Perth Launches West Australian Indian Film Council as Scorchers Plan Historic Big Bash Tour to India
Western Australia is entering a new chapter in its relationship with India, driven by both cultural institution-building and sporting ambition. The official launch of the West Australian Indian Film Council by Premier Roger Cook marks a formal commitment to deepening creative partnerships with one of the world's most powerful film industries, while news that the Perth Scorchers plan to play the first Big Bash League match ever staged outside Australia — in India — signals the depth of the cricket bond between Perth and the subcontinent. For Perth's South Asian community, both developments resonate as concrete expressions of a relationship that runs through history, heritage, and daily life.
West Australian Indian Film Council Launches to Build Creative Bridge Between WA and India
The West Australian Indian Film Council (WAIFC) was officially launched on Friday, September 11, 2026, by the Hon. Roger Cook MLA, Premier of Western Australia, at a ceremony that drew senior government officials, diplomatic representatives, screen industry figures, business leaders, and community members. The independent, not-for-profit Council has been established to build long-term connections between Western Australia and India across film, television, streaming, digital media, and the broader creative industries, with the aim of turning WA's unique geographic and cultural position into practical, measurable opportunity. WAIFC Chair and Director Nilesh Makwana said the Council's purpose is to open doors for Australian filmmakers, producers, and storytellers to collaborate with one of the world's largest and most commercially powerful screen industries. The launch carried a meaningful historical resonance: Fearless Nadia, one of Indian cinema's most celebrated early pioneers, was born Mary Ann Evans in Perth in 1908. She moved to India as a child and became a legendary star of the silent and early sound era, known for performing her own stunts and portraying bold, independent female characters at a time when that was genuinely radical on any national screen. More than a century after her Perth birth, the WAIFC aims to revive and expand that creative exchange through structured partnerships, co-productions, cultural delegations, and industry development programs. The Council is positioned as both a trade and cultural body, recognizing that Indian cinema is not merely a commercial opportunity but a living cultural connection for the hundreds of thousands of South Asian diaspora members across Western Australia who maintain deep ties to Indian language, music, and storytelling. [1]
🎉 Perth Scorchers to Make Big Bash History with First-Ever Match Outside Australia — in India
The Perth Scorchers are preparing to make Big Bash League history by playing a match on Indian soil — the first time the Australian domestic Twenty20 competition will have been staged outside Australia. Announced in September 2026, the news was reported by The Australia Today, a media platform covering Australian-Indian diaspora affairs, and generated immediate excitement among Perth's large and passionate South Asian cricket fan base. The Scorchers have long drawn enthusiastic support from the city's Indian, Sri Lankan, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi communities — fans for whom cricket is far more than sport; it is a cultural inheritance passed down through generations and sustained by an emotional connection to the subcontinent. The prospect of watching a home Big Bash team compete on Indian grounds, in front of crowds that treat cricket with near-religious devotion, represents something genuinely novel in Australian sporting history. Australian domestic cricket has rarely crossed into Indian territory at this level, and the Scorchers' willingness to do so reflects a broader recognition that India is not just a cricketing powerhouse but also a vast and passionate audience hungry for international content. For Perth's Desi residents — many of whom grew up watching the sport in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, or Bangladesh before building their lives in Western Australia — this tour offers a rare and resonant convergence: the team they have adopted in the city they now call home, playing on the grounds they associate with their earliest memories of the game. The Scorchers' India venture is expected to draw significant media coverage and deep community enthusiasm on both sides of the Indian Ocean. [3]
Sources: [1] FilmInk · [3] The Australia Today