IIFA kicks off sans Bachchans, Salman Khan

The IIFA awards, which kickstarts in Toronto from June 23, 2011, will be missing some starry glitter this year with the absence of regulars like Bachchan family and Salman Khan.This will be the second time that mega star Amitabh Bachchan and his family will not be attending the awards. Bachchan has been brand ambassador of the event ever since its inception in 2000.However, Bachchans gave the annual event a skip last year in Colombo following boycott calls from the South Indian film industry and IIFA decided to remove the brand ambassador post for this year.

While Salman Khan says he is too busy with Bodyguards to attend the Toronto gala. "It was fun performing last year but I won't be able to make it this year because of my shooting schedule of Bodyguard," Salman said.When asked whether he will miss the event, the actor's cheeky reply was: "IIFA will miss me definitely this year." However, his friend-turned-foe Shah Rukh Khan is planning to attend the award show after a gap of seven years.The three-day awards gala will also have industry biggies like Karan Johar, Dia Mirza, Zayed Khan and a host of other celebrities. Upcoming movies like Love Breakup Zindagi, Aazaan, Politics of Love and Tell me O Kkhuda will be showcased during the weekend.

The IIFA Weekend this year, will open with the IIFA World Premiere of comedy film Double Dhamaal, a sequel to the 2007 hit Dhamaal.  This year, IIFA film festival will be kicked off with Chillar Party, co-produced by Ronnie Screwvalla and Salman Khan's Being Human (SKBH) Productions.The IIFA Film Festival was initiated in 2005 to enable audiences in the host country to experience the flavour of Indian Cinema, showcasing some of the biggest blockbusters and films of repute, which have created a mark in the history of Indian Cinema.The three Deols-Dharmendra, Sunny and Bobby-will perform together while Priyanka Chopra will perform during the main ceremony. A retrospective of Bollywood showman Raj Kapoor is also being held in association with the Toronto International Film Festival.

Actors Bipasha Basu, Kunal Kapoor, Rahul Khanna and Brett Lee will be the showstoppers at the IIFA Rocks, a fashion event for charity. FICCI is organising the 12th edition of the FICCI-IIFA Global Business Forum, in association with the Ministry of Economic Development & Trade, Ontario on June 24.FICCI is taking a high level business delegation to Canada for the same. Delegates would take part in the Global Business Forum, attend the IIFA Awards and interact with representatives of at least 400 Ontario based companies and their government counterparts from respective sectors.