Superstar brings excitement of Bollywood to Belfast Film Festival

One of Bollywood’s biggest superstars is paying his first visit to Ireland to speak at a film festival.

Aamir Khan flew into Belfast this week where he visited a Game Of Thrones set before making his appearance at Belfast Film Festival.

Crowds of Bollywood fans were arriving at the Waterfront Hall hours before his scheduled appearance.

The award-winning director, critically acclaimed actor, producer and television presenter is expected to talk about his career on and off-screen at the event.

Khan’s prolific career covers more than 30 years in film and his popularity reaches across India, China and the West, and he has a staggering 24 million Twitter followers.

His 2016 sports biopic Dangal, showing as part of the festival, is the highest grossing film of all time in Indian cinema.

His appearance comes as the festival kicks off a new five-year Cultural Diversity in Film project.

Festival chairman Mark Cousins said Bollywood may feel far away when you are living in Belfast, but insisted when you love cinema, it is not that far away.

“Aamir Khan, when you think Newsweek called him ‘the biggest movie star of our time’, Time made him one of the top most influential in the world, so he is a megastar,” he said.

“He gets invited everywhere so it is really exciting to have him here and he is here because of our passion for cinema, our determination to plug Belfast into the world, to use cinema to expand our horizons and also to connect with other cultures through this fantastic language of the movies.

“Belfast is a transitioning city, we have new populations, we need to welcome them and we need to share their cultural richness.

“We took Aamir today to one of the sets of Game Of Thrones, and he immediately got it, we are making big budget entertainment here, but he does that all the time.

“Bollywood feels very far away but for those of us who love cinema and are in cinema, it is not.”