Bollywood famous person Shah Rukh Khan will probably be honoured by the Locarno Film Festival with its Honorary Leopard achievement award in recognition of his excellent profession in Indian cinema spanning greater than 100 movies “in a wide ranging multitude of genres,” it introduced on Tuesday.
Khan, who is thought in India as “King Khan,” will probably be making the trek to obtain the award on Aug. 10 on the Swiss fest’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande open-air venue the place his 2022 love triangle drama “Devdas” – during which Khan performs the titular character, a tragic romantic alcoholic – will display, adopted by an onstage dialog on Aug. 11. “Devdas,” which scored a BAFTA nomination and gained quite a few Indian awards, marked the primary time many Western viewers members had been uncovered to mainstream Bollywood.
“To welcome a dwelling legend like Shah Rukh Kahn in Locarno is a dream come true!” mentioned Locarno inventive director Giona A. Nazzaro in an announcement.
Nazzaro went on to reward Khan as “a king who has by no means misplaced contact with the viewers that topped him,” including that “This courageous and daring artist has all the time been keen to problem himself whereas remaining true to what his followers everywhere in the world eagerly anticipate from his movies.”
Born in 1965 in New Delhi, Khan’s breakout function got here with the romantic thriller “Baazigar” (1993), which he starred as a murderous however sympathetic anti-hero on a quest for vengeance. A number of years later he was propelled to superstardom on the again of romantic drama, “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” (1995) and the love-story “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai” (1998). “On the identical time, the enormity of this newfound fame didn’t deter Khan from taking up roles that had been completely different and far forward of their time,” equivalent to Rahul in “Darr” (1993), a romantic psychological thriller directed by Yash Chopra; and as a journalist who falls in love with a terrorist within the epic “Dil Se..” (1998) by Mani Ratnam, in keeping with the Locarno profile. The fest’s assertion additionally famous that “Within the subsequent twenty years, Khan’s profession would function high-profile collaborations with a few of India’s most outstanding administrators and stars resulting in great recognition internationally as nicely.”
Khan was included among the many Variety500 listing of high 500 world leisure enterprise leaders in 2023 when, after a five-year hiatus following a spate of box-office underperformers, throughout which he solely appeared in cameos, he made a roaring comeback with the 2 largest hits of the 12 months — “Pathaan” and “Jawan,” the latter produced by Crimson Chillies Leisure, the manufacturing firm and VFX home he co-founded. Within the course of, Selection famous that the nice romantic star of the fashionable period “reinvented himself as an motion hero.” Khan additionally co-owns the Indian Premier League cricket workforce Kolkata Knight Riders and the Caribbean Premier League workforce Trinbago Knight Riders.
Earlier recipients of Locarno’s Honorary Leopard embody Tsai Ming-liang, Francesco Rosi, Claudia Cardinale, Johnnie To, Harry Belafonte, Mario Adorf, Jane Birkin, and Costa-Gavras.
The 77th version of Locarno will run Aug. 7-17.
