Shoddy Treatment’ For Local Artistes At IIFA

Local artistes are frustrated and angry over the way they had been treated by the organizers of IIFA. Several of them have complained that they were "hurt" and "angry" at the way the organizers had treated members of the Sri Lankan Film and Art industry giving top priority to the Indian artistes. The government of Sri Lanka spent nearly Rs.700 million for the Indian festival and it had been claimed by the government that the money spent was to revive local cinema. Another intention was to attract tourists to Sri Lanka.

However, organizers of the festival as well as Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) completely ignored local artistes. Even the invitations were sent out to the local artistes in an insulting manner and only at the last minute they had been told by the SLTDA to call over at the board office to collect their invitations.

Several local artistes who had gone to Sugathadasa Stadium without invitations had not been allowed to enter and they had not been able to buy tickets either. Several artistes speaking to ‘Lankatruth’ said they were frustrated of the whole episode.

Sri Lanka’s cinema queen Malini Fonseka, ranked one of Asia's 25 best actors ever in a CNN survey, was given a seat in the back row. Several artistes, who preferred to remain anonymous, speaking to ‘Lankatruth’ said at least Malini should have been given a front seat as none of the Indian artistes could boast of the position she enjoys as a superb actress. As such, many local artistes did not participate at the IIFA festival and they say Sri Lanka did not gain anything by having the festival here.   

Indian icons like Amitabh Bachchan, mega-stars like Shahrukh Khan, Abishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Amir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Oscar-winning music director A.R. Rahman did not attend the festival.