Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan will be feted by the upcoming Locarno Film Festival with a career achievement award, celebrating his more than 100 credits across a multitude of genres.
The Bollywood star will receive the award in the festival’s Piazza Grande on August 10. He will then also participate in a public conversation the next day.
The festival will also screen 2002 hit costume drama Devdas, in which Khan plays a man whose life spirals out of control after his family forbids him from marrying his childhood sweetheart.
Previous winners of the Pardo alla Carriera include Francesco Rosi, Bruno Ganz, Claudia Cardinale, Johnnie To, Harry Belafonte, Peter-Christian Fueter, Sergio Castellitto, Víctor Erice,, Jane Birkin, Dante Spinotti, Costa-Gavras, and, most recently in 2023, Tsai Ming-liang.
“To welcome a living legend like Shah Rukh Kahn in Locarno is a dream come true. The wealth and breadth of his contribution to Indian cinema is unprecedented. Kahn is a king who has never lost touch with the audience that crowned him,” said Locarno Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro.
“This brave and daring artist has always been willing to challenge himself while remaining true to what his fans all over the world eagerly expect from his films. A true ‘people’s hero’, sophisticated and down to earth, Shah Rukh Khan is a legend of our times.”
Looking back at Khan’s career, Locarno noted his breakout role in romantic thriller Baazigar (1993) as a murderous but sympathetic anti-hero on a quest for vengeance, as well as romantic dramas, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) and love-story across timelines, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998), which propelled him to superstar status.
The festival commented that in spite of his huge fame, Khan had continued to seek out different kinds of roles that were often ahead of their times, such as that of Rahul in Darr (1993), a romantic psychological thriller directed by Yash Chopra, as well as his performance as a journalist who falls in love with a terrorist in the epic Dil Se.. (1998) by Mani Ratnam.
Locarno also listed recent hits Pathaan , Dunki and Jawan, noting that the latter title produced by Khan’s production house, Red Chillies Entertainment, had entered history books last year as the highest grossing Hindi film ever.
The Locarno Film Festival runs from August 7 to 17.
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