MACAU: Bollywood actors Abhishek Bachchan and Shahid Kapoor left handprints in a special cement mould as a part of the 14th International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards and celebrations, which kick started here Thursday.

Abhishek, who will also perform at the awards function Saturday after a gap of few years, was looking forward to the function.

“It has been an eventful morning…welcome to Macau! I was here in 2009, when I performed. It will be a very exciting weekend. IIFA is one such event where we get to showcase the (Indian) film industry. There will be a lot of activity here,” he said at a press conference organised here.

Abhishek’s performance also marks an end to the so-called tiff between the Bachchans and IIFA, which cropped up in 2010 when IIFA was organised in Sri Lanka.

IIFA will also promote empowerment of women through their campaign “Power of 49”. Celebrities like Abhishek, Shahid, Parineeti Chopra, Gauhar Khan, Arjun Kapoor, Jacqueline Fernandez and Ayushmann Khurrana unveiled the badge of the campaign — all of them wore the badge.

IIFA promises a great weekend where the award function will be co-hosted by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and Shahid and stars, including the 1990s divas Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit as well as Abhishek, Sushant Singh Rajput, Deepika Padukone, Ayushmann and Parineeti are set the stage on fire with their performances.

IANS