Aishwarya Rai goes beyond glitz at Cannes

Aishwarya Rai, a regular at the Cannes Film Festival red carpet and L'Oreal brand ambassador, is going beyond her glitz and glamour tag. She is beginning to reinvent herself on the global scene as an activist for social and humanitarian causes.

As a step in that direction, the Bollywood diva will, alongside Queen Noor of Jordan, address a press conference May 14 at Hotel Martinez in Cannes to announce the third edition of the International Tribunes Cinema Verite event that will take place in Geneva (Oct 6 to 8) and Paris (Oct 9-10) later this year.

Cinema Verite is a special film event dedicated to films and social actions that promote human rights and the eight Millennium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations.

The Cinema Verite event, hosted by the Cinema Verite Institute, has in past years seen the participation of Hollywood actresses such as Susan Sarandon, Meg Ryan, Ellen Birkin and Sharon Stone. Aishwarya will be the first non-Hollywood actress to lend her name to the cause.

Her husband, Abhishek Bachchan, who is also there to attend the opening ceremony of the 62nd Cannes Film festival, will be present at the press meet.

This year's Cinema Verite event is set to include a special focus on India with the screening of Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar Raj, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya and Abhishek. Here, she plays an executive of a multinational company who is sent to oversee the setting up of a plant in rural India that makes political tensions erupt.

Source: Sify