Bollywood superstars dazzle at India film awards

– ‘Watch this film’ –

But if there were few non-South Asians in sight Saturday, Bollywood heroes walking the green carpet welcomed the ceremony as a chance to further the industry internationally.

“Many others get exposed to this, that way we will seduce more hearts for Indian films,” said Bollywood actor Gulshan Grover.

Sonu Sood, who stars in action-adventure flick “Kung Fu Yoga” with Jackie Chan, said “all the actors are coming to Bollywood to do Indian movies and all the Indian Bollywood actors are going international.”

“So I think it’s a huge change and hopefully one day we’ll have one single industry,” Sood added.

IIFA selected gender equality as its cause of the year, despite a film industry often criticized for depicting women as meek and subjecting characters to aggressive methods of wooing by dominant male leads.

“Pink” not only won the best director award but also saw actress Taapsee Pannu, win the IIFA woman of the year award.

“The entire world should watch this film,” said director Chowdhury.

India’s treatment of women shot to the international spotlight in late 2012 when the fatal gang rape of a young student in the capital New Delhi sparked outrage over sexual abuse and gender inequality.