By Ayesha Tanzeem BBC Urdu service in Amsterdam

Hennan Elbouny stood with her two sisters all day outside the Grand Hotel in Amsterdam to catch a glimpse of her favourite stars, and maybe to get a picture.

She is not Indian, neither are her parents. Yet she can speak some Hindi, thanks to Indian movies.

A warm welcome for actor Abhishek Bachchan in Amsterdam

She says a lot of Moroccans like her love Indian cinema for its music and the similarities of its culture.

And the Moroccans are not the only ones watching Indian movies in Amsterdam.

The big Surinami community seems to love it to, and the Egyptians and other Middle Easterners, the Afghans, and of course Indians themselves.

Diaspora

The International Indian Film Academy decided to hold its sixth annual awards weekend in Amsterdam.

Unlike regular awards ceremonies this one spans four days, with workshops, film premieres and a business forum along with the showing of 25 movies and an art exhibition.

It's very authentic, very weird... It's very strange for me. Nevertheless when I see this I get interested Robert Vreans, Dutch film-goer

The awards were launched in 2000 at London's Millennium Dome.

Since then they have gone to Malaysia, Singapore and twice to South Africa.

The idea, according to Sabas Joseph, the founder and director of the academy, is to have a way for the Indian diaspora to communicate better with each other.

The festival and awards weekend also fit the Dutch government's agenda of raising Amsterdam's profile globally.

The event will be broadcast to about 400 million people worldwide. The Dutch hope some of those millions will be inspired to visit the city.

Clare Wise, director of the UK Film Council International, is in Amsterdam for the weekend.

She says her organisation is trying to bring Europe and Indian cinema closer.

"I'm working very closely with India and the government there to get a treaty to allow India and the UK, and then also the rest of Europe, to work together to make movies."

Emerging markets

Indian cinema has been incredibly successful in the UK.

Last year 55 Hindi movies were released there, grossing over $16m (�8.8m).

Actor Shah Rukh Khan attends a Dutch charity cricket match

One effect of the treaty would be that more Indian filmmakers could come and work in the UK.

Some have already done so - the star-studded Bollywood hit, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, is a case in point.

Now the rest of Europe is slowly becoming interested in the emerging markets in Asia - India and China in particular.

Oscar nominations for Indian films like Lagaan and the 15-minute long drama, The Little Terrorist, have increased familiarity with the Indian cinema.

Most people in the Netherlands are still fairly unfamiliar with Indian movies. Events like the Academy Awards are doing their best to change that.

Dutch film-goer, Robert Vreans, attracted by the hoopla outside the historic Pathe Tuschinske theatre for the premiere of the film Parineeta, said he had never seen an Indian movie all the way through.