A Hillywood-Bollywood partnership can do magic!

Editor, RE:“Rwanda Film Festival: A decade and still counting” (The New Times, August 9). Please allow me to congratulate the dynamic Eric Kabera for a very successful 11th edition of the Rwanda Film Festival. Kabera very rightly remarked, “Anything good comes with its own share of pain and challenges”. We recently concluded ‘Rwanda Calling 2015’ and, like the film festival, our event also had its own share of pain and challenges. But as the saying goes, “Fortune favours the brave”. So despite the immense pain and challenges faced in organising this third edition of Rwanda Calling, it is with a sense of deep satisfaction that I can share with your readers that our event was a success. As a result of Rwanda Calling 2015, a fresh investment to the tune of US$10 million will soon flow into Rwanda’s education sector, subject to, of course, our investor getting the desired support from the concerned authorities. Further, it was heartening to see our education partner, the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kigali, offer as many as ten full scholarships to Rwandan scholars carefully selected by the Imbuto Foundation, who were celebrating their tenth anniversary. That was not all, our healthcare partner—SevenHills Hospital, a world class, super specialty, award winning hospital—also announced a “skills development programme” wherein they would train as many as forty-eight Rwandan nurses at the SevenHills Health City, Mumbai. To crown it all , Rwanda Calling 2015 also saw the President of the Outbound Tour Operators Association of India (OTOAI) sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Chairman, Rwanda Tours and Travel Association ( RTTA) and our airline partner, Kenya Airways, flying in their top eight tour operators for a familiarisation tour of the country. And here is where Hillywood could well partner with Bollywood not only to enhance the flavour of the Rwanda Film Festival, but also to boost, substantially, Indian visitor arrivals into this beautiful land of a thousand hills and a million smiles! Clarence Fernandes, Mumbai, India

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A Hillywood-Bollywood partnership can do magic!