The heart of Indian cinema, bollywood, is attracting more and more Europeans, who crave for stardom thousands of kilometers away from home. Some are lucky to find it, some are not. A doss-house in Mumbai is packed with these dreamers who flock to India hoping to become bollywood stars. These girls are gyrating to indian tunes in practically all hindi films. All Europeans girls are not professional dancers but white and flashy skin has always been in demand in bollywood, a fact well known to them. But the irony is that these girls get sidelined and end up playing the role of fillers in bollywood. As they find it difficult to compete with the very professional and a completely different league of dancers mostly from London who end up as lead dancers making much more money. These Europeans dancers live with this fact and continue living in a messy environment, wearing poor quality makeup, used costumes and the endless waiting hours during shoots. Trance music, drugs and alcohol therefore becomes an escape route from their empty and sad life and they continue to earn their livelihood as bollywood fillers.
Bio:
Sima Dubey is an independent photographer, based out of Mumbai, India.
Sima’s work has been published via Reuters and Bloomberg in numerous national and international publications, such as New York Times, Global Post, Getty Images, Femina, India Today, Mumbai Mirror. Her work has been recognized by Kiyasato Museum of Art, Japan, Angkor Photo Festival, PX3 Prix de la Photograhie Paris, The International Biennial of Photography in The Islamic world.