Amitabh Bachchan today became the first Asian and only the fifth ambassador for the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s AIDS campaign. The others are Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Will Smith, singer Beyonce Knowles and Irish rock band U2’s lead vocalist Bono. On the third day of the International Film Festival of India at Goa, Bachchan accepted the offer from the foundation to don a black T-shirt with 46664 printed in white. The number — Mandela’s serial identification at Robin Island where he was jailed during his fight against apartheid — was ‘‘lent’’ by the leader to the foundation’s AIDS Volunteer Campaign, said Anant Singh whose movie Yesterday was screened prior to the press conference. Drawing similarities with his polio awareness campaign, Bachchan felt ‘‘confident’’ he could make a difference to the cause as ‘‘people often listen to celebrities’’. ‘‘There are cases where just 10 women would normally bring their children (for polio check ups),’’ he said. ‘‘After the (polio) campaign, lakhs started bringing their children for check ups,’’ Bachchan added. He plans to rope in the media and ‘‘whatever else the foundation deems fit’’ (in reference to other celebrities) to spread the cause. Referring to son Abhishek’s film Phir Milenge that dealt with AIDS, he announced that his ‘‘entire fee for the film’’ would be ‘‘given today’’ to a school that houses children with HIV Bachchan is even willing to produce a film ‘‘if someone comes forward with such (AIDS or a similar) cause’’. Incidentally, Yesterday — a Darrell Roodt movie and the first feature-length film in Zulu (with English subtitles) — is the story of an HIV-positive woman deserted by her husband. Roodt wrote the script over a year-and-a-half after visiting many of Africa’s HIV-infested villages. ‘‘I just wondered why no one was making a movie on this huge issue,’’ said Roodt.
