(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, this evening (Thursday, 18 January 2018), attended a Bollywood event with senior industry figures, including producers, directors and stars, among them Karan Johar, Amitabh Bachchan, Sara Ali Khan, Vivek Oberoi and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
Following the Prime Minister's remarks (see below for an excerpt), the Bollywood stars posed for a selfie with him and his wife.
Prime Minister Netanyahu:
"The rise of Bollywood is part of the rise of India as a global power, and this coincides with the rise of Israel as a global technological power. And this innovation is not only in IT, or in agriculture, or in medicine, or in space, or in cyber. It's also in the arts. And in the digital age there are endless possibilities for creativity. And I think that if we join forces, magic happens. We can do things that are not even imagined. And these things are happening at a rapid rate. We know, you know. Let us do it together.
And what I see in India is creativity, ingenuity, the resolve led by Prime Minister Modi, my dear friend, to seize the future. We want to seize it with you. We believe in you. We believe in Bollywood. We believe in India. We believe in the Israel-India relationship.
I want every Indian and every Israeli to know about the phenomenal friendship between our two countries.
So I have an idea. One of the most viral pictures of all time took place at the Oscars, and several celebrities, I think including Brad Pitt, some other unknowns like that, and a few other celebrities who took a selfie together. So I'd like the Hollywood stars who are here tonight and the directors and the producers, I want you to join me right now for a selfie. Please come on stage, let's all have this photo so a few hundred million people can see the great friendship between our two countries."
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