After making a no show at IIFA Awards 2014 held at US, Vidya Balan to skip the Indian film festival of Melbourne of which she is ambassador

Vidya Balan's last-minute no-show at IIFA Awards 2014 in the US - apparently due to her ill-health - has now put a question mark on her presence in Australia for a film festival.

The actress has been the ambassador of the annual Indian Film Festival of Melbourne since its inception in 2012. The festival will be held from May 1-11.

Says a source, "There were pregnancy rumours recently after she turned down Sujoy Ghosh's film, but Vidya quelled these rumours by denying that she was pregnant.

In March this year, she even travelled to the US for inter-city promotions of the event. Strangely though, just days before the ceremony in Florida, she pulled out citing health reasons."

Adds the source, "It appears that Vidya is skipping Melbourne for the festival as well due to health reasons."

B-Town folk expected to attend the festival in Melbourne include Amitabh Bachchan, Konkana Sen Sharma, Malaika Arora Khan and filmmakers Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and Vijaykrishna Acharya.

The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne is a Victorian government initiative to strengthen ties between the Indian film industry and Victoria.


A spokesperson of the Mumbai representative of the festival says, "Vidya is already back from the festival. She had gone to Melbourne for the launch of it in March. The festival will be opened by Amitabh Bachchan."

Interestingly, Vidya Balan had attended the festival in 2012 and 2013 which also had several Bollywood folk in attendance. Vidya remained unavailable for comment.