Rajnikant Chief Guest in Goa film festival

20 Oct 2009

RAJNIKANTH LIKELY CHIEF GUEST IN GOA FILM FESTIVAL


NEW DELHI: Tamil super star Rajnikanth(58), who has acted in some 200 movies in nine languages, is tipped to be the chief guest at the 40th International Film Festival to be mounted in Goa from November 23 to December 3.

The Directorate of Film Festival has zeroed on him after considering over a dozen names, but a final decision will be taken at the organising committee's meeting in Mumbai on Monday, in which the Entertainment Society of Goa will also participate.

Sources said the directorate is yet to get consent of Rajnikanth, born in a Maharashtrian family in Bangalore with Marathi as mother tongue but never acted in Marathi films. His real name is Shivaji Rao Gaikwad.

Acting primarily in the Tamil movies since 1975 and also playing the role of producer, screen writer and playback singer, Rajnikanth also acted in films in Hindi, English, Telugu, Kannada, Malyalam and Bengali and had stints also in German and Japanese films. He bagged Padma Bhushan award for his contribution to the film industry.

The government does not want any controversy alike last year when matinee idol Amitabh Bachchan's name as the chief guest was dropped at the last moment and hence the directorate was specifically told to spread its net wide to select only a non-controversial personality.

The Mumbai meeting will specifically review the security issue during the film festival in the backdrop of the bomb blasts in Madgaon as the intelligence agencies have been already warning the government about the terrorists striking in Goa, sources said.

There are political overtones to selection of Rajnikanth as he had offered in the past to canvass for the Congress after a meeting with the then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao in 1975, but siding with DMK in 1976 when the Congress entered into a poll alliance with the AIADMK of Jayalalithaa.

Fans of Rajni have been egging on him for long to float own political party alike the DMDK floated by another Tamil film star Vijaykanth, who is now a MLA in the Tamil Nadu Assembly.

He is acclaimed to have earned Rs 25 crores for acting in the film 'Shivaji: The Boss" that put him as the highest paid actor in Asia after Jackie Chan. "Bloodstone," an American film with him in the lead role, did not click in the United States but created waves in India.

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