ABU DHABI // Sir Ben Kingsley will be the guest of honour on Saturday at a special screening of the award-winning film Gandhi at the second Middle East International Film Festival.
The screening of the Arabic-dubbed film will take place at 1.30pm at Emirates Palace hotel. There will be no English subtitles.
Gandhi, directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, earned Sir Ben an Academy Award for best actor. The 1982 film also won Oscars for best picture and best director.
The son of an Indian doctor and a British fashion model, Sir Ben became the first man of South Asian descent to win the Oscar for best actor. He was so closely associated with Gandhi that a decade passed before he appeared in another major film role, in Schindler's List.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi - widely known as Mahatma, meaning "Great Soul" in Sanskrit - was a political and spiritual leader of India and its independence movement. He pioneered the Satyagraha nonviolent resistance movement, leading India to independence and inspiring other rights movements.
Sir Ben, who is one of the few actors to have been awarded all four major motion picture awards - the Bafta, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and Academy awards - was knighted in 2001.
The film festival, which will be held across Abu Dhabi from Friday to Oct 19 and will screen 100 films from around the world, is also expected to be attended by other Hollywood stars including Antonio Banderas, Adrien Brody and Leonardo DiCaprio. Last month, organisers announced that Jane Fonda would receive the Black Pearl Award for her achievements in film over the past five decades.
Gandhi will be shown at 2pm at Emirates Palace on Saturday 11 Oct.
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