IIFA has officially begun in Dubai. The four day event that started on 14 June will continue till 17 June and finally will culminate with the presentation of IIFA awards which are deemed as the Indian equivalent of Oscars.

IIFA will reportedly showcase 32 Indian feature films including sixteen Hindi films, fourteen south Indian films, one Bengali, one Marathi and six short films.

IIFA is all about celebrating Indian cinema across the globe as its signature line sums up.

Celebrities like Mammootty, Mohanlal, and Meera Jasmine Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai who are attending the event are staying at The Grand Hyatt Hotel in Dubai amidst extremely tight security.

The IIFA Weekend 2006 is being held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of the Dubai Civil Aviation, Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Group and Chairman of the DSS/DSF Supreme Committees and the event was officially opened at the Grand Hyatt at a press conference featuring Indian superstar and IIFA Brand Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, Star TV Vice-president, Kevin Vaz, Zabeel Investments CEO Mohammed Al Hashimi, Idea Cellular Vice-president Pradeep Shrivastava and DSS CEO Saeed Al Nabouda.

They were joined by South Indian superstar Prabhu as well who was at the event to promote the Telugu and Tamil film industry. South Indian movies are screened for the first time and Rajanikanth-starrer ‘Chandramukhi' was the opening movie of IIFA.

The south Indian film package includes seven Tamil movies, four Malayalam films and three Telugu movies. Kannada movies will not be shown this year but they will be incorporated soon as the organizers promised.

Another highlight on the first day was a book launched by the brand ambassador of IIFA, Amitabh Bachchan. He launched ‘Lights, Camera, Masala' by Naman Ramachandran and the book deals with the nuances of making films and different aspect of the film world.

According to media reports, Aishwarya Rai also attended the IIFA event, but only for the first day of on which her film ‘Provoked' was premiered. Unfortunately Aishwarya will not be able to perform at the awards function as she is currently busy shooting for Mani Ratnam's ‘Guru' in Chennai and was only able to get a day off from her shooting schedule.

But there's good news for the viewers as Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Rani Mukherjee, Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta, Dia Mirza, Himesh Reshamiya and Upen Patel will grace the show with their performance.

The inception of the IIFA awards dates back to 2000 and it was held in London. Since then the event has been held twice in South Africa and once in Malaysia, Singapore and the Netherlands. Those who are eager to catch glimpses of the IIFA Awards event will be happy to know that it will be broadcast on STAR Plus at 8 pm on Sunday, June 25, 2006.