Hema Malini and Prasoon Joshi to be honoured at the International Film Festival of India this year

Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur announced that veteran actor Hema Malini and lyricist Prasoon Joshi will be honoured at this year’s International Film Festival of India (IFFI). He also added that they will be entitled to the ‘Indian Personality of the Year’ award, while he was talking to reporters during the All India Presiding Officers Conference in Shimla.

According to the minister, the contribution of Hema Malii and Joshi to the Indian cinema space over decades has been huge and much influential over generations. He also said that they are two cinema icons who are admired and respected worldwide.The award would be conferred on them at the 52nd edition of IFFI, which is to be held in Goa from November 20 to 28 this year. Actor, director and singer Biswajit Chatterjee was the recipient of last year’s Indian personality award.

The prestigious Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award will be given to legendary American filmmaker Martin Scorsese and Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Szabo this year. The minister also disclosed that 75 artistes would be given an opportunity to attend the festival this year, who have been selected from 450 applicants.

Meanwhile, the festival director Chaitanya Prasad revealed that the opening ceremony of IFFI will be hosted by Karan Johar and actor Maniesh Paul, and will be attended by Bollywood stars Salman Khan and Ranveer Singh. Actors like Riteish Deshmukh, Genelia Deshmukh, and Shraddha Kapoor will also be attending the ceremony.

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Further, the festival will also offer tribute to the late Sean Connery, who played the iconic character James Bond for the first time. Prominent Kannada actor late Puneet Rajkumar and legendary actor late Dilip Kumar will also be honoured in the ceremony.