Shah Rukh Khan receives Pardo Alla Carriera Award at Locarno Film Festival, charms audience with his energetic speech 

He is the first Indian actor to receive the prestigious award.

With a new hairstyle, and sporting a sleek black blazer and matching trousers, SRK, who has been ruling the Indian cinema industry for three decades, made a memorable entry and several images and videos from the gala Saturday night event have gone viral over social media.

Addressing the crowd that had gathered in the Locarno’s Piazza Grande, Shah Rukh Khan was quoted as saying by Variety: "Thank you all for welcoming me with such wide arms – wider than the ones I do on screen."

Sharing his thoughts on cinema, Khan said: "Art is the act of affirming life above all. It goes beyond every man-made boundary into a space of liberation. It need not be political. It need not be polemical. It need not sermonize. It need not intellectualize. It need not moralize.”

He referred to the diversity of roles he played in his career when he said: "I’ve been a villain, I’ve been a champ, I’ve been a superhero, I’ve been a zero, I’ve been a rejected fan, and I’ve been a very, very resilient lover."

Khan, who is one of the major actors in India's Bollywood film industry and is credited with working in several Box Office hits in his career, was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007 and the Légion d'honneur in 2014 by the French government.

Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival, was quoted as saying in a statement released on the festival's official webiste: “To welcome a living legend like Shah Rukh Khan in Locarno is a dream come true! The wealth and breadth of his contribution to Indian cinema is unprecedented."

"Khan is a king who has never lost touch with the audience that crowned him. This brave and daring artist has always been willing to challenge himself while remaining true to what his fans all over the world eagerly expect from his films. A true ‘people’s hero’, sophisticated and down to earth, Shah Rukh Khan is a legend of our times," Giona A. Nazzaro said.

Shah Rukh Khan worked in three hit movies in 2023-Pathaan, Jawan and Dunki.