MUMBAI: The Doha Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF) which kick-started on 17 November, paid a special homage to late Bollywood filmmaker Yash Chopra by screening his last labor of love ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ starring Shah Rukh Khan, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma, for the attendees.
The local Qatari community and many Indian expats went through a sea of emotions during the screening of ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’.
Before the showcasing of the film, His Excellency and the Vice Chair for DTFF, Mr. Issa Al Mohannadi introduced a short 11 minute AV, paying a tribute to the cinematic genius of the illustrious Yash Chopra.
“Mr. Chopra’s contribution was not to just Indian Cinema but to Cinema anywhere in the world, and DTFF pays homage to a man that defined and redefined love countless times in a career spanning over half a century,” said Mohannadi.
The screening began with a personal message from the lead actor of the film, Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. We hear that once the movie started, the entire crowd went completely silent, not uttering a single word. No one moved, especially when the voice over of Yash Chopra reciting a poem came on.
SRK, who has fans all over the world, received claps and hoots when he entered the frame. At the end, the audience, happy and moved, stood up in admiration.
Meanwhile back home, ‘Jab Tak Hai Jaan’ is very close to the Rs 100 crore mark at the box office. Globally, it has long surpassed the figure.
But actor Shah Rukh Khan is not in the mood to celebrate. He says that numbers don’t matter to him, and the film takes him back to the sad truth of having lost the veteran filmmaker.
“The film stems from a sad place, so we’ll simply hug each other for having made a good film. We won’t have a public party, which is a fad,” confirmed SRK.
