The annual London Indian Film Festival came to an end on Thursday 25 July with the UK premiere of the multi-directed film Bombay Talkies. Directed by Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap and Zoya Akhtar, the film celebrates 100 years of Indian Cinema, which also features some gripping and heart-touching stories in the midst of it. A number of special guests were present on closing night, which included Ashi Dua (producer of Bombay Talkies), legendary Bollywood villain Gulshan Grover, Sunny and Shay, Raj and Pablo, Asad Shan, Monsoon Shootout director Amit Kumar, Lucia director Pawan Kumar and many more. Following the screening Ashi Dua took part in a special discussion and Q&A with the audience, which was hosted by Raj and Pablo.

During the discussion, Ashi admitted that she was afraid of approaching Karan Johar for the project. “I was very scared to approach Karan because I didn’t think that he would agree to do something like this. He’s used to making big films on big budgets and doing different kinds of cinema. So I was nervous to approach him but when he agreed to come on board, it was very encouraging.”

“It was very hard. Even though the scale of the film is not so big, it took so long to make because of getting the filmmakers to agree to do something like this and fix their dates. It took a lot of patience but it was worth it.” She mentioned.

With a full packed screening of Bombay Talkies and the presence of special guests, the closing of The 2013 London Indian Film Festival turned out to be a huge success.