Mumbai, 26 Sept

From celebrating the best talent from both Hindi and South film industries to live performances by celebrities such as Rekha and Shahid Kapoor, the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards 2024 will be a grand celebration of Indian cinema.

The three-day awards gala will be held from September 27 to 29 in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, for the third time. IIFA Awards 2024 is also bringing together actors from Hindi cinema with Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada for the first time.

“We are extremely excited to be back on hattrick in Abu Dhabi. For all the fans, what’s going to be exciting this year is the celebration of the South film industry and Bollywood, so there will be multiple stars from across the region, besides some exciting performances,” IIFA Awards founder-director Andre Timmins told PTI ahead of the event.

Telugu star Rana Daggubati will host IIFA Utsavam with Teja Sajja on Friday, followed by the IIFA Awards ceremony, which will be emceed by superstar Shah Rukh with filmmaker Karan Johar and Vicky Kaushal.

One of the most anticipated aspects of the event is the performances by renowned stars from both the South and Hindi film industries, especially the finale performance by Rekha.

Besides her, the lineup also includes Pushpa composer DSP, Prabhu Deva, Raashii Khanna, Janhvi Kapoor, Ananya Panday, and Kriti Sanon.

“For the viewers, what's exciting is that there will be some great performances at IIFA Utsavam. For example, Chiranjeevi, and Bala Krishnan are doing some great stuff, and there’s Prabhu Deva. Rana Daggubati will host the Awards ceremony,” Timmins said.

Rekha's will be a finale performance, she will perform for 22 minutes with 150 dancers, and she is working day and night on her act, graphics and costumes and is making sure that this performance will be of a lifetime. The clothes are designed for this by Manish Malhotra. Vicky Kaushal will also be performing, and actors Bobby Deol, Anil Kapoor, and Kriti Sanon will be part of Shahid Kapoor’s act,” he said.

Timmins teased a show unlike anything seen before, revealing that Shah Rukh will offer a one-of-a-kind experience to his fans.

He is putting in a lot of effort, and there will be a lot of surprises with him. His fans and Bollywood lovers will get to see a show that they’ve never seen in their lifetime,” he added.

There will be a masterclass session with filmmaker Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra.

The film extravaganza will conclude with the exclusive, invitation-only event, IIFA Rocks, to be hosted by Siddhant Chaturvedi and Abhishek Banerjee. It will feature performances by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Honey Singh, Shilpa Rao, Iulia Vantur, and Karan Aujla.

Last week, the organisers announced that the 25th edition of the IIFA Awards will be held in Jaipur from March 7 to 9, 2025.

Timmins said they plan to bring together the Khan trio – Salman, Shah Rukh and Aamir for the 25th edition.

We hope to get the Khans together on one stage and show the world what Indian cinema is about, and it will happen. Shah Rukh and Salman on stage and we will invite Aamir Khan to celebrate 25 years of Indian cinema with us. This is going to be the icing on the cake, he said.

The first-ever IIFA award ceremony was held in 2000 in London, and over the years, the awards gala was hosted in locations like Johannesburg, Singapore, Amsterdam, Dubai, Yorkshire, Thailand, Macau, Tampa Bay, Colombo, Toronto, Bangkok and Madrid.-PTI