Sticking to Rama land: Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai at a promotional for Raavan

Chennai, May 11: The film named after King Raavan will not debut in his own country during the International Indian Film Academy Awards 2010.

Director Mani Ratnam has chosen not to have the premiere of Raavan (Hindi) at the June 3-5 event in Colombo. “I will not be attending IIFA 2010 because post-production work on Raavan is still going on,” he said last night.

While Ratnam’s logic is that the film would not be completed in time to be screened in Colombo, industry insiders said the real reason was fear of pro-LTTE crowds disrupting the screening of the Tamil version, Raavanan, in Tamil Nadu. The pro-Tamil Tiger lobby has got the entire Tamil film industry to boycott the Colombo show.

“The applause of a few hundred people in Colombo is less important than the film having a smooth run in Tamil Nadu, when so much money and effort have gone into the movie,” said a distributor who has the rights to the film.

The film is officially slated for all-India release on June 18 but the IIFA was hoping it would be premiered in Colombo in the presence of the Bachchan family and Ratnam, who has co-produced the film with Anil Ambani’s Big Cinema.

Since Ratnam’s Yuva had premiered at IIFA 2004 in Singapore, the organisers were keen to showcase Raavan in Colombo. But ever since fringe Tamil groups and politicians demanded that Tamil actors boycott the Colombo event in protest against Sri Lanka’s treatment of Tamils in that country, things turned dicey for Ratnam.

With Ratnam backing out, the participation of the movie’s three major stars --– Abhishek Bachchan, his wife Aishwarya Rai and Tamil actor Vikram ---- has also become doubtful.

While Vikram will have to abide by the diktat issued to Tamil filmdom, Aishwarya’s presence can also be used to whip up a negative campaign against Raavanan. Vikram and Aishwarya star in both versions of the film.

Amitabh Bachchan, the IIFA brand ambassador, is already under tremendous pressure from Tamil groups not to associate himself with the Colombo event. The superstar is unlikely to oblige given his commitment to organisers Wizcraft, with whom he enjoys good relations, in spite of protests in front of his home in Mumbai by several Tamil groups led by film director Seeman.

The Sri Lanka tourism board had rolled out the red carpet when Amitabh arrived in Colombo in April for the event’s curtain-raiser. President Mahinda Rajapaksa had hosted a lunch for him.

Sources close to Ratnam said the Bachchans were expected to accept a compromise because of the stakes involved in Raavan, with Amitabh going to Colombo and his son and daughter-in-law staying away.