Bollywood Hero

A man's desire to help others is put to the test when he visits an unfamiliar land in this drama from writer and director Diederik van Rooijen. Nick (Egbert-Jan Weeber) is a Dutch actor who travels to India for the first time when he's cast in a lavish Bollywood historical epic being shot in Mumbai. It doesn't take long for Nick to become aware of the poverty and cultural divisions that are a fact of life in Mumbai -- while taking a taxi through the city, a girl begging for change cries out to him, and when Nick calls out to the cabbie, the startled driver accidentally runs over the girl. Shaken by the incident, Nick bonds with the driver, Prem (Akhilesh Kumar), and when Nick becomes aware of Prem's desperate financial circumstances, Nick sets out to help him. Before long, Nick is sharing his earnings with as many of the poor and unfortunate people of Mumbai as he can, but the longer Nick plays the role of the Good Samaritan, it becomes harder to tell is he's really helping or just making a bad situation worse. Meanwhile, Nick falls into a romance with the leading actress in the film, Sita (Ishwari Bose-Bhattacharya), who wants a way out of the arranged marriage being forced on her by her family. Bollywood Hero was an official selection at the 2009 Rotterdam International Film Festival.