Netanyahu to meet Bollywood actors, filmmakers

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet top Bollywood filmmakers and actors in Mumbai on Thursday and project opportunities in Israel.

Netanyahu will also visit Nariman House. He will have dinner with Bollywood celebrities.

The event 'Shalom Bollywood' will have several top actors, directors, producers in attendance, including superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

Last week, a delegation from the Israeli consulate in Mumbai had called on the actor. "Thank you, @SrBachchan for opening your house & your heart for the staff of the Consulate of @israelinMumbai . We are humbled by the honour and the kind words you bestowed on #Israel. Appreciate your active role in the cooperation between #Bollywood & Israel (sic)," Yaakov Finkelstein, Israel's Consul General in Mumbai, had tweeted after the visit.

The purpose of the dinner is to invite Bollywood to Israel.  

Last December, Bollywood actors Jacqueline Fernandez and Sushant Singh Rajput touched down in Tel Aviv with a 80-member crew to shoot scenes for 'Drive', the first Hindi film to be set in Israel.  

Indian movies have found audiences in Israel. For example movies  like Shah Rukh Khan starrer 'Dil Toh Pagal Hai' and Aamir Khan's 'Taare Zameen Par' got a good response in the country.

In fact, the Indian Jewish community has played a stellar role in Indian cinema and Danny Ben-Moshe, a documentary filmmaker and an associate professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, has brought it out in his documentary 'Shalom Bollywood: The Untold Story of Indian Cinema'.