Oz Fest to bring Australian artistes, cricketers to city

From October to January, Mumbai will host a series of Australian gigs, film screenings, art exhibitions and cultural events as part of Oz Fest, a festival aimed at promoting trade and diplomatic ties between India and Australia.

From October to January, Mumbai will host a series of Australian gigs, film screenings, art exhibitions and cultural events as part of Oz Fest, a festival aimed at promoting trade and diplomatic ties between India and Australia.

HT Image

The festival, which will feature a total of 100 events across 18 Indian cities, has been

organised by the Australian government.

While Oz Fest will begin in Delhi on October 16 with a concert featuring Indian and Australian artistes, the Mumbai events will start on October 21 with a screening of Save Your Legs!, a film about Australian cricketers touring India. The film will be screened at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Marine Drive, as part of the Mumbai International Film Festival.

Oz Fest is a part of the sixth edition of the ongoing OzAsia Festival in Australia, which celebrates Asian culture and focuses on a different Asian country every year. This year, India is its focus.

“There is a lot happening between India and Australia on the trade and investment front, and if the two countries are to create strategic partnerships, we need sustainable points of connection at the people-to-people level,” said Peter Varghese, the Australian high commissioner to India, at a press conference announcing the festival on Thursday.

Among the events on the festival calendar is Fearless Nadia, a film screening-cum-musical celebrating the life of Nadia, an Australian-born Bollywood star of the 1930s and ’40s. The show will be staged at Liberty Cinema in November.

Australian bands such as The Aussie BBQ and Deep Blue Orchestra will also tour the city during the festival, and that country’s cricket team will visit Mumbai and Pune to play matches against local teams.