Filmmaker Yavar Abbas to be presented Life Time Award

London: Veteran British Asian filmmaker Yavar Abbas will be honoured with the Life Time Achievement Award by the South Asian Cinema Foundation here on March 4 for making films like `India! My India!`.The 90-year-old has documented the Partition on film and delved into both Hinduism and Islam in his works.

After the award ceremony at the Nehru Centre, Yavar will speak about his life and career in conversation with the SACF Director, Lalit Mohan Joshi. Yavar who has been living in Britain for the last 60 years was born in Charkhari, a Hindu `princely state` in the north during British India in 1920 and entered the British Indian Army in 1942. A year later, he joined the Indian Army Film Unit in Calcutta as an officer cameraman and during the period of Partition, Yavar`s services were loaned to Pakistan to produce and direct the film, "The Birth of Pakistan". He refused and after resigning accompanied his wife and baby son to England in March 1949 and started work with the BBC in the Urdu Section of the Eastern Service. Joining BBC Television News as a news film cameraman in 1955, Yavar carried out assignments in Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East. In 1963, Yavar started as an independent filmmaker and set out on a filming safari, going overland from London to New Delhi shooting for `India! My India`. PTI