FilmASIA - Tere Ishq Mere Pyaar

We had a blast on Saturday driving to Graz for the Bollywood Special at the FilmASIA Film Festival in Graz, Austria.
Two Cars. Six Seven Girls. A Hostel with bunk beds. Fantastic weather. Three BW Films. Babsy´s Film Premiere. Party.
That was the plan.
Arriving with a half hour delay *winks at Babsy* we got into our first film when the credits where already rolling. Three of us went to LRM (me of course being one of them), the rest chose Don (the new one). The Don screening had some technical problems so the three of us slipped into the cinema after LRM to get the last 30 minutes of Don too (and resisted the urge to burst in and shout: " That´s not Vijay, thats Don! He killed Vijay!") after that we had a 2 minutes cigarette and loo break and went on with Kabul Express ( I was extremely curious how that one would look on the big screen - fantastic!)
Then we fast approached our highlight of the day. The "special event" part. First a short reading from the book "Spiegelbilder" by Dorothea Nürnberg, a fiction novel with 3 stories that interweave different life stories with Bollywood film plots. And then after a short interview with maker and heroine -

the World Premiere of Tere Ishq Mere Pyaar.

Our very own Babsy Artner, professional actress and Bollywood fan, came up with the idea of shooting her own small Bollywood film late last year . If you´re aquainted with Babsy you know that she is very dedicated. Once she has a plan, she follows through with it. So without any budget armed only with her ideas and the help of friends and some film professionals (kamera, makeup) she wrote, directed, edited and of course acted in her 12 minutes short. And finished all in less then 2 months time.

TIMP is the very bollywood-ish story of Aish. Aish is in love. With Hiro Hero, a friend of her rather strict brother. One day at a party it gets very obvious that Hiro Hero and Aish have something serious going on...evidence? A song-sequence of Aish dancing and Hiro Hero running.














Uh-oh. Back from the dreamworld at the party, the looks the love-birds send each other are way too obvious. Bhai bahut naraz hoon and drags Aish rather unfriendly from the room. Poor ladki. No other option then to break away from her brother´s grip and run to the park-like garden of the NRI´s mansion and cry her eyes out. But wait. Not all is lost. Look who´s running too. In her direction even. Hiro Hero. Leaving all family-bonds and demands behind. The lovers unite. Happy End.

Oh, I had a blast watching it. Yes sure, it is no high gloss production. But then Babsy is a professional actress and neither a director nor has she ever before edited a movie. So no technical marking allowed from my side. What counts is that it is filled to the brink with all those BW clichés we so love. Babsy is endearing. And beautiful. The story is short. The song is long. The emotions run high. There was a lot of hollering and applause in the end (far not all from our side), and I really hope you all get a chance to see the first all Austrian Bollywood production one day too. Verdict: Shabash beti, shabash.

A great premiere demands a great premiere party. But before that there was one more point on the program....

Stay tuned.