Toronto to host world premiere of Bollywood's Guru

Guru, a highly anticipated new Bollywood film starringAbhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, will have its world premiere in Toronto next month, a first for the city.

Guru will debut at Toronto's historic Elgin Theatre on Jan. 11, 2007 — a day ahead of its worldwide release, Toronto officials and the film's Canadian distributor, Roger Nair Productions, announced Friday.

Rai, Bachchan and producer Bobby Bedi will be on hand for the premiere, which organizers have billed India's first mainstream international release and the first time Toronto has hosted the world premiere of an Indian film.

Premiere reflects multiculturalism: mayor

The film's premiere "reflects our multicultural city and our connections around the globe. This is great for Toronto and for our film industry," Mayor David Miller said in a statement.

The Indian film industry, known as Bollywood, is considered the most prolific in the world and, each year,is estimated to produce more than 800 movies.

In the past decade, Bollywood films — popular for their song and dance numbers, regardless of theindividual movie's genre— have grown in prominence and developed a devoted following in countries around the world, including in Canada and in the U.K.

This September, organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival screened the recent movie Never Say Goodbye as a gala — the first Bollywood film ever presented as such.

A frenzied, sold-out crowd of more than 500 fans packed a Toronto concert theatre for the screening as well as the subsequent discussion panel featuring director Karan Johar and stars Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan (father of Guru's Abhishek Bachchan).

A rags-to-riches story

Directed by Mani Ratnam, Guru begins in the 1940s and tells the rags-to-riches tale of a young villager (Bachchan) who becomes one of India's most successful businessmen. Rai stars as the successful industrialist's wife.

In addition to its blockbuster stars, the film is highly anticipated by Bollywood fans worldwide because it features a score by award-winning composer A.R. Rahman, whose credits include scoring Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta's elements film trilogy and the two stage musicals Bollywood Dreams and The Lord of the Rings: The Musical.