Come September London shall play host to the who’s who of Pakistan celebrities from the fields of fashion, film, TV and sports at the first International Pakistan Prestige Awards (IPPA), due to be held in a five-star hotel on Park Lane. Those expected to attend include Mehwish Hayat, Humaima Malik, Ayesha Omar, and still-reeling-from-the-success-of-her-Shah-Rukh-Khan-movie-Raees Mahira Khan, besides a host of hunky actors and models including Fawad Khan, Ali Zafar, and Bilal Ashraf (whose cinematic debut, Janaan, minted enviable ratings on the UK box-office chart last year). Around 50 stars are said to descend on the British capital, all the way from Lahore and Karachi, a couple of days ahead of September 17, which is when the big night shall happen.
Shehryar Munawwar Siddiqui, Ali Rehman Khan, Farhan Saeed and Gohar Rasheed are some of the Pakistan entertainment industry’s newest kids on the bloc who have been pitched in different categories against acting giants such as Humayun Saeed and Ahsan Khan. Among the ladies, it shall be interesting to see veterans such as Bushra Ansari and Saba Hameed competing with Sonya Hussyn or Saba Qamar. There will be musical and dance performances at the event, too, by some of these stars, while a number of them shall be called to present the awards in 23-odd categories that also felicitate British Pakistanis with outstanding achievements in business and community service. These are viewers’ choice awards, and for it an elaborate voting process has been introduced online.
Hum TV Network has joined hands with Lollywood producer Mukhtar Chaudhry (of MAC Films) and his UK-based partner, Ali Malik, in producing the show. According to Chaudhry, IPPA has been “instituted with the purpose to put Pakistan’s entertainment industry on the global map.” The choice of 2017 as the opening year for the awards is also auspicious, since it marks the 70th birth anniversary of the country.
Given the kind of grand level that the show is being mounted on, IPPA is already being compared to its (much-older and decidedly very popular) Indian counterpart, IIFA. Interestingly, IIFA also had its debut show in London, back in 2000. Just how fair are the comparisons, only time will tell.
