Miami is the star in Bollywood movie

By DOUGLAS HANKS - dhanks@miamiherald.com MIAMI — In a Mumbai theater recently, about 80 travel agents, tour operators and travel writers sat down for a screening of “Dostana,” the latest blockbuster to hit Indian movie screens. The night’s sponsor: the Greater Miami tourism bureau, headquartered some 9,000 miles away. “Dostana”’s opening scene explains why. Four of India’s biggest movie stars vamp for the camera with Miami’s skyline and South Florida beaches as backdrops. “It really is one big postcard — it’s a powerful postcard,” Rolando Aedo, the bureau’s marketing chief, said of Dostana, the first “Bollywood” movie shot entirely in South Florida. That distinction, along with the Bollywood star power attached to the movie, has tourism officials hoping real-life Indians will follow their silver-screen idols to Miami. Known... [read full story]