Speak at GIIS Leadership Lecture Series Leadership Lecture Series GIISLLS

Singapore: Veteran writer-lyricist Javed Akhtar and his actress-wife Shabana Azmi were honored at the Singapore South Asian Film Festival (SAIFF), the first edition of which will begin on September 1 in Singapore.

Shabana was honoured with the South Asian Woman of the Year and Javed with the South Asian Literary Award. Actor Abhay Deol received the South Asian Icon of the Year.

The gala, which concluded on September 10, hosted a red carpet world premiere of “Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai”, starring Nandita Das and Manav Kaul, and directed by Soumitra Ranade.

Special screenings were held of Afghani director Siddiq Barmak’s “Osama”, which was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film, Leena Yadav’s “Parched”, Singaporean director K. Rajagopal’s much-acclaimed “A Yellow Bird”, Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s “Once Again” and a much-anticipated Bengali film “Roktokorobi” by young Bangladeshi director Amitabh Bhattacharya.

The festival showcased 40 feature films, shorts and documentaries from India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bangladesh as well as special screenings from Singapore.

Apart from screenings, SAIFF had world premieres, screenings, workshops, award ceremonies, panel discussions, master classes and music performances.

Abhayanand Singh, Festival Chairman, said: “The festival is a landmark initiative showcasing for the first time in the city South Asian cinema of such scale and quality. We wish to make a big impact and become a significant cultural gateway in the years to come.

“Through the powerful medium of cinema, we hope to build closer ties between the global city of Singapore and the developing nations of South Asia.”

Amit Aggarwal, Artistic Director of SAIFF, said: “The challenge and drive in selecting films for the Singapore SAIFF was to create a program that is truthful to the exciting new voices and stories which richly bring out the complexities of South Asia.”

Speak at GIIS Leadership Lecture Series Leadership Lecture Series GIISLLS

On the 11th September 2017, GIIS Queenstown had the privilege of hosting Mr. Javed Akhtar and Ms. Shabana Azmi as guests for the GIIS Leadership Lecture Series.

Over the course of their visit, Mr Akhtar and Ms. Azmi engaged with the students in a very introspective and engaging question- answer session with a panel of students from IBDP year1. The topics of discussion ranged from their insights into art to what they believed a celebrity’s role in society was. Throughout the hour that they were there, they shared many of their own experiences along with valuable advice to the students.

Mr Akhtar and Ms. Azmi both being exceptionally talented artists alongside being powerful leaders and humanitarians imparted very relevant and profound knowledge to the young audience. Mr Akhtar’s opening statements on excellence and how it was not about the destination, but rather about the journey to achieving that excellence truly mattered and resonated with the audience members. Ms. Azmi’s comments on how education system should be made inclusive to everyone, had a great impact on the listeners as well. Their views and opinions on the strength of the Indian people and on the changing society and norms provided for an extremely thought-provoking panel discussion that the panelists and audience members thoroughly enjoyed.

Through this special edition of the Leadership Lecture Series, the students from GIIS campuses all across the world via a worldwide live view feed got a wonderful opportunity to listen to both the veteran artists. Their speech on excellence was really meaningful and it was truly and honor to have such an opportuinity.

-Agencies with globalschoolsnews inputs

By K. Dev