From Sydney With Love Need for song and dance ... Prateek Chakravorty, left in this promotional picture, has fond memories of his student days in Sydney saying the racial violence ''was about people being in the wrong place at the wrong time''.
IN 2009, Prateek Chakravorty was shocked by reports of racist violence against Indian students in Australia. As a former UTS student, the budding Indian filmmaker thought the hysteria in his homeland was unwarranted.
Australia is perfectly safe for Indian students, he thought. And so instead of reaching for a placard, he reached for his camera and hit back in true Bollywood style, with song, dance and feel-good romance.
''This film is about the perspective of an Indian student going overseas,'' says Chakravorty of From Sydney With Love, the feature film he wrote, directed and stars in.
''It's an Indian family comedy based in Sydney. I studied at UTS, and for me the experience was very good, so I made a film about it. What happened with the violence was about people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was blown out of all proportion.''