : Amitabh Bachchan

 “It was still dark as we steadily made our way through barren roads. The police pilot GP flashing its orange rotator light ahead and behind, more security — we are just a ‘rann’ away from the Pak region! Moon was out shining at 6 in the morning and the entire region looked strange. There is amazing strange about oblivion. That is what one felt as one strutted about on the salt-laden muddy terrain, the wind so harsh even the vanity van shook and quivered.”

The stark landscape of Kutch desert seems to have brought Amitabh Bachchan’s poetic genes to the fore. He found time to update his blog while shooting the Gujarat tourism film with these words, showing that something of his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s sharp eye was alive in him. “We are really just 60 kilometres away from the border... and it can be seen across the Rann!” he wrote. Bachchan’s signature dialogue for the Kutch shoot is, “Kutch nahi dekha, to kuch nahi dekha.” And he seems to believe it too.

The poet returned as he recounted an interesting incident: “The script flew away from my hands as I was reading it and a couple of unit hands sillily ran after it as it bounced away at rapid speed. It was a strange sight. A white stark bunch of papers flying off ahead chased by a couple of unit hands, until they became a tiny spot in the horizon and still nowhere near catching up with the sheet of paper.”

“Until smart production incharge Mr Kumar did his deed for the day — got on to a bike, readily accessible there as the only machine transport allowed on the Rann and drove off behind paper. We looked at this sight with great amusement and jeered as this chase kept unfolding in front of us, wary of course with the fact that any longer and paper and Kumar would become prized possessions of Pakistan!” Bachchan signs off with these words: “Breathe in the Rann of Kutch! Come breathe in a bit of Gujarat!”

source:timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Hollywood Actresses with Kareena Kapoor in ‘Heroine’

Eva Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe and Vivien Leigh… these are four legendary Hollywood actresses with Bollywood film director Madhur Bhandarkar will use as position points for Kareena Kapoor’s character in forthcoming Hindi movie ‘Heroine‘.

And to make Kareena’s job easier, Bhandarkar has prepared a three-hour documentary on the quartet of Hollywood greats. But unhappily he couldn’t get enough visual material on the classical Indian screen beauties to put into the documentary for Kareena’s situation.

‘When I set out to put together a documentary chronicling the lives of the screen legends I was also in chorus enhancing my own information of them to make Kareena’s character of Mahi Khanna more rounded complete and contemporary,’ Bhandarkar said.

In fact Bhandarkar has just returned from a trip to Singapore where he discovered loads of invaluable footage on Hollywood greats.

‘For example, take Vivien Leigh. Her stormy relationship with Sir Laurence Olivier is so eventful, dramatic, passionate and romantic. Unfortunately there’s no valid and substantial footage on Madhubala or Meena Kumari revealing their relationship with Kishore Kumar and Kamal Amrohi respectively,’ he said.

Bhandarkar was appalled to note the lack of visual or even written records on our screen legends.

‘When a director wants to make a film about an Indian actor or about our movie industry where does he look for references? On the other hand there’s no dearth of material written and filmed on Hollywood’s icons.’

So for want of choice his documentary portrays only Hollywood actresses. But the filmmaker is keen that Kareena refer to Indian actresses too.

But Kareena, who’s shooting with Shah Rukh Khan for ‘Ra.1′, will be able to watch Bhandarkar’s three-hour documentary only when she’s free in September-October.

‘She’s shooting for ‘Ra.1′ and ‘Golmaal 3′. Once she’s done she will watch the documentary repeatedly. I’ve chosen footage that represents Eva Gardner, Liz Taylor and others most tellingly. Her character Mahi Khanna is an actress of today, not of yesteryears,’ the director said.

The shooting of ‘Heroine’ has been pushed to December, so that Kareena will have time to study the documentary put together by Bhandarkar carefully.

The director rules out rehearsals and worskshops to prepare Kareena for the big challenge. The only director who managed to get Kareena on the rehearsal route was Sudhir Mishra for her role in ‘Chameli’.

source:calcuttatube.com