Bollywood Stars Poonam Dhillon And Rajkummar Rao To Attend Closing Gala Of The UK Asian Film Festival

Zac Ntim
·2 min read
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EXCLUSIVE: The UK Asian Film Festival has set Bollywood stalwarts Poonam Dhillon and Rajkummar Rao as special guests for its Closing Gala, which takes places May 14 at the BFI Southbank in London.

Dhillon and Rao will be among the high-profile names in conversation at the closing night event. The UK Asian Film Festival runs at venues across the UK from May 4 — 14. This year marks the festival’s 25th anniversary.

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Dhillon, one of the most recognizable names in Indian cinema, has over 100 credits across Hindi, Telegu, Kannada, Marathi, Gujarati, and Punjabi-language pics such as Noorie, Trishul, Yeh Vaada Raha, and Sohni Mahiwal. Dhillon also has extensive television credits, with work on shows such as Andaz and Kitty Party. She is also widely credited with introducing the concept of mobile makeup vans to the Indian film industry and remains the only film fraternity member of FCAT, an appellate tribunal for films facing censorship in India.

Rao has appeared in over 30 productions since 2010, with audiences perhaps best familiar with his work opposite Priyanka Chopra Jonas in Ramin Bahrani’s Oscar-nominated pic The White Tiger.

Also in conversation at the Closing Gala will be indie filmmaker Jamil Dehlavi, best known for his pic Jinnah, an epic about the partition of India and the birth of Pakistan, starring Christopher Lee. Dehlavi’s The Blood of Hussain (1980) played Canne’s Director’s Fortnight and won the Grand Prize at the Taormina Film Festival. In 2018, BFI Southbank presented a retrospective of his work titled Between The Sacred And The Profane: The Cinema Of Jamil Dehlavi.

Actor Jassa Ahluwalia will also host the festival’s awards ceremony.

The festival will open with the UK Premiere of the Hindi-language pic Sanaa at BFI Southbank. The film follows the eponymous Sanaa, a 28-year-old financial advisor working in Mumbai, who discovers she is pregnant. Clear on her decision to terminate her pregnancy, the process of getting the abortion forces Sanaa to re-evaluate her life and if the choices she has been making have really been her own. Lead actor Radhika Madan (Pataakha) and director Sudhanshu Saria (Loev) will attend the screening.

The festival’s closing film will be the World Premiere of Indian producer Shiladitya Bora’s latest pic Bhagwan Bharose. Set against the backdrop of a rising Hindu nationalist movement in late 1980s India, the pic follows two impressionable kids struggling with their understanding of God and religion. While experiencing the everyday challenges of childhood, a conservative upbringing, and communal surroundings, their idyllic world is blown apart by events that they themselves can no longer fathom. Actors Vinay Pathak (Bheja Fry), Masumeh Makhija, and Satendra Soni will be in attendance alongside Bora.

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