The 17th edition of the IIFA Awards, a weekend full of music, fashion and a celebration of cinema like no other, is almost here. As the anticipated award ceremony takes place in Madrid, Spain from June 23rd to June 26 later this month, there are plenty of reasons to look forward to it.
Fawad Khan will host IIFA Rocks, a part of the three-day IIFA weekend in Madrid later this June, with Karan Johar.
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Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani leads the race with 8 nods and is followed by Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan.
Dubai: The 17th edition of the IIFA Awards, a weekend full of music, fashion and a celebration of cinema like no other, is almost here. As the anticipated award ceremony takes place in Madrid, Spain from June 23rd to June 26 later this month, there are plenty of reasons to look forward to it.
The list of hosts includes our very own Fawad Khan who will host the ‘IIFA Rocks’ night with mentor Karan Johar. IIFA Rocks will see an attendance from several Bollywood bigwigs such as Salman Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra, Bipasha Basu, Anil Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha and many more.
Meanwhile, the nomination list contains a number of incomparable films that not only took the box office by storm but were also hailed as critical successes. Fortunately, the IIFAs have truly recognized the full breadth of diverse characters and films that were released last year.
The opulent Bajirao Mastani is leading the race with eight nominations, followed by Salman Khan-starrer Bajrangi Bhaijaan which has picked up seven nominations.
Priyanka Chopra and Tanvi Azmi have both been nominated in the category of Supporting Role –Female for their performances in Bajirao Mastani, respectively.
Also making its presence felt at this year’s nominations list is the unique Shoojit Sircar film, Piku which has landed six nominations including best picture while Zoya Akhtar’s Dil Dhadakne Do is sitting pretty with five nods with Anil Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar both competing in the same category of Best Supporting Actor for their roles in DDD.
Arijit Singh has been nominated twice in Playback Singer - Male for his musical contribution in Hamari Adhuri Kahani and Roy while the talented Nawazuddin Siddiqui has collected three nominations: Performance in a Comic Role, Performance in a Negative Role and Performance in a Supporting Role - Male.
The Best Actor (Male) and Best Actor (Female) will be the toughest categories as new-age stars face-off against established and seasoned stars. For the former, the nominees include Varun Dhawan (Badlapur), Salman Khan (Bajrangi Bhaijaan), Amitabh Bachchan (Piku), Ranbir Kapoor (Tamasha) and Ranveer Singh (Bajirao Mastani).
The nominees for Best Actor (Female) are just as exciting since it includes names like Priyanka Chopra (Dil Dhadakne Do), Shraddha Kapoor (ABCD 2), Deepika Padukone (Piku), Kangana Ranaut (Tanu Weds Manu Returns) and Deepika Padukone (Bajirao Mastani).
The nominations for Best Picture and Director are also interesting since it includes a host of diverse names such as Kabir Khan (Bajrangi Bhaijaan), Shoojit Sircar (Piku), Meghna Gulzar (Talvar), Aanand L. Rai (Tanu Weds Manu Returns) and Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Bajirao Mastani).
The main awards will be hosted by Farhan Akhtar and Shahid Kapoor this year and will take place on June 23rd in Madrid.
IIFA has always received an unprecedented response from both Bollywood stars and fans across the world. And this year too, with the perfect destination to host the gala celebrations, the International Indian Film Academy is all geared up to unfold and present a breathtaking amalgamation of two richly diverse countries and cultures.
Our take: While all other award functions wrapped up their proceedings in the first quarter of the year, it sounds a bit outdated for the IIFAs to reward last year’s best performances in the middle of the following year. IIFA surely needs to rethink this strategy and perhaps host the ceremony and all the activities that go with it early on in the year ala Filmfare and Screen Awards.
– Sadiq Saleem is a Dubai based entertainment journalist. He is also an Instep correspondent and can be contacted on his page fb/sidsaidso.
