Actress Michelle Yeoh to be Chief Guest at IFFI Closing Ceremony

Hollywood actress Michelle Yeoh would be the Chief Guest at the  closing ceremony of the IFFI 2013 being held at Panaji Goa. The 44th Edition of IInternational Film Festival of India has been held from  November 20 to November 30.

The 50-year-old Malaysian actress’s documentary film ‘Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey’ on which she served as an executive producer, will also be screened at the on-going festival.

The film directed by Wendy J N Lee, chronicles an arduous 450-mile journey across the Himalayas undertaken by Buddhist monks led by his holiness Gyalwang Drukpa to spread the message of environmentalism. His holiness will also accompany Yeoh to the film festival. “Michelle Yeoh will be the chief guest at the closing ceremony. She would be here with her film called ‘Pad Yatra’. She will be here with his holiness, who has conducted the whole pad yatra. The film would be screened on 29,” IFFI director Shankar Mohan reportedly said.

Yeoh, known for her roles in ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, Bond film ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’, ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ has previously attended the festival in 2011, when her film ‘The Lady’, based on the life of Burmese Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, was the concluding movie.

The opening ceremony of the 11-day festival saw the attendance of international names like Hollywood star Susan Sarandon, Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi, and a host of Bollywood stars – Waheeda` Rehman, Rekha, singer Asha Bhosle, Tamil superstar Kamal Hassan, actress Rani Mukerjee, ‘Sholay’ helmer Ramesh Sippy, Nana Patekar, R Madhavan, Huma Qureshi and Alia Bhatt among others. When asked if the closing ceremony will also see substantial Bollywood presence, Mohan said, “A whole lot of people are expected. We are working on that. We are awaiting confirmations. It is too premature for me to be taking the names. You will be seeing good representation from the Indian film industry as you saw at the opening ceremony