UK plans tribute to Mughal-e-Azam

London: Bollywood celebrities will pay a unique tribute to iconic 1960s film Mughal-e-Azam and its legendary director K Asif in London this week.

Actor Shabana Azmi, poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar and her filmmaker son Farhan Akhtar will share the stage for the first time at the prestigious British Academy of Film and Television on Thursday. They will be joined by Irrfan Khan for the “Indian Cinema: Yesterday and Today” event to be hosted by Haya Asif, the granddaughter of K Asif.

“Mughal-e-Azam continues to captivate and inspire audiences. A lot has been done to celebrate the timeless classic in the past, but I wanted to help put together something that celebrated the soul of the movie, which was the incredible writing,” said Haya.

Bollywood stars will add their own spin to the words written by K Asif and his team with a live poetry recital and an on-stage discussion, moderated by UK-based writer-director Sangeeta Datta on behalf of her South Asian arts group Baithak UK.

“I am delighted to attend a tribute to K Asif hosted by his granddaughter Haya Asif at BAFTA.

The monumental romantic epic Mughal-e-Azam is unparallelled in cinematic excellence,” said Azmi. “When you think of K. Asif the words that come to your mind are dignity, power, aesthetics, literature and an extreme beautiful sense of cinema.  Undoubtedly, he was a great filmmaker...,”added Akhtar.