July 6, 2012 - Indian Summer Festival

Life in the Limelight: Sharmila Tagore & Five Decades of Indian Cinema

DATE & TIME: Friday July 6 @ 7pm
LOCATION: SFU, Surrey Campus - Westminster Savings Theatre
TICKETS: $50 / 100 (premium seating)
includes post-talk cocktail reception

Audiences will be treated to an intimate evening with Sharmila Tagore, an icon of Indian cinema. Join Sharmila as she talks of her life in the limelight, taking the audience on a journey through five glorious decades of Indian cinema, from art house epics with Satyajit Ray through to Bollywood blockbusters alongside Amitabh Bachchan.

Sharmila Tagore has been called the ‘Queen of Bollywood’ and is the winner of the lifetime achievement award at the IIFA awards in Toronto in 2011. Sharmila’s foray into cinema started at the age of 13 when a chance encounter with epic filmmaker Satyajit Ray led to a role in his 1959 arthouse classic Apu Sansar. She was transported to instant mainstream stardom in 1964 when she appeared in Kashmir Ki Kali, and has gone on to become one of the most beloved and iconic Indian actors of all time. Sharmila won the lifetime achievement award at the IIFA awards in Toronto in 2011.

She created waves as the first woman to appear in a bathing suit on the Indian screen in 1967, and again when she married Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the charismatic scion of a princely state and Captain of the Indian cricket team. Their son Saif Ali Khan and daughter Soha Ali Khan continue the family tradition as two of Bollywood’s most sought after actors.

Sharmila is a respected public figure, acting as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and receiving major awards. She was honoured by the Government of France with the title Officier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters).