Melbourne, March 27: Nirav Mehta, best known for his role in Aamir Khan’s Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, has become the first Bollywood actor to be chosen for the leading role in an Australian film.
Australian production company, Sinai Entertainment, has selected the actor to anchor the horror/thriller Conscious, beating out a bevy of Australian talent for the coveted role.
Mehta is ecstatic to be playing Benedict Miller, a neurologist who builds a machine to help him find his wife’s killer, but before he can seek revenge, the machine uncovers something he never expected.
“I do believe we are sitting on the verge of change where a lot of cultures are being accepted. It’s about time more artists collaborated on a global scale, I’m happy to have been given this opportunity and look forward to many more in Australia. Every film industry needs to open up its avenues to the rest of the world. It’s such a delight to share cultures, art, history with others through cinema”, he said.
Mehta is the first Bollywood actor whom Neeta Gosal, CEO of Sinai Entertainment has helped make his Australian film debut.
“It’s a very important initiative. For me personally, it’s about being diverse. Wherever the best talent is, I want to put them in Australian films”, Gosal says. “With movie markets in China, Japan, South Korea, and India exploding, this marks the first and very important step for the Australian film industry and sends a positive message to the rest of the world”.
Conscious begins filming in Brisbane early next month and the movie is scheduled for worldwide release by late 2016.
Sinai Entertainment, chaired by Neeta Gosal, is a film production and finance company founded with the goal of creating diverse, high-quality films that might otherwise be deemed risky by contemporary Australian production companies.