By Hindustan Times
The presence of the Khans and the Bachchans is being missed on the ongoing 13th International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) awards, but actor Abhay Deol feels others will make up for them. Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Amitabh Bachchan and his family have reportedly given IIFA a miss
this year.
"It would has been good to have the Khans and the Bachchans, but I AM HOPING that not having them won't make the award function look any less," Abhay said Thursday on the green carpet of the arena premiere of his Shanghai.
"I'd love to believe, identical to we had the Khans and the Bachchans, we now have all types of artists who're adequate to support an award function," he added.
Tejinder Pal Singh Bagga, president of Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking an interim stay at the release of film Shanghai until its song Bharat Mata Ki Jai was deleted. The court, however, rejected the plea and cleared the film for screening.
Abhay is enjoying the happy ending. "It has become a trend of doing something like that and it's quite sad. However the great point is they (complainants) exercise their rights to install a PIL and the high court turned it down, holding up the democracy. It was an excessively positive outcome on the end of the day," he said.
Directed by Dibaker Banerjee, the film had a celebrity studded premiere here Friday with celebrities like Zoya Akhtar, Dia Mirza and her beau Sahil Sangha, Kalki Koechlin, Omi Vaidya, Vishal-Shekhar, Sameera Reddy, Ramesh Sippy-Kiran Juneja, Ayushmann Khurrana, Chitrangada Singh attending the screening.
Shanghai, a political drama, also stars Emraan Hashmi, but he was missing from the premier as he's not keeping well.
Organised by Wizcraft International Entertainment, the three-day cine event started Thursday.
