What India’s Screen Stars love about Melbourne

The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) invigorates Melbourne each August, bringing together the biggest and boldest voices in South Asian cinema to meet local fans and industry.      

Alongside hosting Bollywood celebrities such as Aamir Khan and Abhishek Bachchan, this year’s event also celebrated the multitude of languages in the subcontinent, featuring 75 films in over 30 languages, providing a platform for the craft of independent filmmaking and diversity in South Asian storytelling.  

Though some of the festival guests had visited Melbourne before and indulged in its splendour, for others, this was their first trip, with IFFM being a vital conduit for engaging local audiences with their film. As a major supporter of the festival, we managed to chat to some of the guests during their busy festival schedule to hear about their impressions of Melbourne and Australia.

VicScreen: IFFM Awards Night 2025

A WALKABLE CITY  

Comedian Vir Das has been to Australia before. With a few Netflix comedy specials under his belt, he is renowned for being one of the few Indian stand-up comedians who performs his sets in English. His show at the Sydney Opera House last year helped shape his impression of the country. 

“It’s kind of like New York with emotionally stronger people. You enjoy a good joke; you make fun of yourselves. Very dry, self-deprecating humour, which I appreciate a lot,” says Das.  

“I like a walking city; I’m a Mumbai person. I strongly prefer Melbourne [because of that].” 

Das reflects on how comedians are rarely found at film festivals, and he relished the opportunity to be here in Melbourne: to hang out with filmmakers and see movies, which he rarely gets to do. His growing popularity enabled him to tour 32 countries last year, finding a strong contingent of Australian fans.  

“The lovely thing with Netflix is that it’s really a global platform in that sense. I think streaming platforms and YouTube play a big part [in this],” Das shares. 

“I suspect cinema has a stronger reach, especially in terms of putting a culture out there. The elements of cinema will carry you further than a comedian whose voice you’re perhaps invested in or not. Story really tracks much further than jokes, I believe,” he asserts. 

A PLACE FOR INDIA’S SCREEN INDUSTRY TO CONNECT 

For filmmaker, director and producer Shoojit Sircar, this year was his sixth visit to Melbourne as a festival guest of IFFM and he appreciates the recognition and accolades this has afforded him here in Australia. He’s also on board to be a director mentor for the next iteration of the anthology film My Melbourne, which was a VicScreen supported project. 

The I Want to Talk director has made several trips to Melbourne and now both his daughters are studying at RMIT. 

“My personal experience has been very good. There’s a lot of mutual respect. It’s quite a peaceful city. Generally buzzing. I’ve met a lot of Australians, and I find them very well-behaved. I love trams, and of course the food,” he says jokingly. 

The festival’s profile continues to grow internationally. As the largest celebration of Indian cinema in the southern hemisphere, IFFM captured headlines in major papers in India, building the Indian film industry’s anticipation around the event due to its curation of outstanding cinema. 
 
“The excitement is we come out from our film industry and come here like a family. So, these days in the festival is like ganging up together outside India, where we never get a chance to meet. Here, we all just talk whatever we want. It’s nice,” says Sircar. 

A GROWING MARKET FOR INDIAN CINEMA 

It was Vipin Radhakrishnan’s — the director of Tamil-language film Angammal — first time in Australia. He was riding on the high of winning the Best Film accolade at the film’s world premiere at the Indian Film Festival of New York and IFFM became the film’s Australian premiere. When asked what he knew about Melbourne, he responded quickly “MCG!”. His earliest memory of the city was waking up at 4am in his teens to watch test matches held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, as well as notable mentions in cinema. 

“I think about Indian with Kamal Haasan. I remember watching it in theatres, and even the song had [mentioned] Melbourne in it!” says Radhakrishnan. 

The opportunity to connect with non-Tamil-speakers, the broader Indian diaspora as well as general Australian film audiences is what excited him about attending the festival. 

“We did it in New York and now it’s at the other end of the world. We are actually planning for a theatrical release. Hopefully we can get a distributor in Australia also,” he says. 

Actress Aditi Rao Hydari expressed excitement for her first trip to Australia, landing on a rare sunny day in the thick of Melbourne winter.  

“The weather is incredible. It is also very beautiful. I’m just so happy to be here and celebrate Indian cinema,” she gushes.

Her role as Bibbojaan, a courtesan in Netflix series Heeramandi, garnered attention due to her iconic walk in a pivotal dance number, becoming an internet sensation. She won the Diversity in Cinema Award at IFFM’s Awards Night for the spectrum of Indian-language films she’s starred in including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, as well as the type of characters she’s played. She applauds Melbourne audiences for supporting screen content from India. 

“It just goes to show that when you get the platform, content really reaches [people]. Stories are really about making people feel things, and I think feelings are really universal. When a director really wants to tell a story, it reaches out to people regardless of language, culture or anything,” says Hydari. 

She comments on her first impressions of Melburnians. 

“It feels very welcoming. There’s a lot of diversity; it’s very cosmopolitan. You see so many different faces, so many different people; that in itself feels quite lovely,” Hydari says. 

IFFM continues to provide a vital connection between Victoria and India, bringing together audiences and industry through the power of screen.