Bollywood Called to Arms

SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 2014 Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu poses on the green carpet at the Tampa Convention Bollywood actress Vaani Kapoor poses on the green carpet at the Tampa Convention Center ahead of IIFA Rocks on the second day of the 15th International Indian Film Center ahead of IIFA Rocks on the second day of the 15th International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards in Tampa, Florida on April 24, 2014. — AFP photos Academy (IIFA) Awards in Tampa, Florida. Bollywood called to arms against climate change ollywood’s glitterati on Thursday heard an living species of the world, face,” he told including a forum with Indian investors. Mayor Bob Buckhorn voiced hope that appeal to use their star power to fight cli- Bollywood celebrities assembled in a heavily air Tampa would become a household name for Bmate change as they opened their first conditioned hotel ballroom. Pachauri, chairman Two-way exchange Bollywood lovers and an Indian investment des- awards ceremony in the United States. Bringing of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate The award organizers each year choose a site tination. He insisted that his city-which has his- a somber note in the midst of Bollywood’s trade- Change, which recently issued its latest stark outside India in hopes of showing Bollywood’s toric roots in the American South-has embraced mark festive dancing, Rajendra Pachauri, the warning, said that average sea levels have risen global clout, but had never before held the the awards and Indian culture. “When I walk Indian scientist who leads the Nobel Prize-win- 19 centimeters (seven and a half inches) over event in the United States, even though the down the street and hear somebody with an ning UN climate panel, took the stage in Tampa, the past century and could rise as high as 98 country has become Indian cinema’s largest Alabama accent say ‘namaskar,’ I know we’ve Florida, to urge stars to channel their influence centimeters by the end of the century without overseas market. Priyanka Chopra, a leading come a mighty long way,” said Buckhorn, fold- for the planet. “We are all residents of spaceship action. Pachauri said that he spoke before the Bollywood actress and former Miss World, said ing his hands in a traditional Bollywood greet- Earth and anything we do-anything that hap- Bollywood ceremony to Florida Governor Rick that the awards were an opportunity to show ing. Then, in what would be an apt ending to a pens on that spaceship-has implications for Scott, a Republican who has expressed doubt the United States “what a celebration our cul- Bollywood film, Buckhorn-a former university everybody else,” said Pachauri, who was invited about the science on climate change, and told ture is, what a celebration our cinema is, how lacrosse player who would not be easily mistak- to Bollywood’s annual awards extravaganza as a him that the coastal state was “particularly vul- our cinema transcends borders.” Tampa, which en for an Indian celebrity-took to the stage and special guest. nerable.” The International Indian Film Academy has a history of holding major events, pushed to strutted his best moves alongside superstar Anil “What I would like to urge all the stars who awards will take place Saturday at the 66,000- bring the Bollywood awards, whose organizers Kapoor. “Now my political career is over. Maybe I are here is to see that they associate themselves capacity stadium of American football’s Tampa threw a dance party in a park on Wednesday can run for office in Mumbai,” Buckhorn with the larger problems that humanity, and all Bay Buccaneers after several days of events evening in hopes of reaching out to the public. quipped.— AFP Dancing priest Ejiofor connects to Nigerian brings #2popesaints to Internet flock roots with civil war film or Oscar-nominated British actor 1967-1970 Biafra War, which began after priest dances in a famous piazza in Rome surrounded Chiwetel Ejiofor, starring in a film the eastern region tried to secede from by four gyrating parishioners. Tourists stare and Fabout Nigeria’s civil war was “incredi- newly independent Nigeria. Adozens of children on a school trip from France start to bly personal”, as the conflict both affected “The Biafra War was a seminal part of twist and turn to the music. The scene is for a video in a social close relatives and determined the country my upbringing and my family history,” said media campaign for the canonisation of John Paul II and John where he was born. His own grandfather Ejiofor, 36, the first black actor from Britain XXIII on Sunday that is breaking new ground for the Vatican’s had lived through the nightmare played nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. “In fact, I use of the Internet. The #2popesaints project is led by Father out in “Half of a Yellow Sun” and spent long would say that the Biafra War was the rea- Stefano Cascio, a charismatic priest from the Vicariate of hours years later recounting the painful son I was born in London and not in memories to Ejiofor. Set to premiere in Nigeria,” he told journalists in Lagos earlier Rome who has enrolled marketing students and creative Nigeria on Friday, the country’s censorship this month. His parents, natives of eastern parishioners as volunteers. A previous video with Cascio and board has now postponed the release. Nigeria, left the country after the horrific devotees from his parish including local barmen and dancing Board spokesman Caesar Kagho told conflict that killed more than one million nuns jiving to Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” went viral, garner- AFP there were “regulatory issues” but that people, including many from starvation. ing 84,000 views on YouTube. the film had not been “officially banned” The war was a regular family discussion “We wanted to talk to young people aged 15 to 30 about and further details would be issued later. topic throughout his upbringing in these two popes that they don’t know very well or even at While the actor won his Academy Award London, but Ejiofor said he acquired a fuller Oscar-nominee British actor Chiwetel all,” Cascio told AFP at the Vicariate in a palazzo in the city nomination for “12 Years a Slave”, 2014’s understanding of the conflict during a visit centre, where he works in the department for social commu- Best Picture winner, he said he felt particu- to Nigeria six years ago. Ejiofor nications. “The Church is already active on social media but lar “connective tissue” with the lead charac- At independence from Britain in 1960, by the Igbo people. In 1967, Igbo leaders the novelty is a communication campaign by young people ter in the Nigerian war film. The movie-now Nigeria was divided into three geopolitical declared independence after claiming that for young people.” The Vatican has a presence on Facebook showing in Britain and Australia and open- zones: the north, dominated the mainly their tribesman living in the north were and Twitter but #2popesaints goes further to Instagram and ing soon in the US and other countries-is Muslim Hausa tribe, and two predominant- being massacred by Hausas. They charged Google+ and has a more interactive feel, asking users to post based on the best-selling novel by ly Christian regions, the west where the the federal government with failing to pro- their own material. —AFP Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about the Yoruba were the majority and the east, led vide protection. —AFP.

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