Last December, on a pleasant evening in Los Angeles, a white Bentley Arnage pulled up in front of the Nirvana restaurant in Beverly Hills.
Dressed in trademark black, Shah Rukh Khan stepped out to attend a special event held in his honour and to promote his film, Paheli, for an Oscar nomination.
Paheli, his latest film as an actor and producer, is up for consideration as India's official entry for the 78th Academy Award as the Best Foreign film. For Khan, the film's entry is itself a vindication that he can go on making more such films.
That evening in Beverly Hills, as he met with the high and mighty of Hollywood, Khan modestly admitted, "I've been told that here in Hollywood, Paheli is rather entertaining, which is strange, because in India it was not entertaining enough and it tanked at the box office."
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In India, SRK has won 13 Filmfare awards and a Padma Shri. Two of his earlier films -- Devdas and Hey! Ram -- were India's entry at the Academy Awards. So does Paheli, with its rustic colourful look and great performances by the lead actors, have any chance of being shortlisted in the Foreign Film category at the Oscars?
SRK feels, "I think it's a long shot but it's a good chance of getting Indian cinema some recognition."
For him, it's the prospect of promoting the Indian film industry in Hollywood and in North America that is really exciting. "I am already talking about India making an impact on world cinema. I really want people to see India as a window of opportunity," he says.
Hollywood producer Ashok Amritraj, who sits on the Academy's Board for Foreign Films, says, "I don't think Indian films are being noticed as much as one would like. If you were to compare them with any of the other countries in the world, China being an obvious comparison, India's not in the mainstream. Two nominations in 100 years does not mean India is being noticed. All it means is that particular film in that particular year was noticed."
But Paheli has been noticed this year. For million of fans across the world, SRK is a icon and now Hollywood too has heard of this star. Rogers and Cowen, one of the biggest publicists in Hollywood, have planned the film's promotion.
The company is distributing Paheli DVDs to the members of the Academy and creating a buzz to ensure that the jury members watch the film at the two official screenings The film has already got good press.
Full page advertisements of Paheli are appearing in trade magazines such as Screen International and Variety. Jury members in Hollywood are reported to be already making enquires about this film from India.
Meanwhile, last week in Hollywood, 5,798 nomination ballots for the 78th Academy Awards were mailed to voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Till then, the fans of SRK can hold their breath!
