Amitabh Bachchan honoured with International Screen Icon award at IFFM

Melbourne: Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has been honoured with the International Screen Icon award during the inaugural awards ceremony at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM). At the glitzy inaugural awards ceremony which concluded last night, filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's hit film 'Bhaag Milkh Bhaag', a biopic on legendary athlete Milkha Singh, bagged three awards in the categories of best film, direction and actor awards.

Bachchan, 71, received the Special International Screen Icon Award on behalf of the Victorian government and the festival. Minister of Arts Heidi Victoria announced the award and thanked Bachchan by calling him 'a true legend of Bollywood'.

Hundreds of Australian Indians, locals and high profile dignitaries attended the award function held at the historic Princess Theatre. The awards ceremony was also packed with high octane Bollywood music and dances.

Mehra took the best director and best film awards for 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' while Farhan Akhtar and Irrfan Khan, who were not present at the ceremony, shared the 'Best actor' award for 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' and 'Lunchbox' respectively.

After receiving the honour for 'Bhaag Milkha Bhaag' from Sydney Pakistani Consul general, Mehra said that he was happy to bring the past of Milkha to the world today. Kangana Ranaut was presented the best actress award by the former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu for her hit film
'Queen'.

In the category of People's choice award, 'Dhoom 3' stood as the clear cut winner after being the highest grossing film at the Australian box office. The award was collected by the action film's director Vijay Krishna Acharya and Mindworks media CEO Hassan Waqas Rana.

Rana revealed that 'Dhoom 1 collected over USD 15000 in Australia and 'Dhoom 3' grossed over USD 1.7 million at the box office Down Under.
In the best Indie film award category, Ritesh Batra bagged the award for 'The Lunchbox'.